With an exceptional heavy metal presentation thanks to a brilliant soundtrack and uniquely detailed visuals, Valfaris is as metal as gaming gets.

I wouldn’t usually categorize a game as ‘metal’, but that really is the best description for Valfaris. I’m not great at Valfaris, given its challenging and difficult gameplay, but I never really became discouraged with it to the point of an uninstall or great frustration. I’m slowly making progress and is an easy recommendation if you’re into challenging games with a retro look, feel and kick ass metal soundtrack.

Valfaris is pure Metal. A game that looks like it's taken from the cover of a Heavy music album. And besides, it's very good.

You can’t get much more metal than this. Valfaris Full Metal Mode is a package of brutal action and awesome music, yet still holds a nostalgic retro platforming vibe. While I didn’t play Slain all that much, I might go back to it because I absolutely loved this game. There are but a few downsides, but they are based mostly upon skill level which is why I can’t say it’s going to be for everyone. The weapons are fun and exciting, but not being able to fully upgrade all of them is a bit of a letdown. Other than that, it’s a great game that most people will enjoy. I had a lot of fun playing it and hope to see more titles based on the same themes.

Valfaris is a unique title and if it catches you, it will surely leave you with a very good taste thanks to its graphic design, playability and soundtrack... too bad for its technical section.

While Valfaris is in many ways an excellent game, it's held back by some significant design flaws and technical problems.

Developers spend so much time trying to recapture that magic of classic pixel-style games and instead forget about what made them special. It wasn’t the look, it was the loop. There are plenty of 8 and 16-bit titles with mundane game play and nowadays it shows why some games stood the test of time. Be challenging, but be interesting. Don’t just punish players and throw lush visuals at them. Make the game play interesting as well. This is something Valfaris lacks, and I wish more indie developers understood when making these games that I very much want to play, I just lose interest in far too soon.