The feelings I'm about to express are mine, and only mine.
Basically, the big fuss is this:
In 1986, a development staff calling themselves "Wolf Team" made a game called Valis. It was a fantasy platformer, but it was an ambitious fantasy platformer. It featured mid-level cinematics before Ninja Gaiden even existed. It featured exciting music, which was almost immediately put to CD (back before every game had a CD soundtrack). It had an appealing cast of characters, and it had an AWESOME storyline. (Too bad the gameplay sucked ass.) It sounds simple on the surface, but the idea of friend versus friend... one feels mild casual love for the other, one feels intense jealousy bordering on obsession... and because of their conflict, their bond becomes even stronger. Not to mention the whole "is this life real?" questions that come up.
It may sound silly nowadays, and for good reason (it was a game about girls in friggin METAL BIKINI ARMOR!!!), but the designers actually *were* trying to be deep and significant. No matter how stupid or insane it may sound, Valis had MASSIVE AMBITION. We're talking about people who were trying to express deep social themes in their games before Final Fantasy X came along.
It's hard to see that nowadays, because the era of the "fantasy girl platformer" has passed. The entire genre seems silly and shallow by modern standards. However! That doesn't change the fact that Wolf Team was trying to do something significant with the most popular genre of their day.
If you think I'm just nuts and reading way too much into the game, just check out Wolf Team's other work. The original Arcus roleplaying games (I'm not talking about Odyssey), El Viento, MID-GARTS, and even Sol-Feace... these are all flashy, stylish games that try to wax philosophical. Wolf Team had a consistent pattern of trying to be "deep" from game to game. Did it work? Maybe, maybe not. That's not what I'm trying to get at here. I'm just trying to get across that Valis was a game with ambition.
When Valis 2 came along, it passed into different hands. However, it was the MSX2 game that cemented Valis as a classic series (in the eyes of the Japanese). The storyline was just as dark as the first. The action was more detailed.
Valis 3 was another epic. Best game ever? Hardly. However, it definitely tried to push the series as a dramatic, sweeping odyssey. With the introduction of Glames' ultimate plan, the battles against Rogles and Megas felt like preludes to a grand conclusion.
Valis 4 felt pretty anti-climactic. However, it was still a darn sweet game that showed something important: *in gameplay, the series was still improving*. The series still had legs.
For years, I longed for a new Valis. I knew that Telenet still existed. With the release of Valis Complete for PC (a compilation of the PCE games), I knew that fans still cared. Then came 2006: the 20th anniversary of Valis.
Telenet has endorsed a hentai Valis game, a game which denigrates the nobility and dignity of both the heroines and villains. The conflict between Reiko's self-centered pride and Yuko's outgoing friendship -- Reiko's belief that no one cared, versus Yuko's belief that everyone cared -- was a driving theme behind Valis. Again, the issue isn't whether Valis expertly handled its themes. The issue is that it *had* distinct themes, and it's a disgrace for Telenet to endorse a game that completely flies in the face of what Valis was meant to be. Reiko and Yuko engaging in lesbian activities? That's a total bastardization of the game's original theme. Yuko using the Valis sword as a dildo?!?!
This is one of the worst instances of a company mocking its fans in video game history. Think about it: when has a company ever spit so blatantly in the face of its fans before?
As a 20th anniversary memorial, Valis X is a disgrace. It rapes my childhood memories, it rapes Wolf Team's ambitions, and it rapes the stunning action game legacy of the developers who followed in Wolf Team's stead.
