Xenon Valkyrie+ Review

Overview

Xenon Valkyrie+ is a rogue-lite platformer game with RPG elements in which you must fight to the deepest part of a moon and halt the plans of a wicked witch. Obtain many weapons as you fight through a unique, randomly-generated world every time you play. Encounter many characters and enemies that tell a legendary story. With traditional graphics and high quality chiptune music, level up and get the amazing power of the Xenon Valkyrie+!

Key Features :

• Rouge Lite platformer with a great story.
• RPG elements
• Randomly generated levels
• Quality chip tune music
• Hard gameplay and permadeath
• 3 heroes with unique skills
• 100+ items
• Several endings and secrets
• Translated into English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian.

Publisher : Cowcat Games

Developer : Diabolical Mind

Platforms : Available on PC, PS4, PS Vita and Xbox One – Reviewed on Xbox One

Price : 9.99

Gameplay

First impressions of this game as I see the loading screen are pretty good, I mean, it definitely ticks all my retro gaming boxes; you’ve got the pixelated graphics and the chip tune music along with a promising action like gameplay… what is there not to like about the game? Well, to be fair, as the first level loads up my opinion begins to change, as the purpose of the story begins to lose me rapidly and the gameplay begins to become quite complicated. There seems to be no obvious route to the end of the level and you can quite easily find yourself running and jumping around the level for many hours, which is a game in itself as you are never far away from a bad guy or two to defeat. The gameplay is very well thought out and can keep you going for many hours but it can also lose you in the same sense and become quite frustrating all the same. You do get to play with 3 different heroes with different abilities but still didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere.

I am disappointed with the gameplay as when I read up online about the game, the promise of big bosses and many enemies to defeat pulled me in, but after a few hours of going around the same level (all beit a massive one) I am still no further on. I don’t hate the game as there are aspects I liked and enjoyed such as every time to load back up the level is different but somehow the needlessly hard gameplay ruins it.

Sound and Graphics

Now as you all probably know by now I am a bit of a retro gaming fan and love all nostalgic titles and especially pixel graphics and chip tune music. This has the pixel graphics although at times its hard to see what you are looking at, the level layout itself looks good and goes with the title. The music is probably the best part of the game for me, I could quite happily stay at the menu and play the music; it takes you straight back to childhood.

Summary

To sum up I just didn’t quite get this game. Should it be just an RPG or a platformer? The complex gameplay killed it off for me as I felt it was way too complicated for what it needed to be.