Valley enthralling and frustrating in equal measures
VALLEY is enthralling and frustrating in almost equal measures. The title appears to have snuck up on everyone with little of the buzz associated with game releases, dwarfed by the hype of bigger AAA release dates.
Valley puts you in the shoes of an unnamed archaeologist on the hunt for what is known as a ‘Lifeseed’ in the Rocky Mountains. But as you begin to explore your surroundings, it soon becomes clear that you’re not the first to pursue the mysterious seed. Through audio logs you slowly uncover a plot by a man named Andrew Fisher, who planned to use the Lifeseed’s power to win World War II. The story explores how Fisher would use the seed’s energy to end the war, secrets behind the Pendulum project, and whether the Lifeseed even exists in the present day. There’s more than enough here to keep you captivated by Valley’s story from the open to the close.
Unfortunately, the captivation ends at the story, as the gameplay in Valley leaves a lot to be desired. Valley’s first-person, mech-suit-powered platforming gets its excitement from playing with momentum - running down a hill will pick up speed, letting you launch yourself across colossal gaps. It’s a thrill that has you look at the world in a different way - there could be a hill you can speed your way down, just to be flung off of a jump at the very bottom, landing you safely on a platform that looked unreachable from the ground. In those fast-paced sequences, you feel a whole lot like a superhero, but sometimes Valley’s own mechanics have a habit of ruining them. There are far too many moments in Valley where your immense speed is suddenly ripped from you with little to no reason why, making for a very patchily paced experience.
It speaks volumes about Valley that one of the coolest things to happen in-game is when you actually die. Dying in Valley causes the wildlife and creatures around you to also die, as it takes some of the Valley’s life to ressurect you each time. Unfortunately, I never actually got to see what happens when the Valley’s life force is totally depleted as the game is almost laughably easy for the most part - to the point where actually managing to die is a serious challenge.
Valley is a rather beautiful game, but one that feels depressingly empty - even more so due to the emphasis the game places on life. In moments of intense speed, Valley’s first-person platforming is some of the most thrilling gameplay I’ve experienced in a long time, but it is paced too fitfully and too one-dimensional for me to recommend this game as much as I’d like to.