"Valley" Review - Bioshock: Infinite-ly Better

Whelp. Once again I end up delaying my Deus Ex: Mankind Divided review in favor of reviewing a smaller title. Ah well.
Chances are you've never even heard of Valley. That isn't an insult, as I'd never heard of it until I saw a video from Jim Sterling, a critic whose work I admire greatly (hence the structure of the title of this review). I don't recall ever seeing any advertising for this game, and even if advertising was done, this game really flew under the radar. Critics have reviewed it and given it a fairly mixed rating, but it still looked interesting to me, so I shelled out the necessary $20 and gave it a try.
Much to my surprise, Valley was developed on the Unity engine (and I played on the PS4, so that is darned impressive). With that in mind, it would have been enough if Valley were a good-looking game. It would have been enough if Valley had an actual interesting game mechanic. It would have been enough if Valley had managed to give you objectives other than finding things. All of these things would have been enough to make Valley a decent game strictly because of the engine it was built on. In reality, Valley accomplished all of these goals and so much more. It is without a doubt the biggest surprise of this year. I'm still thinking back on the experience and being shocked at the quality to be found in it.
By the end of this relatively short review, I sincerely hope you will feel inclined to set aside $20 to purchase Valley. Games like Doom or Deus Ex: Mankind Divided hardly need my help in order to sell. Games like Valley, however, need all the publicity they can get, and I truly believe that Valley is worth your money, so I hope to help Blue Isle Studios (the studio behind the game) get as much exposure as I can get them. So, even if by the end of this review you don't think it is your kind of game, then I sincerely hope that you will at least spread the word about it. It has been too long since a truly surprisingly good indie game has come out to such little exposure (Undertale doesn't count, because it had quite a bit of exposure)
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In Valley you play as a college student and archaeology enthusiast who is in search of an ancient artifact called the "lifeseed," which supposedly contains an Earth-shattering power. He (or She) has gone so far as to take canoeing lessons to aid in his search, and because he is not a particularly skilled canoer, he ends up in a valley where the lifeseed is said to exist. So, right off the bat, Valley has a unique premise. You aren't a hero or a longstanding expert in your field. You are a college student taking a gap year to search for an artifact you have no use for. Now, the story expands far beyond this simple premise, but I refuse to say anything else about the story. This is the kind of game that absolutely must be experienced while knowing as little about the story as possible. Rest assured, though, the premise behind the world and the story is truly one-of-a-kind, even if certain events in the backstory have been done before.
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As unique as the story and premise are, the thing that really sets Valley apart is its gameplay. You play from a first-person perspective. Despite really being nothing like Undertale at all in terms of gameplay, the two have similar combat ideas in that they both deal with combat that is nonlethal. To further elaborate on this would be to spoil the story. In practice, it plays a lot like a game like Infamous might play if it were from a first person perspective. The game is incredibly easy at first, just because you aren't faced with anything remotely challenging until towards the end, but when the challenges start, you will notice another way in which Valley makes a name for itself: its sense of balance in its combat. Essentially, your means of defense is tied to your life energy. That is an incredibly simplified way of describing it, but it is still true. So, as the game gets harder and harder, you have to use your means of defense more and more, and the more you fight, the easier you are to kill. It is a kind of balance that I haven't seen in a game before, and I imagine that it would be very easy to get wrong, so Blue Isle Studios should be commended for it.
Combat is around 15% of the gameplay by my estimations. The rest of the time is spent in what I hesitate to call platforming. Really, the term platforming doesn't do it justice. I mean, it is jumping and finesse based, so it is platforming, but it is so much more nuanced than that. You may have noticed that I mention Bioshock: Infinite in the title of this review, and that is because most of the game seems to be the game that Bioshock: Infinite was trying to be. If you read my review of that travesty, then you know that I never quite felt like it was the rollercoaster ride everybody else said it was. The rail-riding aspect of it just felt like...cardboard...if that makes sense. Like, my sense of the acrobatic aspects of Infinite was that it was just wind effects on the sides of the screen. I never really felt like I was flying through the air. It is truly astounding to me that a small development team working in Unity Engine was able to create a more fulfilling sense of momentum and pure acrobatic bliss than Ken Levine was able to with as large a team as he had. In other words, 15% of the game is unique and compelling combat and 85% is thrilling platforming the likes of which most Triple-A developers haven't been able to create, so 100% of the game is fun to play.
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Despite the fact that 100% of the game is fun to play, however, the game does not always run at 100%. Given its Unity origins, I am very surprised that the framerate in Valley is as steady as it is, but the framerate does have a tendency to drop often enough to be noticeable. It never drops too low (save for more chaotic segments towards the end, where it drops to almost unbearably low), but it does drop rather consistently.
Then there is the audio. Valley sports a strong contender for Soundtrack of the Year. It is easy to hear some inspiration from Austin Wintory's Journey soundtrack, so not only is the soundtrack pleasant to listen to, but it is often used situationally (to great effect). However, there is an issue that will be a little difficult to describe. If you've ever used PSNow or any other game streaming service, then you may be familiar with a sound that occurs when the audio lags behind the rest of the game. It is kind of a tearing feedback sound that can't be described. The problem with the audio in Valley is that this kind of lagging audio sound happens pretty consistently. It is soft, so you might not even notice the first few times, but after a while it becomes quite obvious. At first, I thought it might be a part of the soundtrack, but it can't be.
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Valley is a game that never lets you get bored. Every time that I started to think that Valley's race was run, it would introduce a new mechanic that made the gameplay fresh again. That is a quality not seen in very many games. Here is the thing: Regardless of its score, I don't know if Valley will make the cut for Game of the Year this year, just because I don't know what kind of longevity it will end up having. However, it is sure to be in the top 5 at least, no matter what. Valley is just that good on its own, but it is also the biggest surprise of this year. I sincerely hope that we get to see more projects from Blue Isle Studios in the future. It is safe to say that I'll be keeping my eye on them, because they have proven themselves.
So, let us review the negatives:

Technical Issues - 0.5

I am proud to say that Valley earns the highest score I've given since adopting my new scoring system. The final verdict is:

9.5/10 - Absolutely Outstanding
Excellent work, Blue Isle Studios, excellent work.