Console History: Golvellius: Valley Of Doom

This is Console History, a special sub-series of my more general History Lessons series, covering console role-playing games, action role-playing games, Metroidvanias, and action-adventure games in nominally chronological order starting in the late 1980s. The chronology is garbled in the beginning as the scope of the series expanded, but it gets more organized later on. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

We are finishing up another detour from our nominal timeline in this series. The farthest we’ve reached is Phantasy Star II, the first true 16-bit console role-playing game, which released on March 21, 1989 in Japan. Then I took a detour to play some games I’d missed, namely Glory of Heracles: The Labors of the Divine Hero, Bionic Commando, and Valkyrie no Densetsu. We should have been all caught up after that, but then I found another game I’d missed: Golvellius, which was originally released by Compile in April 1987 for the MSX home computer in Japan, placing it between The Goonies II and Rygar in our timeline (I think… I couldn’t find the exact day of the release, so it might have been after Rygar). Sega licensed the game in 1988, bringing a remade version with a totally new world layout — now with the “Valley of Doom” subtitle — to their Master System console on August 14, 1988 in Japan, and December 1988 in the US. So this isn’t some semi-obscure Japan-only game that I had never heard of, like Glory of Heracles or Valyrie no Densetsu. Nor is it a game I knew about but thought was out of scope for this series, like Bionic Commando. No, it’s nothing less than Sega’s answer to The Legend of Zelda. I have no idea how I missed it.

The influence of The Legend of Zelda is immediately clear. In Golvellius, players control the hero Kelesis from a top-down viewpoint, as he moves screen-by-screen through the world and stabs his sword at enemies. Many of these enemies are blatant copies of creatures from Zelda, like the swooping bats, or the burrowing moles that act as stand-ins for Zelda’s Leevers. As in Zelda, Kelesis will need to find new abilities that let him explore new places in the world, as he searches for the seven demons who serve the big baddie, Golvellius himself. On the way Kelesis will look for hidden cave entrances to find allies with hints or items to offer. Even the premise is similar to Zelda, with Kelesis trying to rescue the princess Rena from Golvellius’s clutches. Yes, it’s the damsel in distress trope again, but at least Rena had ventured into the Valley of Doom of her own volition to find medicine for her father. That’s a bit more agency than Zelda got.

Actually playing Golvellius, however, feels quite different to Zelda. It’s much faster paced, with Kelesis able to make rapid sword strikes while enemies continuously spawn and rush him. There’s no knocking enemies back with sword strikes to control positioning like in Zelda, nor is there the tradeoff between attacking and blocking with a shield (Kelesis can find shields, but they just automatically block projectiles at all times). Often it’s impossible to avoid taking damage when swarmed, so health becomes something of a resource to be rationed, as players search for sources of healing or extra life potions to increase Kelesis’s maximum health. There are no equivalents to tools like the boomerang, bombs, or bow and arrows from Zelda that add nuance to combat. Kelesis only gets more powerful swords and better shields (and a lot of items that help outside of combat), so his battles feel largely the same throughout the game.

Then there are the secret caves. In Zelda, these were cleverly hidden, requiring a bomb to be placed just so, or a specific tree to be burned, before their entrances were revealed. Some could only be accessed by using certain items in the right place, based on cryptic hints. In Golvellius, things are far simpler. Every (or nearly every) screen contains a cave entrance. Sometimes these open automatically upon Kelesis’s arrival, but more often he must kill a few monsters to make it appear. Occasionally the entrance is actually behind a tree or rock, revealed when Kelesis stabs it. But it rarely takes long to find it.

Inside the caves, Kelesis will meet a cast of recurring characters who offer aid in his quest. The wise women sell items, including bibles that increase the maximum amount of money Kelesis can carry, so he can afford more expensive items later on. The fairy Rio offers hints or idle chatter. Others offer healing in exchange for cash. Kelesis earns money automatically for each enemy slain, and he’s usually cutting through swaths of them during his wanderings, so it’s usually easy to buy stuff. To make progress in his quest, Kelesis must explore the valley, find the cave on each screen, listen carefully to what the allies hiding inside have to say, and purchase upgrades that let him reach new areas. It doesn’t take long to grok this formula.

Perhaps the biggest difference from Zelda, however, is that Golvellius lacks an analogue to Zelda’s infamous dungeons. There’s no room-by-room dungeon delving here. Instead, when Kelesis locates the lair of one of the bosses, he enters a side-scrolling platformer area. Others have argued that these sections are inspired by Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, which released a few months before Golvellius (but more than a year and a half before its Master System remake), and I can kind of see why. Kelesis can make high and low attacks with his sword as he traverses the platforming areas, just like Link in Zelda II. But that’s really the only similarity. The platforming feels totally different, always moving to the right without any of Zelda II’s nonlinear exploration. In fact, Kelesis can’t even turn around! Moving to the left just makes him back up.

These sections feel far more like a shoot ’em up. Keep moving to the right, and deal with simple enemies that are more like static obstacles than Zelda II’s sword-and-shield duels. The challenge in these stages comes from finding the correct path without running into a dead end or getting knocked off the left side of the screen, which kicks Kelesis back out to the overhead exploration mode. The shoot ’em up influence is even stronger in a second type of boss lair that puts Kelesis into a vertically-scrolling stage. He automatically trudges forward, so players must move him around the screen to find a safe path through the dungeon lest he get caught behind a wall as it scrolls past. And slash at a few enemies with his sword, naturally.

All of this makes the action in Golvellius feel more like an arcade game, compared to Zelda’s more mysterious, thoughtful exploration. Golvellius can’t match the intricacy of Zelda’s network of secrets, and consequently feels like a less epic adventure. But its more straightforward approach actually works really well. Not every game needs to be a stone cold classic full of innovative design; it’s OK for a game to just be fun. And Golvellius is fun! I was generally able to find my way just by exploring thoroughly, and had a blast doing it. For the most part, I had to tackle each part of the valley in order, except for one section that sent me back and forth between two of them. That keeps exploration in manageable chunks, with a clear sense of progress. Golvellius is also easier than the (quite difficult) Zelda games, and more forgiving too: if Kelesis falls, he can continue from the valley entrance with all his items and half his gold, or use a password to do so in a future game session. Since it’s easy to earn money again — I rarely needed to stop and fight enemies just to get gold — that’s not much of an impediment.

Golvellius is also pretty funny. The various friendly characters are quick to throw around mild insults if Kelesis refuses their offers or tries to buy something he can’t afford. Sometimes I’d spend a while locating a cave entrance, only to be greeted by Rio asking “how’s it going?” Since there’s a cave on nearly every screen, there’s plenty of banter between different characters, lending a carefree air to Kelesis’s quest. It helps that these characters are given big, detailed portraits too, lending them a ton of personality. In fact, Golvellius looks pretty great all around, with vibrant and detailed art that makes Zelda look simple and drab by comparison. I explored a desert peppered with cacti and the bleached skulls of unfortunate animals, a spooky graveyard choked by vines, an ocean beach with bright sand and palm trees, and more, all of them beautiful and evocative. The only time I didn’t like the way Golvellius looks is in the platforming sections, where backdrops can have too much detail that creates visual noise.

Golvellius sounds great too. Suspiciously so. Realizing that the music I was hearing couldn’t possibly have come from the Master System’s programmable sound generator (PSG), I inferred that it uses the optional FM sound chip add-on that was available for the Master System in Japan. Specifically, this was the Yamaha YM2413, which has a lot of limitations compared to the YM2612 chip that graced the Mega Drive/Genesis and powered the music in Phantasy Star II and Super Hydlide, but it’s still pretty cool. I mostly noticed the vastly improved bass compared to the Master System’s PSG, which tended to be very bass-light since it lacked the triangle wave channel from Nintendo’s Famicom/NES. But the melodies sound really nice too, with full, rich tones that create a pleasing ensemble. There’s much more timbral variation than one could get from the simple, harsh sound of a PSG. Although I must concede that none of the music in Golvellius is as memorable as Zelda’s iconic score.

Even though Golvellius is simpler than Zelda, that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of mystery. Later in the game, certain key items are well hidden and require some sleuthing to uncover. The most important are the ones that help with traversal: boots that let Kelesis walk on water, and later, a pair that let him fly above the trees. Each transforms the way players navigate the world. Areas that were once labyrinthine warrens become open — but not too open! — spaces that Kelesis can cross as he pleases. Naturally, there are specific paths that open up as a consequence, but there are also side paths and unexpected shortcuts. It turns out this lake is connected to that river from earlier in the game, so when I start over from the valley entrance, I can just follow the water and get back to where I was much faster! This world design felt like a simpler version of — of all things — Dark Souls, which of course would not appear for another 23 years. Both games feature locations that initially seem isolated, but turn out to connect to each other in surprising ways.

The late game in Golvellius also ramps up the difficulty. Early on, I rarely struggled much, even when facing one of the boss demons. But as I neared the final encounter, I met stiffer opposition and needed every last upgrade I’d managed to find. This was especially true of the platforming and vertical scrolling sections that led up to the bosses. These started to feature cheap tricks, like a forked path where one is a dead end that means starting over, that got frustrating quickly. Honestly, I never warmed up to these sections that much anyway. When they were easier I tolerated them, when they got harder I found them annoying. But I bet I would have thought they were really cool at the time. It was always exciting when games mixed different gameplay styles like this. It felt like designers were pushing the boundaries of what was possible within a single game.

When the boss fight at the end of a particularly devious platforming section proves difficult as well, it chafes to have to do the whole platforming area again just to get another go. That makes the ending sections of Golvellius more of a slog, but it’s not enough to spoil the adventure. Besides, these bits are still nowhere near as hard as the finales of some other games I’ve covered in this series, like Wonder Boy In Monster Land, Super Hydlide or Ys II. It’s more that the increased difficulty stands out given how easygoing the earlier parts of Golvellius are. The game loses a bit of that carefree spirit towards the end, but never completely.

I suspect, however, that it would have been harder to embrace that spirit at the time. There were far fewer games available back then, so a fun romp that isn’t too punishing just meant it would be finished quickly. Add in the Sega vs. Nintendo rivalry that ran hot in those days, and it’s easy to imagine Master System owners pining for the epic adventure of The Legend of Zelda, even if Golvellius provided some solid enjoyment while it lasted.

But playing Golvellius today, I had a great time. It’s fun, it’s fast-paced, and its relatively short length is nice since I have a ton of other games I want to play too. And I liked the ending, which has an epilogue for the different characters that implies a sequel. Sadly, that sequel was never developed, leaving Golvellius as a stand-alone game. One that history may have judged unfairly, and is well worth checking out for any interested players. If you’d like to try it yourself, there were never any re-releases other than a 2009 mobile version, so the best option is to use emulation, as I did. I used the Retroarch frontend and Genesis Plus GX emulator core to play.

With that, we have finished this detour, and will get back to our nominal timeline! As a reminder, the farthest we’ve gotten so far is Phantasy Star II, which released on March 21, 1989 in Japan. Next time we’ll move on to April. Stay tuned!

Next on Console History: Makai Hakkenden Shada (Shada, Legend of the Eight Dogs of Hell)