Then you actually start playing the game.... and.... well.... Okay, so the first stage isn't great; you jump from rooftop to rooftop, easily killing off giant, grey insects and tall, fire-breathing turds with your Sword of Valis. But come on, it's the first stage, of course it's gonna be easy! It'll probably get better starting with the next level, and look, you get a new female character, Cham, that can use a whip! Surely this newfound diversity in character selection means that there'll be varied, exciting levels coming up!
Okay, okay, that forest level was a little better with its random appearances of flesh-eating, flying mouths..... of doom, but it was still bland. And the boat stage afterwards was probably the MOST BORING THING EVER, but hey, it's still early on in the game, great things could possibly happen ahead! Look! You get yet another female character, Valna! And she's a strong magic user! You better watch out, GLAMES, this fearsome threesome of ass-kicking chicks are gonna take you down for good! Eat your hearts out, Charlie's Angels!!
This! This....!.... This could've been awesome, but it's not. I mean, there were a couple of cool things going for Valis III, like having control over three differently skilled women that you can switch between anytime during the game. That would've meant for some interesting stage challenges, right? Nope, The Lost Vikings this is not. Instead of the developers actually making good use of this switching gimmick, it simply ends up being only an option. Yuko and Cham are about equal in strength when it comes to fighting with their weapons, with you usually using Cham until you've built up enough power for Yuko's sword. Hell, you don't need to use Valna at all throughout the game. Her magic may be strong, but you can easily get by without it. Then there's the annoying moments when your characters get hit. They don't take it standing still and they don't bounce back a little when it happens, instead, they'll slide. Yes, it's as stupid as it sounds, and will cause plenty of accidental falls into pits.
But the biggest thing that turned this into a pitiful product is the actual gameplay itself. Valis III is just filled to the brim with boring and easy levels. I can forgive the first stage for being too damn easy, but not the rest of the game; the majority of the enemies pose no challenge whatsoever, they just walk towards your character, and if they're lucky, they'll cause some damage. Oh, and that boat stage? I wasn't exaggerating. For the whole ride, green monsters will pop out of the water and throw slow moving projectiles in your direction. The thing that really makes this stage a snoozefest is the fact that they only pop out one at a time. So imagine, if you will, this boat ride where you'll just stand there for the next two/three minutes, destroying these green foes as they attempt to kill you with their sea goo that moves at the speed of molasses. Ugh. The only thing that helped me through that agonizing stage was the upbeat tune, filled with guitar-esque sounds, that was playing throughout the whole ordeal.
Strangely though, despite those flaws, you'll want to try to beat the game...... at least once, that is. And it's all thanks to the story. It's not the greatest thing ever, but the way it got carried out in the intro and the cutscenes made the overall atmosphere have a somewhat apocalyptic and epic feel to it. Sadly, you can't take them too seriously because of the silliness implemented into them; the speed that every character's mouth moves at is simply ridiculous. I call it chipmunk talk because it looks like everyone is chowing down on an invisible nut whenever they "speak". I put the word in quotation marks because the thing they substituted for voices (yeah, it's a Genesis game, I know, but still) is anything but an actual language. As the words appear on screen, and the characters eat their nuts, annoying "typing" noises will accompany them. Deep "thumps" will go along with the males, while squeaky "tings" follow the females. Well, there's this one moment where the tings will follow a certain bad dude, but..... yeah. These goofy annoyances end up destroying any seriousness that the scenes were striving for.
Another thing that bummed me out was the lack of a hot, lesbian, bondage moment! As I flipped through the instruction manual's various sentence errors and misplacement of screen pics, I came across this one drawing: it was a picture of Cham, on her knees, and tied up. Yuko, with her thick thighs and round ass, was trying to free her while blushing. Valna, on the other hand, was too busy sticking her finger through a small hole, and blushing while doing it. It was all meant to be humorous, but it ended up arousing me instead. But alas, it was not featured anywhere in the game. Damn you, Valis III!! Damn your crappy gameplay and your HOUSE OF LIES!!
Overall Rating: 3/10