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Our detour continues. If I’d managed to be chronological, then the latest post in this series would have been the one about Phantasy Star II. But I found a few games that I missed, so I went back to play them: first Glory of Heracles: The Labors of the Divine Hero, followed by Bionic Commando. Now, we’ve arrived at what was supposed to be the last game of the detour. I say “supposed to” because I already found another game I missed… but more on that later. For now, we’re talking about Valkyrie no Densetsu, which translates to The Legend of Valkyrie. Developed and published by Namco, Valkyrie no Densetsu first appeared in arcades in March 1989, placing it between Clash at Demonhead and Out Live in our timeline. A port for the PC Engine appeared in August 1990, which is the version I played. Both versions were limited to the Japanese market, however, so I used a fan translation from shawnji (AKA Shawn Cox) and cabbage to play.

Valkyrie no Densetsu is actually the sequel to an earlier game, Valkyrie no Bouken (Valkyrie’s Adventure), for the Famicom. I decided not to play it for this series, because it sounded fairly derivative of The Legend of Zelda, and rather tricky and annoying to actually play. Its sequel, however, is highly regarded, considered one of the best arcade games of all time. I was curious — as I was with Wonder Boy In Monster Land — how the action role-playing style was adapted for arcades. I was also excited to try another PC Engine game, since the console (rebranded as the Turbografx-16) barely sold any units in the United States. A few PC Engine games have come up in this series so far, some of which used its CD-ROM add-on module, like Ys I & II and Exile. Valkyrie no Densetsu, however, uses the standard HuCard cartridge for the console, making it comparable on a technical level to Shiryou Sensen: War of the Dead and Out Live from this blog series.

The original Famicom game may have borrowed from Zelda’s design book, but Valkyrie no Densetsu plays more like a top-down run-and-gun shooter. Our heroine, the titular Valkyrie, is armed with a sword, but fires magical blasts from it when she attacks, and can collect various weapons that alter the way these ranged attacks behave. Some simply provide a wider beam that makes it easier to hit enemies, but others send projectiles in different directions, or even home in on enemies. The action feels more like the overhead sections from our last entry, Bionic Commando, than anything from Zelda, but the fact that Valkyrie can jump actually reminded me of the top-down sections from Rygar instead. The Valkyrie is on a divine mission to restore the magical golden spring, which has been corrupted by the evil demon Kamuz. Now all the crops are failing, and the people are starving. To save them, the Valkyrie will need to pass through six stages in sequence, battling enemies and leaping between islands and platforms as she explores.

The heroine is clearly modeled after valkyries from Norse mythology, with her blonde braids, round shield, and winged helmet, but Kamuz looks more like an oni from Japanese folklore, and the story could be from any folkloric tradition. Players hoping for a full Norse adventure might be disappointed, but I appreciated the simple tale on offer here. There’s more to it than I expected, with recurring characters to meet who will help out the Valkyrie on her quest, and a surprising amount of dialogue. I was thankful for the fan translation for those, although there are some in-game signs that the team couldn’t work out how to translate. The notes included with the translation say that the signs typically just say “easy route” or “hard route” anyway.

Ah, yes. Despite some arcade-style scrolling limitations that often see the Valkyrie unable to go back the way she came, the stages manage an impressive array of possible paths. It’s not the just the literally signposted left vs. right choice — wander along the edge of a cliff and you might spot a floating platform sliding into view, promising some hidden route or treasure-filled island to explore across the gap. An errant magical blast might destroy a wall in a cavern, revealing a secret passage. Some routes offer more treasure or even special events to find, so it often pays to wander in different directions after restarting a stage. Which will happen often. This is still an arcade game at heart, enticing players to insert more coins to continue after dying. The PC Engine port, however, is surprisingly forgiving, providing passwords at the start of each stage so players can retry each stage as many times as they like, even if they turn the console off between attempts.

Most of the treasure to be found while exploring is simply money, which slowly bounces around the screen in different denominations. Enemies also drop money when defeated. The Valkyrie can spend her hard-earned cash on different special attacks for her sword, sold by the merchant Zul who keeps popping up everywhere. The fan translation did not include the game manual, so all I had was a bad machine translation of it, meaning I only had the vaguest idea of what each special weapon did before buying it. I quickly realized that they work in an unusual way: each purchased weapon gets added to a queue, and when the Valkyrie’s current weapon is used up (they last for a while, typically 160 shots) the next one will automatically activate. I rarely, if ever, ran out of special weapons, since they’re the only thing to spend money on, and some can even be found in treasure chests while exploring. I’m not sure I ever figured out an optimal strategy for setting up a weapon queue, however. In fact, when I reached the final boss at the end of the game, I had a hard time until I decided to intentionally waste all of the shots of one of my special weapons, cycling to the next in line which was more effective.

In addition to her various magical sword attacks, the Valkyrie can also learn magic. Spells are quite powerful, but the Valkyrie has limited magical reserves that are depleted in just a few casts, and can only rarely be refilled. So I found myself waiting to use magic on minibosses and bosses. I suspect that skilled players who have learned the stage layouts will determine the optimal times to use magic, and that some of those times might be against swarms of regular enemies, rather than the big boss encounters. The Valkyrie moves slowly, and while her shots can destroy incoming enemy projectiles, she can only fire in the direction she’s facing. When surrounded, I found myself taking a lot of damage until I could get to safer ground and start launching my counterattack. A well-timed magic spell might have made the difference in those situations.

Casting spells is a bit tricky, however, because it requires holding the attack button for a second until the magic icon appears. Fortunately, the Valkyrie is invulnerable once the icon shows up, so players can scroll to the spell they want without fear. Before that icon shows up, however, she’s a sitting duck. My casting was interrupted by a thrown spear or an errant fireball on countless occasions. Timing one’s casts is important, too: the Valkyrie’s first spell, Twin, launches a huge double-blast in whatever direction she’s facing, but players must be sure that the enemy is still in the firing line after the delay required to cast it. Other spells fire less powerful projectiles in all directions, or send the Valkyrie herself into a whirling attack frenzy, much like the Barbarian from Diablo II eleven years later. My favorite spell, however, is the Big spell. It makes the Valkyrie grow into a giant who can no longer attack normally (and therefore no longer shoot down incoming enemy fire), but whose jumps create earthquakes that damage all enemies on the screen when she lands. It’s one of the few spells I tended to use on regular enemies rather than bosses, since it was so satisfying to dispatch an entire horde with a few jumps.

The swords and magic are reminiscent of role-playing games, but Valkyrie no Densetsu plays like a pure action arcade game, with spells replacing limited special attacks, and experience points replacing the score that earns players extra lives. Buying things for money is also something typically found in role-playing games, I suppose, although what’s on sale here are basically temporary arcade-style power-ups. Wonder Boy In Monster Land had a more interesting approach, offering permanent equipment upgrades in its shops, and tasking players with finding the optimal times to purchase them as they replayed the various stages. The closest thing in Valkyrie no Densetsu is planning out a queue of special attacks through smart purchases, but the stages generally felt forgiving even if I brought sub-optimal weapons. I had the most trouble with the second stage, when I only had two early spells, and faced a final boss fond of spawning swarms of underlings to surround the Valkyrie.

After that, things were much easier. Friendly faces would turn up offering hints about hidden passages or secret items. Nabbing those items might deactivate traps, or yield special rewards when brought to the right people. On one occasion, I even got advice for battling the boss at the end of the stage, making it a straightforward battle. These allies and their miniature “quests” are what bring the flavor of a role-playing adventure, even if the mechanics do not. It’s far from the narrative of a pure role-playing game like Phantasy Star II, which would release just a few weeks later, but there are more characters and story elements in Valkyrie no Densetsu than in most action games of the time, and their support and optimism keeps the tone light as the Valkyrie battles through Kamuz’s minions.

Valkyrie no Densetsu also looks fantastic. The art is not as crisp as the arcade version, but it’s still bright and colorful, with large, detailed sprites for the Valkyrie and her foes. Many of the backgrounds seem to be hand drawn, rather than built from tiles as was often done at the time. In outdoor locations especially, I explored cliffs and islands with irregular shapes that never appeared again. Even locations that could easily have been less visually interesting, like the magma caves or castle corridors, have a lot of incidental detail that makes them memorable. Exploring the corridors and towers of the castle feels very different to the winding passages of the ice labyrinth or scattered islands of the sacred spring, too. There’s a lot of variety on offer here, even if the game is on the short side.

I’m glad I went back to play this one. It’s a fun game that doesn’t overstay its welcome, but offers decent replayability since there are many possible paths and weapon combinations players can try. Unfortunately, it never got any true sequels. There was a spinoff platformer starring the secondary character Sandra (who is playable in two-player mode for the arcade version of Valkyrie no Densetsu, but not the PC Engine version) called Sandra no Daibōken: Walküre to no Deai for the Super Nintendo in 1992, but it sounds more frustrating than fun. It was localized in English for a European release as Whirlo. Then there was The Glory of Valkyrie and its sequel, released for Japanese mobile phones in 2007 and 2009, which never saw any overseas versions. Valkyrie no Densetsu, however, was eventually localized in English as part of the compilation disc Namco Museum Vol. 5 for the PlayStation. But anyone who wants to try the PC Engine version will likely need to use emulation, as I did. I used the Retroarch frontend and Beetle PCE FAST emulation core (which is the same as the Beetle PCE core but without the Supergrafx support, which was only used by a handful of games anyway) to play. Be sure to grab the fan translation too.

I wanted to say that we’d be back to our normal timeline after this, but — as I mentioned at the start of this post — I found another game I missed. So we’re heading back to play that next, and then we’ll be returning to 1989. Stay tuned!

Next on Console History: watch this space!