is a

platform game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...

series created by

Telenet Japan was a Japanese video game and software developer founded in October 1983 by Kazuyuki Fukushima. The company had several video game divisions including: Wolf Team, Laser Soft, Reno, Renovation Products, Riot, Commseed, and Telenet Jr. Telenet Ja ...

. A

magical girl is a subgenre of Japanese fantasy media (including anime, manga, light novels, and live-action media) centered around young girls who possess magical abilities, which they typically use through an ideal alter ego into which they can transfo ...

plot, the games tell the story of a Japanese schoolgirl who is fated to protect three realms by wielding a mystical sword known as Valis. The original game, '' Valis: The Fantasm Soldier'' (1986), was developed for the

PC-88 The , commonly shortened to PC-88, are a brand of Zilog Z80-based 8-bit home computers released by Nippon Electric Company (NEC) in 1981 and primarily sold in Japan. The PC-8800 series sold extremely well and became one of the three major Japane ...

and ported to several other platforms. This was followed by a series of platform games released during the

16-bit era In the history of video games, the fourth generation of game consoles, more commonly referred to as the 16-bit era, began on October 30, 1987, with the Japanese release of NEC Home Electronics' PC Engine (known as the TurboGrafx-16 in North Amer ...

for various home consoles, most notably the

TurboGrafx-16 The TurboGrafx-16, known as the outside North America, is a home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC, NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth genera ...

and

Sega Mega Drive The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

. Outside the original series, an erotic visual novel was released in 2006, followed by compilations of the original games. After Telenet Japan shut down in 2007,

Sunsoft , stylized as SUNSOFT, is a Japanese video game developer and publisher. Sunsoft is the video games division of Japanese electronics manufacturer Sun Corporation. Its U.S. subsidiary operated under the name Sun Corporation of America, though, a ...

acquired the rights to the series. These rights were passed on to Japanese media company Edia in December 2019.

Games

All ''Valis'' games are platform games except ''Valis X,'' an erotic

visual novel A , often abbreviated as VN, is a form of digital semi-interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with and used in the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with sta ...

released for Windows in 2006 on the 20th anniversary of the series. Developed by Eants, it was the last game published by Telenet Japan. ''Valis X'' is divided into five episodes that retell the stories of the first four games, containing copious amounts of lesbian acts and tentacle erotica. In June 2021, on the 35th anniversary of the ''Valis'' series, Edia announced a

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

campaign to bring ports of the ''Valis'' games to the

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

. A collection of the first three games, ''Valis: The Fantasm Soldier Collection'' was released in December 2021 in Japan and in March 2022 in Western territories. In March 2022, Edia also announced the launch of a second collection of Valis that will feature ''Valis IV'' (PC Engine), ''Syd of Valis'' (Genesis / Mega Drive) and ''Valis: The Fantasm Soldier'' (Genesis / Mega Drive).

Manga

A four-volume ''Valis''

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

series by the artist ZOL was published by Kill Time Communication and featured in the

seinen manga is an editorial category of Japanese comics marketed toward young adult men. In Japanese, the word ''seinen'' literally means "youth", but the term "''seinen'' manga" is also used to describe the target audience of magazines like ''Weekly Ma ...

magazine ''

Comic Valkyrie is a Japanese science fiction and fantasy ''seinen'' manga magazine published by Kill Time Communication. Its target readership is males between their teens and thirties. The first volume was released on July 25, 2006, and ran in bimonthly volum ...

'' in 2007-2012. The first game had been separately adapted into a manga in 1999.

Notes

References

External links

''Valis''
at Hardcore Gaming 101 ;''Valis X''

Official website (bb5)
{{Valis series LGBT-related video games Video game franchises introduced in 1986 Video games featuring female protagonists Magical girl video games Seinen manga