A VALLEY WITHOUT WIND 2

When we last left A Valley without Wind well, there wasn't wind. What there was a strange mash up of about fifteen different game ideas, from really granular resource-management to magic-casting action to RPG-style character equipment to    let's be honest, Metric. It was a very strange, strange bird. But for the most part, it worked. Now we find ourselves with Valley 2: Electric Boogaloo, which gives the mix a few more whips and a few more genres, too. Remember how there were survivors and settlements in the original version? Well, now, they're all on the world map, where they have to be shuffled around and directed in turn-based strategy format. That's right, they've taken the batter that is Valley 2and folded in a heaping' helping' of Civilization. It makes for a richer, flakier crust, and better video game! Alton Brown was right.

So in the year after the world went boom, the dark forces responsible for all that nonsense are recruiting, and passing out dark crystals granting immortality to those deemed to be particularly useful pawns. Unfortunately for Mr. Dark Satan Evil hooves, though, your character (chosen from a generated lineup at the outset of the game) is in fact a covert operative of a resistance movement, who now has their champion in the fight against the monsters. But this time, you can't do it alone; no, you also have to martial the remaining survivors to build new structures, gather food and scrap materials, defend said structures from the waves of enemies coming from the big evil tower in the middle of the area, or search out and recruit new allies. One "turn," in the Civilization sense, includes issuing orders to your units and/or moving them around, then taking your hero out into the field to claim some new territory from the darkness.

Each square unit of the over world map plays outgas a side-scrolling action plat former, culminating in the destruction of an evil    storm generator? Evil dude's making it rain and that's it? Oh well, at least the actions pretty awesome. Your hero chooses from one of five disciplines at the outset, which determine which suite of attacks you'll be using. I chose the water-bending style and got a ground-travelling projectile, a weaker straight projectile, a high-powered bouncing attack, and a bunch of floating orbs that actually cost spell ammunition, so nuts to that. The extensive equipment system of the last outing is now compacted into a single piece that lasts until it breaks or you die.

My favorite piece of gear gave me triple-attacks the entire time I wore it, turning me into lean, mean, water-slinging machine. The animations are still a bit choppy and stiff despite being a sound improvement over the last outing, but the soundtrack more than makes up for it. But the most important change is in the writing; an advisor now guides you through the early game, rather than leaving it to a series of tombstones. Between thousand the refined mechanics, the whole experience feels much more approachable, which is welcome considering - don't know if you've noticed - THIS IS A MASHUP OF METROID AND CIVILIZATION. And it works better.  

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