 SEGA DROUNC A couple years ago, I took a quick look at Super Valus IV for Super Nintendo, and it struck me as weird how the fourth game in a series established on other consoles and computer systems was just randomly ported to the SNES. It's an okay game, but it's not a good representation of the series. It's very limited and bare bones. Meanwhile, Valus III for Sega Genesis, now that is a Valus game that represents the qualities that that series brings to the table. The story features the warrior Yuko, star of previous games, who wields the powerful Valus sword. This evil dude from the Dark World named Glamis wants it, so he can combine it with the powerful Lethis sword, and together the two swords form the super ultimate, fantastic, wonderful, pretty good sword, I guess. And Glamis needs both to obtain the power he needs to save his dying Dark World. Apparently the only way to save his world is to invade the human world, or dream world. No, not that dream world. The game starts out and Yuko has her sword stolen by another warrior named Cham. So you have to scamper across rooftops in your pajamas to try and get it back. I don't know, I just really enjoy the detail of having you start the game in your pajamas. What is this, little Nemo? Anyway, Cham immediately gets captured like an idiot by one of Glamis' minions, but she at least manages to drop the sword down to Yuko, so she can make a spectacular dive to grab it, which transforms her into warrior mode. She flies back up, and then the game starts proper. You rescue Cham, and you decide to team up, and that's where this game really shines. You get to switch between Yuko and Cham as playable characters, at any time during the level, just by pressing the A button. Yuko has her powerful Valus Sword, of course, that creates some kind of Sonic Boom projectile, and Cham has a whip that plays straight out of a Castlevania game. Later on you rescue Yuko's sister, Valna, and she also becomes a playable character. Her attack isn't so great, but her magic spells are the most powerful in the game. Each character also gets three different types of magic, the typical fire, ice, and lightning, and the game allows you to do stuff like freeze enemies to use as platforms. Each character has a charge bar that you can upgrade for more powerful physical attacks, and each also has kind of a slide move that helps dodge enemies and obstacles. To the game's credit, all three characters are reasonably balanced, and the level and enemy design here does a good job providing plenty of opportunities to use all three. I do think they could have taken this aspect a little further, but what's there is perfectly okay. Plus it's not a case of where one character is way more overpowered than the others. The closest comparison is a game like Popful Mail for Sega CD. You even get different dialogue before boss fights depending on which character you're playing as, and that's a really cool touch. However, I should note that you are locked into that character once the battle starts. You can't switch during boss fights. You've got four total lives to get through nine levels here with a handful of continues, but there's no saves or passwords here you gotta beat the game in one playthrough. Sometimes that's a pain, but here it's fine. The game can get pretty dang tough, but it's manageable. Really, it's just a matter of getting used to the controls here. I know the temptation with a game like this is to approach it like Ninja Gaiden or Rocket Knight Adventures or whatever, where it's easy to get carried away with how powerful you are, but you really gotta dial it down and let stuff come to you, otherwise you'll probably have a bad time with this one, especially the later levels. One clunky control mechanic you gotta get used to is the Super Jump, where you press the jump button and up at the same time, and it doesn't always work. It's kind of annoying, but I wouldn't call it a deal breaker. Of course, I have to mention that this game is actually a port. The original game was made for the PC Engine CD-ROM and later the Turbografx CD in the US before heading to the Sega Genesis, and as you might expect, the original game is quite different. For one thing, it has CD quality music, which is pretty friggin' cool. However, the Genesis port still managed to be a reasonably faithful representation of the original. Yeah, there's a couple levels missing, the cutscenes are scaled way back, and obviously the music isn't gonna compare, but all the different settings still look great, the game feels vibrant, and the gameplay is still solid, and plus the music the Genesis did get is still perfectly okay. So yeah, Valus 3 is a good time, and it's significantly better than the Super Nintendo Valus game that came a couple years later. The three playable characters are all fun to use, the presentation is well done with some nice looking pixel art, and I'd call the gameplay above average. It may be a bit slower compared to its peers, but think of it as like a cross between Revenge of Shinobi and Castlevania, just with a Sailor Moon slant, and also kind of a Ninja Gaiden slant, with the way the story is told throughout the game. Unfortunately, this one missed the cut for the Genesis Mini both here in the US and in Japan, so this is one you gotta play any way you can. And I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.