Xenon Valkyrie + Short Review
by Amr (@siegarettes)
- Xenon Valkyrie +
- Developer- Diabolical Mind
- Publisher- Diabolical Mind
- PS4, Vita, PC
A flashy little rogue-like, Xenon Valkyrie+ feels equal parts cozy and staid. Its art is well detailed, and there’s a number of familiar systems, with RPG stats to level up, new items to unlock, and the usual suite of progression that’s now common for the genre.
At the same time none of this is exceptional. Enemies are predictable to the point where you can generally find the right position and mash the attack button. Levels are mostly corridors and platforms that occasionally end with you making a blind leap. The color scheme and background detail makes it hard to discern characters from the background, especially on a larger screen. And each of the characters and weapons often feel functionally the same, especially during boss fights, where their specific abilities are strangely locked away. Those boss fights can end up as strange difficulty spikes too, especially if you get the one that fire bullet patterns that can kill you almost instantly, without telegraphing the trajectory of the bullets first.
There’s still some comfort in the routine of dungeon crawling. Making the numbers go up and grinding to the next area are an easy appeal. But there’s little here that demands your attention.