Recently, valley — game that figured in our list of Best Games of 2016 – Arrived to Nintendo Switch. I was already looking for an excuse to revisit it and it was a pleasure to walk through the beautiful and mysterious valley that gives the title to the game.
back to the valley
For those who don’t know, valley is a game from the same producers as the indie hit Slender: The Arrival, and puts us in the shoes of an explorer who is looking for the lifeseed, a magical artifact of nature capable of generating (or taking) life. This quest takes us to the valley that gives the game its name, a place as magical as it is mysterious.
Exploring the valley, we find evidence that the place has been explored in the past — and the power of lifeseed it was even used for covert and military purposes. Researchers exploring the valley were called Pathfinders, and wore a steampunk exoskeleton called LEAF Suit to get around with superhuman speed and aplomb.
The statue of a pathfinder
Of course we end up finding one of these LEAF Suits, and it is when we enter it that the game unfolds before our eyes: what could be another walking simulator takes on the contours of a platform game, abusing velocity, momentum and insane jumps.
THE LEAF Suit it still makes us almost immortal, but it comes at a price: we suck life from the valley to enjoy the so-called “quantum death”. It allows us to resurrect, but it kills a little bit of the valley in the process. Incidentally, the end of the game changes according to the “life level” of the valley, so don’t abuse this feature — or remember to return the life taken to the valley.
Mobility
Some game design book I’ve read claims that “walking is not gameplay”. Soon, it’s cool when a studio is concerned with turning the back and forth act into something that’s mechanically interesting and fun.O. much of what you do Marvel’s Spider-Man being so cool is precisely the fluidity with which the character moves around the city using his webs and his arachnid agility.
Blurred edges enhance the sense of speed
valley obviously it doesn’t go that far, but it’s a game about mobility, and the possibilities that the LEAF Suit aggregates in this field is its great differential: it is simply a delight to run through green fields, taking advantage of the momentum to overcome abysses and “sucking” life from the valley to stay alive, or redistributing vital energy to resurrect plants and animals.
THE LEAF Suit allows the player to run really fast and jump really high, and as you progress through the campaign, you’ll unlock new features for the costume, which gains a grappling hook and even the ability to walk the walls! All this makes the exploration in itself very pleasant, dynamics and fun.
Insane platform snippets harness the suit’s potential
And here I take advantage of the duality that the title “Mobility” allows to highlight the portable factor of the Switch: valley is a relatively long game, with checkpoints sparse and a little poorly distributed. Because of that, being able to simply put the console in sleep mode without actually closing the game is a hand on the wheel, allowing for a more constant advance.
Audiovisual & Identity Crisis
O valley which recently arrived at Switch has not gained any new features, no extra content, or anything. It’s the same game we’ve already seen in 2016, adapted for a new platform. this means that it brings the qualities, but also the problems that had already bothered me in the PS4.
For example, the game runs on the engine Unity, which brings a look quite beautiful in your landscapes when seen in the “macro”, but that seems dated in detail, when we analyze the “micro”, especially in shadows and serrated edges. The faster pace of the game allows us to ignore most of its limitations, but the fact is that they are there.
Finally, the game’s identity crisis is something that still bothers me a bit: the game starts out quite open and sunny, but takes much of its campaign into tight tunnels and dark ruins. There’s a kind of vibe Bioshock in this part that is interesting, but it is a fact that this is a game that works better outdoors, even because the skills of the costume require more space to work.
Conclusion
valley at the Switch doesn’t bring anything new, but it’s still a very good game, with great mechanics and a sensation of speed and wonderful freedom. And he still combines that with a cool story, which although has a fantasy tone, addresses real issues that remain not only current, but also relevant.
giving life to a tree
O Switch is a console that “runs out”, and little by little it is getting good games from other platforms, thus offering new opportunities for more people to have access to good games. Therefore, valley it’s still a highly recommended game. At the Switch, or on your preferred platform.
valley Arrived to Nintendo Switch on March 7th. Before that, it was already available for PRAÇA, Playstation 4 and Xbox one.
