Xenon Valkyrie Reviews

I want to like this, but the core gameplay loop feels frustrating in a dozen small ways. XenonValkyrie is a descending platformer roguelite in which you hop and wallbounce through a randomly generated vertical maze, seeking out enemies to harvest for exp. This should be fine, and it's practically a list of things I like, but this is where the dozen small frustrations come in. Each character has a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, and some traversal kit. Environments are destructable, and occasionally the rng serves you a slice of the level that you need to blow up to proceed. The first problem: you have limited ammo for guns, which is the enjoyable part of your kit. And the boss fights are inexplicably melee only. Which means if a certain boss gets rolled up for that fight, you have to content with its vague hitbox using only your stubby melee swing. Melee in XenonValkyrie feels cheap and frustrating, at least from a casual standpoint. Hits inflict pushback, so you'll often bump enemies off of ledges and have to reposition. Some enemies also explode when they take enough damage, which means you need a constant sense of how your attack value matches up against their hp. Again, these are minor things, but they're annoying in combination with the platforming, which is springy, slippy, and technical. Meanwhile, the game's progression currency is used for unlocking skips in the dungeon and new weapons for runs. That's fine, but it seems like it's dished out very slowly compared to the costs for the unlocks. You won't see much during early gameplay unless you're quite good. All told, this isn't a game that makes me want to learn how to get more proficient at it. The rewards feel scarce and the process feels frustrating, even compared to other high-skill platformers and roguelikes. If you enjoy very technical gameplay, you might feel the opposite and XenonValkyrie might be worth checking out. Otherwise, I'm not sure I can recommend it.

The game is still honestly pretty glitchy, but for what it's worth, it's also fun. On top of this, the developer has plans to continue improving the game based on the things we run into. That's always a nice sign. It plays a lot like Spelunky, with pixel graphics and a sci-fantasy anime theme. There's three characters who play noticably different even from the start, each having their own special equipment unique to them. The music itself sounds unique, and I'm not sure of the source but it definitely reminds me a lot of Cavestory, as does a lot of the aesthetics of the levels. It's definitely a game to consider if you liked things like Spelunky, La-Mulana, or Necrodancer.

The final boss has two attacks that can go off simultaneously where you're trapped between hails of bullets and a laser sweeps across the center. That wasn't fair, so I'm not going to be. The game's tedious otherwise so decide if you really want to go through these janky pixelated maps just because of the promotional art.

I got Ending C (a bad one) and, after 22 hours, that's good enough for me. I had originally thought I could put this in my "cleared" pile much sooner, but it turned out to be a bigger hurdle than I'd anticipated. And while I do genuinely enjoy the presentation and the tunes are great, the gameplay loop itself is not particularly varied or engaging. Luck also plays an annoyingly large role in determining a good run, as while you can use a VERY slowly accumulated currency to unlock powerful new weapons, it's entirely up to chance whether those weapons will randomly turn up in a chest during a run. You might just find the same weapon you have equipped! There are also enemies who can catch you off-guard and ruin a run quickly, such as a jumping skull that explodes when it touches you, or a robot that fires explosive bullets that might send his body flying right into you. I found that the best runs I had were those where I took my time and tried to scour every level, getting as much money and experience as I could. Of course, it hurt that much more when I inevitably died to something that felt cheap. Perhaps I leaned a little too hard into the glass cannon build, but having to hit enemies repeatedly left me much more vulnerable so it was a strategy I stuck with. I usually played as the middle girl because she's got a re-usable time bomb that comes in extremely handy for accessing closed-off areas of the map (but the cool-down is brutal). In the end, I had a run where I found an extremely powerful melee weapon that allowed me to bank my points into defense and HP, giving me the leeway I needed to survive a few late-game hits. It kind of made me feel like every run I'd had beforehand was simply training for the run I would find this weapon in. Jumps are floaty and hit detection is iffy. While the controls can be gotten used to, the basic hop & slash mechanics tend to wear thin after a while. You always play the same levels in the same order, and while the terrain is procedurally generated there isn't a variety of interesting things that would make each run feel unique. Good use of the minimap is essential in planning your path, and the right stick can be used to scroll the camera up and down (which can be very useful). Unfortunately, the tilesets can be very busy in design, sometimes making it difficult to tell the difference between foreground and background. The bosses are pretty fun once you learn their patterns, but they will DEMOLISH you until you feel out their iffy hitboxes. It was actually really hard to decide whether or not to recommend this game because there are things about it I love (the great pixel art and chip tunes), but the mechanics were fundamentally lacking and often downright frustrating. In the end I'm recommending it because it seems like a labor of love and I want to see more games like this. Buy it on sale, then play it until you get bored (and not necessarily until you beat it).

This game has a lot of potential, but also a lot of problems. Let's talk about the good stuff first: -Soundtrack and artstyle are great and have a nice retro feel to them -Progression system is nicely done, even though you can only apply your level-up points in-between stages. And here are the not-so-good stuff: -Translation is sub-par, unless you like chucking "Granades". -Physics bugs such as grenades magically flying upwards through walls or instantly blowing up when thrown. -Boss hitboxes are very whacky. -No ability to heal inside of a stage. Many of those make this game extremely difficult, but not the kind of difficult that makes you proud when you finally get something done. It's the kind of difficult that just makes you wish you were done with the game. In conclusion, this game has a great base to build upon but lacks the required polish to make it enjoyable. If you wish to purchase an action-RPG roguelike, I would suggest buying Rogue Legacy or Binding of Isaac. I will come back to this game if there is a patch/balance sometime in the future and change the verdict accordingly.

Booting up the game made me feel like a kid again; the game and its soundtrack radiates with energy and excitement. Playing Xenon Valkyrie has been a bountiful enjoyable experience so far. All of the issues in the negative reviews I've read have been resolved already and it feels like a solid game now. I have no complaints other than that the equipment you get from boss fights don't display their stats or effects, so I have no clue what use it really is to me. It also needs more cute anime girls.

A not so bad rogue/dungeon-crawler with a nice but rough pixel art, a bit on the simple side but ; The steam version lack all the bonus/update/upgrade made for the switch, and the dev don't care enough(said it himself on the riddled corpses thread) to update it. There are plenty of game like this one but made by creators who actually care for their player base.

Pretty decent game but has some obvious bugs. Sometimes the keyboard controls stop working usually after you throw a grenade and they wont start working again until you somehow die. Also, you are unable to use guns and grenades at boss fights.

The simple fact that there are shiny particles in front of the screen that i can't disable in the options menu makes this game instantly unplayable for me. Do they add any value other than aesthetics? No. So why are there in front of my vision distracting me from the actual game and causing visual clutter? Our eyes are instantly drawn to shiny things, so when you have shiny things everywhere in front of the screen it becomes a chore to try to figure out your surroundings. That being said if the problem of the visual clutter and slow/buggy weapon switch gets dealt with i can see myself enjoying this game. It is a fun game, it just needs some tweaks that make the gameplay less annoying. Edit: The developer dealth with the issues i mentioned and updated the game, i enjoy it now. Id suggest the game just for the fact that there is an active developer listening to their players and making their game better. (unlike many other developers)

UPDATE! The dev has been listening to player feedback, and has pretty much fixed, repaired, optimized almost everythign we asked for! Better sword attack range? check Hp in the levels themselves? check cheaper shops? check. And hes's not done, this game is shaping up to be very very VERY good now. check the review date for negative reviews, they mjight not be aware this dev is a hard worker!@ I was eagerly anticipating this game, at it's current state. it's alright. But I feel it needs a few things to make it really good and fun to play as well. The random map creation sometimes leads to areas where enemies can get trapped, or you might fall in a spot you can't escape from ( you can bomb the walls with the two girls special move, and the lizard has a high jump instead of explosives, so it's negotiable) To make it a bit worse, if you land on a spike...you are pretty much dead. At least in the beginning when you have less HP and no stat points to add to your DEF or HP. **edit- dev patched and fixed various issues, and lowered the damage from spikes ** There seems to be no way to recover HP in a run, only in between ACTS , and at a store. Pretty pricey, too. 100+ for anythign in the shops i found, but It depends what charcter you use ( they all have different starting HP, and other stats) I do like this game idea, and the characters, and the look, the feel. But I feel like it needs a little nip and tuck in a few areas to make it really shine. ( btw, don't use interpolating graphics- it looks liek smeared vaseline on your screen , the standard look is crisp, and very pretty ) For now, I would recommend this to players that like a hard, but rewarding rogue-like-lite platformer with perma-death. You gain exp in the runs, which levels you up and allows you to spend points on your stats, like Wep, which adds your ammo count, HP , DEF, ATK, etc. All charcters have a gun, a sword, and one special item to start, there are other items and weapons you canpick up in the runs. So it's got a bit of variety on it's side. The spelling of some things ( like GRANADESm instead of GRENADES ) is off, but it's pretty clear the developer isn't english-native. **edit- not too long after launch, the dev fixed various issues and bugs, and added an entire new area as a secret ^^ very devoted dev ** tl;dr - Fun, hard game with cute anime style visuals and old-school charm that needs a little more love to be perfect for everyone. recommend ^^b