Valley

👪Player Bases:
☑ Kids.
☑ Everyone.
☐ Mature.
☑ Casual Players.
☐ Pro players.
⛺Graphics:
☐ Potato.
☐ Really Bad.
☐ Bad.
☐ OK.
☐ Good.
☑ Beautiful.
☐ Masterpiece.
💸Price:
☐ Full Price.
☑ Wait For Sale.
☐ Refund It If You Can.
☐ Don't Buy It.
☐ Free.
🚀Requirements:
☐ Minimum.
☑ Medium.
☐ Fast.
☐ Super Computer.
💀Difficulty:
☐ Easy.
☑ Medium.
☐ Hard.
☐ Very Hard.
☐ Death March.
⌛Game length:
☐ Really Short. ( 0 - 3 hours)
☑ Short. ( 3 - 8 hours)
☐ Medium. ( 8 - 16 hours)
☐ Long. ( 16 - 25 hours)
☐ Very Long ( 25 - 40 hours)
☐ Extremely Long (40+ hours)
☐ Endless
📖Story:
☐ It Doesn't Have One.
☐ Horrible.
☐ Ok.
☐ Average.
☐ Good.
☑ Fantastic.
🎬Cinematic/Art:
☑ It Doesn't Have.
☐ Horrible.
☐ Ok.
☐ Average.
☐ Good.
☐ Like Watching A Movie.
🎵Music/Sound:
☐ Horrible.
☐ Decent.
☐ Average.
☐ Good.
☑ Amazing.
🎮Gameplay:
☐ Terrible.
☐ Ok.
☑ Average.
☐ Good.
☐ Fantastic.
🐞Bugs:
☐ Game Itself Is One Big BUG.
☐ Game Breaking Bugs.
☐ Lots of bugs.
☐ Few Bugs.
☑ Nothing.
📝Final:
☐ Terrible.
☐ Ok.
☐ Average.
☐ Good.
☑ Great.
☐ Fantastic.
🌐Others:
Multiplayer: ☐
Singleplayer: ☑
💯Final Score:
8.75/10

A Vacation one never asked for...
...with every scenery an absolute splendour
Thoughts and Impressions
To start off, despite being on radar, must confess to state that it's quite outrageous for me to have stalled on such a brilliant jewel of a runner. Never had it occurred to me that behind such a first person platforming, open world parkour-esque title would incorporate such a visual treat under its veil. The first encounter with this one was strictly out of curiosity, in a moment what grasped my attention were the serene landscapes and breathtaking vistas that met my eyes. A simple try-out turned out to be an entire session, sacrificed were the hours of post mid-night which compromised my sleep, yet so, time well spent.
An In-depth look into Valley
As an explorer, you are equipped with an exoskeleton code named L.E.A.F suit in search of an Elusive Item known as the Lifeseed that is said to contain incredible power. You reach a remote area filled with archaeological excavation sites where you explore and unravel the mysteries and wonders of the land at your footing.
The exoskeleton enables one to jump and sprint at an inhuman level with other unique features in your repertoire as you progress. The "moral compass" mechanic is quite fascinating where you're able to take and give Life to other Living Creatures, either depleting from your energy or adding to it. Though it isn't quite as polished which to me was something that couldn't be overlooked but that's a matter to cover at a later point.
One genius mechanic that came to my notice which was uniquely exclusive to Valley was where you're made to run faster as you're sprinting down a slope or a steep landscape by building momentum, the extra boost provides a greater leverage at jumping, reaching heights otherwise unattainable.
The story is decent and has a deeper message however it's covered through audiologs and leaves plenty to be desired, however how it compensates is through the remarkably executed environmental design, impressive voice acting, great audio in conjunction with entertaining mechanics and abilities. Valley succeeds in delivering a joyful experience induced of a thrilling escapade with mesmerizing aesthetics.
With the FOV set to max, and a finger instinctively set on the trigger of the F12 key ( Default screenshot hotkey ). As a hobbyist intermediate Photographer, had most of my time inspecting the surroundings for the perfect composition to frame.
Here is an exhibition of a few marvels that you can behold:
-
Cropped to an aspect ratio of 4:3 to conceal the HUD and to focus on the notable features of the brilliant scapes, image much reminiscent to a photograph released from a polaroid camera.
Constructive Criticism with a Few Nit-Picks
Surely, nothing is ever perfect however there's a need to highlight a few issues, quite negligible though:
- Valley is well, short in length with little to no replay value, unless you're an achievement hunter and go through it over again, collecting what was missed through out your journey. Aside from that, if you go sightseeing and explore the vast expansive area, you'd surely find yourself accumulating more hours into it.
- A lack of backtracking - if only the unlocked features and upgrades could've been used at earlier stages prior to attaining them, by cleverly implementing their usage there, also which would add to the consistency of their use through out the game.
- The Moral compass mechanic of it seems heavily flawed and imbalanced due to the energy orbs scattered through out the world, not to mention, they're regenerated after covering some ground which deems taking life as redundant. There was potential here but ended up a missed opportunity due to it being unrefined.
- At rare occasions, being caught up in between platforms, restlessly pressing everything operable to escape the predicament, to top it off with no reset key at your disposal.
- The dreadful save points. With no manual function to save in-game, you'd have to restart the entire level but that isn't an issue for a short game if you're going to play
- The bloom effect in-game is high, the Sun especially is most notoriously affected. Adjusting the brightness may reduce the effect but it is visually tampering as you'd want to stay at a sweet spot. The rays of the sun are at times amiss as well.
Final Remarks
To pay up is as if singing up for a virtual vacation trip, granted lacking thereof was the perception of smell, the fragrance of the mystical land that must've emanated and the somatosensory sensations, the feeling of being basked in the warmth of the glorious sunlight and the touch of gushing wind as you sprint into the wilderness, though in spite of such, the experience was certainly not far off.
Indeed a definite banger, especially at a criminally low price during a sale.

Short game, but worth it if you find it on sale. I didn't feel as if it was too short nor did it wear out its welcome so I think it was just about right. For those who do want more and enjoy the mechanics, the game opens up again after beating it and can go back and find all collectibles if that is your sort of thing. I would probably compare it to Portal; it's a platformer (and not really and puzzle other than figuring out how to traverse to the next goal) with the story told through a mix of its environment and voice messages throughout the game. The gameplay of using momentum to propel yourself around through the map is definitely the highlight of the game.
Beautiful game with some breathtaking areas and I was pretty fond of the music too. It's not perfect though. Some of the platforming sections were frustrating with requiring tons of momentum and precise timing of letting go of the rope for swinging sections. But nothing impossible and will eventually get it. The life/death system was okay. I enjoyed restoring life to trees but barely saw any animals. The death system was odd, never found a use to kill anything. Combat in the game felt unnecessary. I'd have preferred the game to focus purely on its story, environment and the amazing movement mechanics. Honestly, the enemies just served to annoy and distract me and at some point I ignored them and just ran past them when they got too numerous.
I'd say its worth closer to 10 dollars than 15, but it's a great find if you see it on sale. Especially if you are a sucker for green environments and going fast.

One of the best games i have played this year. If you like Bioshock then you really need to see this. Beautiful and crisp yet dark and existential at it's core. Fantastic story line, great voice overs and a soundtrack / score that makes the hairs stand up on your neck.
9\10

Great atmosphere and solid gameplay
I grabbed this title during the last Steam summer sale and I ended up very happy with my purchase.
The atmosphere and overall environment of the game is really impressive. The valley you wander around in really seems alive and flourishing and that has everything to do with impressive graphics as well as a very well put together soundtrack. I was also impressed with the way the game started, because it kinda added up... and was somewhat funny too ;)
No spoilers (no worries) but... you're basically an explorer and you learned of the "Life seed" which you want to find for yourself. In order to do so you plan for a trip. Before your departure a friend calls to share his concerns about the trip but.. "At least you had those canoe lessons which should come in handy!". And so the next scene you're climbing on shore with a crashed canoe besides you. So much for those lessons, eh? ;) I thought it was funny and a really fun way to get this game started!
The L.E.A.F. suit
Soon enough you'll find an experimental exoskeleton suit developed by the army for war faring purposes. It allows you to run faster and jump higher than any normal human can and you'll even be able to give and take life away from objects around you. And there's more... while operating the suit you can't die! Sorta... Should you die then you'll be revived short from where you passed away. The only issue with this is that your revival comes with a cost: the life energy of the objects that surround you. In other words: the very health of the valley you're in!
And then there's the second problem: although you now have a cool suit to help you survive you're still in the middle of no where so.. maybe start looking for a way out?
An impressive game but... with a few caveats...
The main issue with this game is that you can't save your progress. So if you quit playing while in a level then you get to replay that entire level again the next time you hop back on. That by itself is annoying but still manageable because the levels aren't too difficult to navigate and you can finish one relatively easy. It's not the same as suddenly failing a game and then having to replay 20 minutes of gameplay because of the lack of save points.
Basically you follow a pre-determined path in which you sometimes have to solve some minor puzzles to progress further. You also get upgrades for your suit which enables you to access new types of areas.
I enjoyed the story even though it was a bit cliched so to speak. Still, I had a good time and really enjoyed myself so far.
But that does bring me to the other issue: the game is relatively short. A friend of mine finished this in 4 hours, at the time of writing I'm a little over 4 hours in and very close to the finale. So there's that.
And finally... this is not a major issue but still... In some cases the game felt unbalanced to me. Your suit runs on energy and every special move you make will drain some of that. Fortunately there are plenty of energy orbs or energy storage units to be found. Except when they're not: often right before an enemy encounter. It's not really bad, but it also seems a bit off. Normally you have more energy sources around you than you can use and suddenly "gone". But as soon as you overcome your enemies then you'll have plenty of energy again.
In conclusion....
This is a really good game and I can definitely recommend to pick it up. The atmosphere is very impressive, it has a really fun and solid gameplay and the challenges you get can be rough, especially when encountered at first.
On the bad side there's a lack of a save feature (you should basically play the game one level at a time) and the game is relatively short.
Either way I had a really good time, if you care about achievements and such then there's definitely some replay value and of course there's also an interesting story to follow. There's even a bit of a romance to discover here (no spoilers, sorry ;)).
So yeah, definitely a big thumb up. A very solid game with ditto gameplay which has a really fun storyline to complete.
Thanks for reading!

An amazing experience, and certainly an underrated gem. The running sequence alone deserves an award for its sound design.

Valley holds a special place for me as it’s one of the few platformers that tells a great story. Many platformers that try to include a story usually have a poor one to the point it may have been better to not have one. I would go as far as saying that Valley has possibly the best one I have seen. Luckily the gameplay is fun to go through as well and, save for a few issues I had, was very enjoyable.
You begin the game as an archaeologist that is trying to find something called the “Lifeseed”. You go exploring the Canadian Rockies for it via canoe but end up with the canoe destroyed and stranded in a valley where you find a special suit that was developed in World War II that gives the user the ability to run very fast; jump long distances; and great heights. You also discover that with the suit you can take life away from things such as trees and animals or give it back. This can have an effect as any time you die you take life away from the valley and have to give some back to keep a balance. You can only do this by constantly collecting more energy. You play the rest of the game trying to figure out what went on at this base all those years ago and why nobody is there now. In order to explore the base you must use the suit to solve platforming issues and various puzzles. You pick up various audio logs and notes that piece together the backstory. It made me think of Bioshock a bit with the audio logs.
I enjoyed the platforming in the game as unlike some others it feels a little more natural with the keyboard and mouse. That being said a gamepad would still be easier for the platforming but there are parts of the game that are very much a first person shooter where you have to battle enemies made of energy that I would despise doing with a gamepad. The puzzles were for the most part logical and didn’t feel like they tried to force you into a solution that was pulled out of thin air and didn’t use reason. That being said I did have a few issues. You die if you get submerged in water. The reason given is the weight of the suit drags you down to the bottom to drown. I’ll give the developers credit on coming up with a reasonable explanation as to why water is an instant death. I will say though that it has some real short sighted problems because you die even if you’re only ankle deep in water. That makes no sense. It also made me angry when later in the game in a cutscene you land in water and are somehow able to swim to the top and survive where all game I had been punished if so much as a foot entered the water. Also at certain points I can walk through a waterfall and survive. Basically the rules about when water will harm you are all over the place and annoying. This is a small thing though that didn’t stop my overall enjoyment of the game. I noticed that all flags appeared black. I’m not sure if this was a glitch or not. There was also one time I tried to jump on a tree branch but went through it. This only happened the once though.
The graphics of Valley are pretty decent overall. The lighting; water; shadows; and sun rays are all above average. I can’t name anything that stands out as a negative. I also can’t say that anything is the best in gaming even for when the game came out. I would say for the resources of a small studio they did better than most. The soundtrack of Valley was awesome and deserves mention. It had a great blend of fast paced and slow peaceful orchestra type music.
I played Valley on Linux. It had an option for Vsync; six different graphic options; four settings for AA; and an option for AO. There was no option for manual saves as the game relies on checkpoint saves. You can have up to four different save slots though for different playthroughs. You can’t change controls but you only have four buttons to use so it wasn’t a big deal. The game uses the Unity engine. I played the game with everything on highest except AA, AO and motion blur which were all turned off. My resolution was 1080P. The reason I did this was the game would drop from 60 FPS down the the 40’s pretty often. With those options off it only happened once maybe every half hour. Typically it ran at 50-60 FPS. The game used between 12-23% of my CPU; 5-6.6GB of system RAM; 2.6GB of VRAM; and 40-55% of my GPU. Overall it wasn’t the most optimized game I have played but far from the worst. The graphics were great but they didn’t seem like they should drop my frame rate to the 40’s and when it happened was almost random. Alt-Tab didn’t work. One weird issue I encountered was the graphics options wouldn’t always save until later in the game when they would. For most of it I had to set them each time I launched the game. The game used 4.09GB of disk space. The game didn’t crash once on me.
If you enjoy first person platformers such as The Free Ones or A Story About my Uncle you should really give Valley a try. It had great graphics, a great story, good platforming and a great soundtrack. I finished the game in 4 hours 18 minutes. I paid $10.99 CAD and would say it easily worth $20.
My Score: 7/10
My System:
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 19.2.7 | Samsung 850 Evo 250GB | Manjaro 18.1.4 | Mate 1.22.2 | Kernel 5.4.2-1-MANJARO