Valfaris: Mecha Therion Review (Switch eShop)

Valfaris: Mecha Therion wastes no time getting started. In the briefest cutscene yet, we are reintroduced to series protagonist Therion on a gothic spaceship hurtling through the stars. His AI companion Hekate tells him that she has picked up a signal from his father, Vroll, who was responsible for the destruction of Therion’s home planet of Valfaris, and whom Therion is hell-bent on killing. Therion turns around and, with a strutting gait, heads off into battle. We find it all delightfully brief.

While the previous game (special game) Valfaris) is a busy Opposite-a run and gun style experience, this sequel transformed the series into a side-scrolling shooter – Type R by Pacific RimThe setting is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi hellscape where the color palette is maximized to the highest saturation and contrast, and a pleasingly epic death metal soundtrack accompanies every moment.

In the final beat of that opening cutscene, Therion teleports himself into a machine. About 20 seconds after pressing the start button for the first time, we’re thrust out of the safety of the ship and into a skippable tutorial or the depths of the game. We have only a very vague memory of the first game, and the lack of any further connection to the world or story makes us feel immediately disoriented. It’s like being transported to a heavy metal festival when we’ve just spent a week on the beach listening to the soothing sounds of the ocean.

We loved this shock to our systems. There’s not much about Valfaris: Mecha Therion’s style that we’d pick up on on our own, but we soon felt that the flashy presentation was something we could learn to love – a dreamy take on the kind of 1980s cartoons that only kids much older than us would have seen.

The soundtrack is metal, and the mood is set by the riffs of former Celtic Frost guitarist Curt Victor Bryant, creating an epic tone. In fact, so many elements of the game make us think of it as a shooter version Earthquake: iconic soundtrack – check; feels like we’re launching an attack on hell – check; continuous action is broken down into smaller parts that require repetition until we master them – check.

Therion’s mech suit has three weapon slots and two slots for additional upgrades. Generally, weapons consist of a sword, a gun, and a third alternate option that can be swapped out at checkpoints. Sometimes we equipped a slow-motion rocket that we could aim manually, sometimes an electric shock that would explode around the mech suit and take down enemies. We unlocked a lot of guns throughout the game – pistols, shotguns, a spreading laser – that were all really different and fun to use.

Most important of all are the swords (or sometimes axes) that serve as important tools in both offense and – more importantly in terms of gameplay – defense. Like the original Valfaris, slashing at the damage-dealing orbs and missiles serves two purposes: to prevent these attacks from hitting the mech, and also to reload our main gun. This is the USP of Mecha Therion’s gameplay. The mindless shooting needs to be balanced with the replenishment of energy, otherwise your guns will explode and shoot out and weaken. If that happens, you’re in trouble. Making sure we don’t get caught this way when larger enemies appear or when we’re in particularly difficult parts of a level is crucial. This balancing act is easy to understand and easy to forget.

The original Valfaris was over the top. The profanity and gore were taken to extremes. The enemies were relentless and relentless. Mecha Therion was also rife with excess, but we feel that developer Steel Mantis has reined in its wilder impulses for this sequel. And we mean that as a compliment. The game moves forward with a sense of restraint in all the right places, even if there’s still plenty of wackiness on display. As a result, Mecha Therion’s more outlandish setting and characters get more room to breathe.

The bullet-dodging and ship-dodging action is rendered in pixel-heavy 2.5D. Lovely details permeate the levels: giant statues, ruins, moonscapes. We get a sense of the size of our mecha by comparing it to miniature space marines shooting at us from the planet’s surface. One location has giant creatures lurking in the background, firing lasers forward—and almost through the Switch’s screen. It’s a cheesy 3D movie-like effect, and we love it.

We dodged bullet hell caused by giant spaceships and floating eyeballs, carefully timing our sword strikes while taking every opportunity to land our own attacks. We died a lot as we played, but we rarely felt frustrated. The checkpoint system was generous enough without making the game too easy.

Still, many parts of the game required five or six tries. We felt challenged. We gritted our teeth when the game changed the perspective slightly and took us through the paces at double the speed. Throughout its runtime, Valfaris: Mecha Tyrion felt challenging but never unfair. It looks great and plays well on the Switch in both handheld and docked modes, and if you want a tightly designed and fun four-hour shooter, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Conclusion

Valfaris: Mecha Therion doesn’t relax us. It’s not a relaxing game at all, but it To be A fun game and an easy recommendation if you’re looking for a fun action shooter. Passing waves of battleships, enemy mechs and alien orbs, and making repeated progressions as you master each part of the game, is a fun loop. Balancing offense and defense can be challenging but also rewarding. The only downside worth mentioning is that there’s little explanation of the plot of the previous games, so it’s probably best to play them in order if you want to understand exactly what’s going on.