Golvellius: Valley of Doom (1987)

Preliminary: Definitely some concerning bugs, and the original MSX release has iffy graphics (tho I love the Hydlide-derivative UI), but super excited. And the intro music was wonderful. Now that I'm playing... pretty lame first area. Repetitive enemy mechanics with super clunky direction control (tho I quickly got a hang of it) and attack mechanics. Slow with the attacks, would be nice for quick succession of hits. Oh and quite rudimentary that you can't even face left... The jump mechanic was nice though. Hopefully this is just an intro dungeon indeed...

Look: 8/10 Cool main character, some interesting enemies in the top-down areas, some interesting boss looks, for the most part just the standard Hydlide/Zelda look, but the UI bumped it a bit as well as the Item icons in the inventory.

Sound: 7/10 Lol I love the sound when you walk down "the steps" of a tile-hole in the overworld :-p and when you collect a Potion . Yessss to the jingle changing (maybe just for a moment?) after I got the Sword upgrade. The music of the Cave 7 boss is so distracting from the game sounds lol.

Play: 8/10 Bahaha the Zelda influence became readily apparent in the "overworld"/"valley" area. Looked like a desert to me. I got out of that first dungeon and the music suddenly sounded just like Zelda, we went from a side scrolling platformer to top down action-adventure with potions and whatnot, etc. haha. I wish there were diagonal direction controls. Tho none of the guides matched the game I'm playing, I figured I should just figure it out on my own (ah! that's a good sign!) because I was honestly enjoying the top-down overworld area more than the limited side scroller area with the one direction character ha. At least here we could face 4 directions :-p It felt like an easier Zelda at this point. Tho you can't throw your sword, the enemies (so far) have been easier to manage. And the grind for rupees, er, I mean, "FIND" (gold) has been very forgiving so far. I bought some book, sadly it only increased my MAX FIND.

All I have to help me with the game is this map of translations and locations, still very helpful tho. Wait now all of a sudden I am in a vertically scrolling part?! Dang is it ugly and does it scroll jaggedly. Can't say I'm loving the game so far, but it's definitely that action-adventure/platformer type of genre that I'm sure I will ride to the end despite its many faults. Welp, the first boss was easy, and seemed to heal me to full (and give me MAX FIND, or that happened during the scrolling part). Definitely like a more forgiving Zelda so far. We shall see what I think of the upcoming parts in my future play sessions!

Yay for being able to hit away some?all? enemy projectiles. I always love that.

Pro-tips: take full advantage of leaving screens despawning all enemies, especially when grinding and exploring. also take full advantage of the Hydlide-esque mechanic where you can prevent a spawn from happening by attacking or stepping on an incoming spawn. You don't get any gold for that though.

Feel: 9/10 It was kinda neat to be playing an action-adventure that doesn't have a clear-cut guide. I hope mid and late game don't get too complicated though. For now I'm just seeing things like Zest Boots, figure they are helpful, and going to that part of the map and figuring out what to do lol. Too bad I'm not understanding the Crystal aspect... which is crucial to the game :-p (Oh nice, I see at the bottom of that map page it explains that Zest Boots allow you to walk when being damaged, thank goodness cuz I thought that was just part of the clunkiness :-p )

In usual Zelda open world fashion, the progression isn't super clear. But like, it was very unclear here. Some of the areas I had to fight hard to reach had cheap Bibles/Potions. But I suppose that was to encourage exploring and mapping on your own. And ufff to the boss areas being the awful, bad collision mask scrolling parts... Don't bring down the great top-down action-adventure parts!! That second cave was super annoying after I was getting into the top-down segment. I hope I don't burn out because of those

I love that I was finding my own techniques. Finding my own way to get around. The puzzles were silly and Zelda-esque but far more manageable. For instance, it at least made the sound of damage being done when you attacked one of the trees that hides an entrance. Much more, dare I say, reasonable than Zelda. In many ways, I know this is bold to say, but the top-down parts of this game feel like a better version of the first Zelda. But the scrolling parts... and it's definitely more grind-heavy, more alike Hydlide, but I suppose there is a lot of grinding in the first Zelda too. Didn't take long for me to figure out on my own how to lure enemies, when not to attack to lure them (decent enemy AI and collision masks in the top-down segments)

Attachment: 8/10 The fact I was pushing through despite not having a guide for such a complex game says a lot. I created my own moneymaking method :-p (the pink blobs were doable even with the basic sword and gave 300?+ each kill).

Ugh I really do not enjoy these scrolling parts. This would've easily been a 5 star if it weren't for those parts. They're ugly, the controls are terrible, and they're hard. Cave 3 is really bogging me down and I'm considering stopping. Too bad because this could have been a favorite. I printed the map in color and handwrote all over it and marked where important items are lol. Maybe I'll return to it and just use cheats during the cave parts since those are so annoying? But for now, they ruined an otherwise excellent top-down action-adventure. (Wellll, ugh, I pushed through and did the boss. The boss parts are fine, it's the scrolling parts before the bosses that I despise, namely the vertical ones. The boss was easy tbh lol)

Welp, here I am. On the 4th cave. Loved the top-down part's grind and adventure. At least this cave is horizontal scroller, grateful for the mid-jump movement. I truly love the top-down action-adventure parts, following the map (tho some of it was inaccurate with what's where). Yay Cave 5 is vertical scrolling... these parts are so bad lol. And then the boss fight was ridiculously easy. At this point, I knew my favorite spots to grind, I had the best Sword, next thing I know I had the best Shield, I didn't even really need Bibles anymore cuz never need more than 30k at a time, so I guess instead of collecting the remaining Bibles, I will just focus on Potions and then, ugh, do the final Caves (the worst part). Fingers crossed they're all horizontal scrollers ha.

Welp, I'm all geared and powered up, on my way to get the last Crystal which seems to be across the map (grabbed an Herb on the way, you can only hold 3 at a time). Then on to the final Cave/boss!

You would think they'd provide some variety of enemies and mechanics in the scrolling parts... Even the horizontal ones, which were much more tolerable than the vertical ones, were full of annoying antics that reminded me of Super Mario Lost Levels. Wow what a lame final boss too lol. Anyway, here was the ending screen

To be clear, this is the version I played

Completion: Main Story Playtime: ~4 hours