 SNESDRUMP! Super Valus IV is another one of those oddball Super Nintendo games where a seemingly random entry is picked out of a game series originally made for an obscure computer system or game console. We saw this with Ease 3, Wanderers from Ease 2. I guess nobody cares about introducing an entire series of games to a huge new audience with the third or fourth game? It just seems weird. But yeah, Valus IV was originally released for the PC Engine CD, exclusive to Japan. And if you're expecting this game to be a port, you will be disappointed. Super Valus IV should barely be considered that, as it's more of an entirely different game altogether. There's no other playable characters, no magic system, not as many abilities, no cutscenes, and the levels, while featuring a very similar aesthetic, have all been redesigned. But hey, if you have no previous frame of reference for Valus IV or any of the Valus games, then you'll find Super Valus IV to be an okay-ish average if not boring action platformer. Your character, Rena, certainly controls just fine, has just enough jump range, and while the magic system from the original game got removed entirely, the sheer amount of special weapons available to you is kind of neat. You can carry up to six of them, and flip between them whenever necessary. Yeah, they're mostly just projectiles shooting in various directions, but hey, these can be pretty effective and kind of fun once you get the hang of things. What really makes this game dull though is the level design, both how it looks and how it plays. This painfully looks dated, it's very early 90s Super Nintendo. I mean, just look at this background. You could design something more pleasant looking in Mario Paint. Plus, a lot of the levels just have a lot of empty space, so the game ends up playing very long and boring. I mean, right away, you've got these platforms here that presumably lead somewhere, but they're just spaced just too far apart, so there are pain in the ass to reach, and it turns out you don't have to bother with any of this, you can just keep going. Well, whatever. So yeah, the game is kind of an eyesore, but it makes up for it by being really dull. Oh wait, that's not a good thing. There's a story here too, as I alluded to earlier. A red moon rises and with it come the evil dudes who look like some kind of hybrid between Thundercats and Robotech, like this face torso dude. They're King Gallagher. Wait, Gallagher for real? He threatens to destroy the dreams of things within the stuff of things, presumably by smashing their heads like watermelons with a sledgehammer. You play as Lena, who must defend the world after receiving the Divine Valus Sword. I appreciate the effort here, but this just falls too flat, and it's not nearly enough to carry a game this generic. So yeah, unfortunately, Super Valus IV for Super Nintendo just isn't really going to be worth it. This is what happens when you try and cram a game too large onto an SNES cartridge. You end up stripping the original game of its identity, and that's what's happened here. Everything that made Valus IV stand out was removed, so we're left with a generic shell of an action platformer. If you're looking for a game like this that's still a bit on the obscure side, take a look at stuff like Excalibur 2097 or Phantom 2040, and pass on Super Valus IV.