Valis Visual Collection

~ VALIS VISUAL COLLECTION ~

Laser Soft / Telenet

CD-ROM

1993

This is basically just a collection of cinemas from the second, third, and fourth PC Engine Valis episodes, but it makes for a pretty nice collectible, as it's fairly hard to find and it features a hot-looking Rena on its cover. People make a big stink about the absence of scenes from the PCE rendition of the first Valis, but at least we get "more" here than we do with the Cosmic Fantasy Visual Collection, which offers only the CF and CF2 cinematics.

The few who are thinking about bothering with this non-game are probably Valis fans who've already slashed their way through all four adventures, and those folks won't find much new material here. The most interesting part of "playing" it for those who have experienced only the English versions of II and III might be watching the cinemas from those chapters with Japanese voice work. It's nice to be able to view the interludes sans goofy English voices, but, ironically enough, the Japanese actors seem to have "underacted" a bit.

One neat thing about the collection is that it allows you a look at how PCE CD intermission artistry evolved (while sticking with a core group of characters throughout the string of images). Watch as the series progresses from blocky character portraits displayed in tiny windows to polished, full-screen glory.

This is a legitimately rare disc, but demand for it is very low; so once you do find it, you probably won't have to pay an outlandish price to acquire it. ($50-60 was once the going rate, but $30 seems a common enough asking price these days.) It really has no practical purpose, but Valis fans will reap enjoyment enough just from welcoming it into their collections.