Delayed? Was that what I said? Scratch that. You can have this one early. I’m in a good mood.
When someone tells that you’ve played an inferior version of a good game and after playing the “real” game, your only reaction is meh. It’s not a knock of Valis III, which remains the best of the Valis games in my opinion and there are some nice improvements here and there… but otherwise, it’s the same game I’ve played before but faster. Works for me.
Hello. It’s the debut of Valis on PC Engine, even though it’s the sequel to a prior game that we’ve looked at that’s actually a remake of an earlier computer game. Are we confused yet? Try not to think too hard about this one.
Friday’s review will be on Valis III for PC Engine and then next week, it’ll be a couple Mega Drive ports and the Famicom version of Valis I, which I make no reservations of not looking forward to playing. It might actually be more distressful to play than Order Of Ecclesia.
Our (better late than never) deep dive into Valis continues with a remake of the first game in the series that came out after the third game in the series… try to keep up. It gets less confusing.
Yeah, so we’re using the Valis Collection versions for these games, which only have the Japanese versions, which is a shame because the localized English dubs aren’t too bad in comparison to most dubs done around this time. Alas, I don’t have a Turbo-CD and those games cost an arm and an leg that could go to… well, another arm or leg.
After what seems like an eternity, our dive into the world of Valis begins with the game that actually got me into the world of Valis in the first place… chronological progression and confusion be damned.
The video footage is going to vary quite a bit because we’re pulling from a variety of sources here. Most of it is Retron 5-based, but there’s also some samplings of Antstream footage and even some DVD Recording To OBS digital alchemy. Just something to bare in mind as we venture into finding new ways of making use of old footage that has no business being used in the modern age, but really, if you’ve been watching this space for a while, you should know better than that.
It’s the first of many Antstream-fueled review fodder uploads and if nothing else, I’ll be mining this shit for all its worth… whatever that ends up entailing in the long run, that is.
Anyway, you’ve probably seen sample video of this thing last week via Extra Bits. Now here’s the review portion of the program.
Just when you thought that we’ve embraced the video revolution of HD… here we are again.
Yeah, as much as I would have liked a much grander start to the 2026 review cycle, I’m saving the best bits for later down the road. Trust me when I say that there’s some genuinely good stuff to look forward to in the next several weeks.
Welp… we didn’t end things as intended, but on the other hand, aren’t you glad that we’re closing out 2025 on a slightly less miserable note than if we had done Ecclesia?
Anyway, here’s what a potential DS review would look like; old-school, rough looking camcorder shots with low audio quality. If you would like more of that, then I openly question your sanity… but we’ll see how it goes regardless.
Wait just a minute, King. This isn’t Portrait Of Ruin. What the hell is this?
Well, I wish that I could say that it’s a swerve and you all fell for it, but no, technical issues prompted me to put the kibosh on the Dominus leftovers and replace them with some dirty and quick. Hence, Part 1 of this endeavor, which covers every wannabe angry reviewer’s low-hanging fruit once they saw ericmansuper’s original video from 19 years ago… I could have held this off for another year and marked as a 20th anniversary celebration, but no, VEGAS has to take a fart during the editing process. Thanks, Shanoa.
Anyway, this one’s a late night special. Another one’s coming later today.
Blame it on last minute X-Mas needs and delayed medical treatments taking longer than usual… as well as a much needed nap to catch up… but we got this out later than never… or is it better than nothing? In any event, we begin our descent into Dominus with the dawning of sorrows.
Had planned for this to be a review of Tiger Heli, but a change of plans (primarily behind the scenes as I delegate my limited holiday time off in the next coming weeks) forced me to switch things up at the last minute and pull out this Rampage review that I had done back in September as a lark.
And yes, there will be more Atari 7800 reviews in 2026. I still have a couple reviews in the can that requires some more varied (non-sucky) footage to fill the screen. And with the promise of more 7800 games on the horizon from modern Atari, I think the system will see a significant presence in the future… though probably not as strong as it had been represented in 2025.
Next week is the Holiday run, which will include the Castlevania DS reviews, which means the sooner I can get these out of the way, the sooner I can put Order Of Ecclesia in my rearview window where it belongs.
dtm666 