La Valeur

~ LA VALEUR ~

Kogado

CD-ROM

1991

La Valeur is quite primitive. It's one of those old-old-school RPGs that make you use a menu command just to talk to people, and its visuals are--to be generous--antiquated.

But after a tedious first couple hours (you start off very weak), it actually becomes a pretty fast-paced game. There are NO load times for battles, and you can take out entire parties of monsters with single attacks if you're strong enough.

It takes after Ys in a number of ways. This is pretty evident from certain scenes in the opening cinema and ending sequence, the in-game look of the main character, and the poor man's Dalles who turns the hero into a monster.

They tried to do some innovative stuff with the magic and combat systems. As a result, these systems can be tough to figure out at first. Also, some of the puzzles are really hard to solve if you don't know Japanese; I was very lucky to get by the most troublesome spots. Of course, the walkthrough I wrote (which can be found at http://www.honestgamers.com/guides/faq/21098/2328/La-Valeur.html ) will ensure that you won't need to rely on luck if you play the game.

La Valeur is not great, but it's not Astralius, either. There are lots of other cheap PCE RPGs to get before this one, but if you experience stuff like Neo Metal Fantasy and the Tengai Makyou games and you still want more, this is a decent, inexpensive option.