That was the question that immediately came to mind when I spotted King's Valley II: The Seal of El Giza's name on the list of results that turned up when I did a Google search for "the best MSX games." I couldn't believe that I either missed seeing it or let it escape from my memory, particularly after remembering that I'd done multiple searches for the original in the prior months and that sequels always tend to show up in the results. "That's something only the perpetually oblivious younger version of me would have managed to do," I said to myself, shaking my head in embarrassment.
But suddenly there it was, stealing all of my attention, essentially saying to me, "Hey, moron--how did you miss out on this action?"
A couple of weeks later, when my schedule was finally cleared, I decided that the time was right to get a hold of King's Valley II and give it a look.
Honestly, though, I went into it thinking that King's Valley II wasn't going to be anything special. This was the case because I glanced at some preview screenshots while the game was downloading, and based on what I saw, I was suddenly overcome with the terrible sense that King's Valley II was nothing more than a retread--merely a visually upgraded version of the original. And after coming to that conclusion, I knew what my approach was going to be: I figured that I'd play it for twenty minutes or so, get my fill of its highly derivative puzzle action, and then promptly move on--instead spend the majority of my free time seeking out more-interesting, more-unique-looking MSX games.
"Really, this appears to be King's Valley just with snazzier graphics and better sound quality, since it's an MSX2 game and all," I thought to myself. "So twenty minutes is probably about all it deserves."
Cut ahead to a week later, and there I was, starting hour number 20 of my all-consuming play-through of King's Valley II and engaging in what had become a nightly ritual. I was deeply immersed in what was showing itself to be one of the most expansive, engrossing puzzle-platformers I'd ever played. And the whole time, all I could think was, "I've got to talk about this game on the blog! There are so many appealing aspects to it--so many things I want to tell everyone about!"
In fact, I was feeling so inspired that, as I was in the midst of playing through the game, I was already in the process of formatting my notes and snapping screenshots and doing so in anticipation of such a moment.
And now, my friends, that moment has finally arrived! So, if you will, kindly spare me some of your time and let me tell you all about King's Valley II and why's it's such a shiny gem!
The original King's Valley, which I talked about in length in a dedicated Unearthed Treasures piece, is a cleverly designed little puzzle-platformer that challenges you to clear out pyramid tombs by tactically unearthing their treasures and doing so while deftly evading the tombs' angry, aggressive guardians. It takes Lode Runner-style digging mechanics, Pac-Man-style enemy scripting, and the type of simple, intuitive platforming that was so common in mid-80s-era arcade-like games and mixes them together to create something that is much greater than the sum of its parts: a wonderfully unique puzzler that captures your interest by providing you a bunch of tools and inviting you to use them however you please--by giving you the freedom to traverse and carve your way through its stages in any manner you so choose.It's quite a compelling game.
Konami obviously realized as much. It knew that it had gold in its hands. That's why it was keen to provide King's Valley an upgraded, larger-in-scope sequel and therein make an earnest effort to build and improve upon its formula.
The result of that ambition is King's Valley II: The Secret of El Giza--a top-tier puzzle-platformer and one of the MSX's best games.
Like in the original King's Valley, your adventure takes you to the Pyramids. This time, though, you're probing not the ones in Egypt but rather those on Planet Remool, which are somehow connected to the former! (I'll attempt to explain this silliness a bit later on.) But it turns out that this information is merely a narrative element and doesn't do anything to inform the game's presentation; were you not told as much by the manual's story description, you'd never guess that this game was set in the distant future. You'd see what looked to be your classic Old Kingdom-era pyramids and assume that King's Valley II was set maybe two or three years after the original.
So once again you'll find yourself probing the Pyramids' trap-filled tombs with the intention of cleaning them out. Your goal in each stage is to procure all of its Soul Stones (the golden orbs that are seen laying about everywhere), doing which allows you to unlock the tomb's sealed door and advance deeper into the Pyramids' vast innards and specifically into the successive tomb. You meet this goal by putting to use your platforming skills, some calculated excavation, and a lot of tactically evasive maneuvering.
In his default state, though, the protagonist is quite limited; he has no basic fighting or digging abilities, and both the height and the length of his jump measure in at a measly one tile. So if you hope to succeed in your mission, you're going to have to constantly grab hold of and make smart use of the weapons and one-use digging items that are strewn throughout the tombs--ward off enemies by clobbering them with blunt instruments and cutting off their access to you, and use whichever tools are available to you to unearth Soul Soul stones that are buried beneath or enclosed within structures.
"That's great and all, but, what exactly is different about King's Valley II?" you ask, impatiently, feeling as though you've heard all of this before.Well, plenty, actually.
It's all about the additions.
In the original King's Valley, there was merely one digging tool--the pick-axe--and it could only be used to dig down through a entire layer of blocks. Here you have pick-axe plus three additional tools: A shovel that digs down through a single layer of blocks. A hammer that can break through a single layer of wall. And a power drill that can cut through two layers of wall.
And because you're now working with a number of disparately functioning tools, your approach to excavating Soul Stones changes significantly, and suddenly a much deeper level of analyzation is required. Now, when preparing to procure an enclosed or buried Soul Stone, you have to consider four things--ask yourself four separate questions: (1) Which combination of tools do I need? (2) If I can't jump while holding tools, will I be able to transport the ones I have in mind over to this particular area? (3) From which direction should I tunnel my way in? And (4) how, if at all, will my altering of this structure impact my ability to traverse the rest of the tomb?
And that added dimension, alone, works to make King's Valley II a substantially more absorbing puzzler. You're put in a place where have to think like a level designer; you have to study the stages' layouts and essentially reverse engineer them--examine each wall and surface and understand why they were positioned the way they were. And once you're in that mode, you won't want to exit it; you'll be too engrossed. Soon you'll be deep within the game's grasp, and, really, there will be no other place you'd rather be.
In terms of size, King's Valley II is much more than a modest upgrade. It's a large, lengthy game. It contains 6 separate areas, each of which is comprised of 10 increasingly challenging puzzle stages (the original only had 15 stages in total). So be aware that if you decide to play the game all the way through, you're going to have to spend a whole lot of time with it--somewhere between 15-20 hours.It takes that long because King's Valley II features a much greater level of complexity. For one thing, its stages are generally larger, more intricately structured and more interconnected than the original's, which at their largest were two screens in size and purely horizontal. This game, in contrast, contains many in the way of multiple-screen stages that expand in all directions. Also, there are two different types of stage arrangements: Those in which you naturally transition between adjacent screens and those in which can only access adjacent screens or portions of a current screen by screen-wrapping your way around to them, Vampire Killer-style (this makes me think that both games shared the same development team).
And, of course, there are now more ways to dig and cut your way through the stages' environments. Though, that in and of itself isn't what makes the excavation aspect more complex. Rather, it's the rigidity of the process; it's that there's normally only one correct method for excavating a tomb's collection of Soul Stones--a very specific order of operations. And if you hope to figure out what that order is, you have to carefully examine the stage layout, take note of every available tool, and, in many cases, engage in some heavy trial and error. Making one wrong move can render a puzzle completely unsolvable.
This makes King's Valley II way more unforgiving than its predecessor, which in contrast grants the player some degree of freedom; it allows you to get away with one or two ill-considered pick-axe strikes and despite as much find a working solution. Here you're provided no such leeway; if you incorrectly use a single tool, you're screwed.
I have to admit, though, that I miss the original's sense of freedom. I very much liked being able to experiment with the digging tools and come up with unique methods for excavating Soul Stones--to improvise my own solutions. There's nothing wrong with how King's Valley II is designed, no (most puzzle-platformers, including many of the genre's best, are tightly constructed), but it'd be an even better game, I think, if it included a few unscripted stages--those that allowed for you to apply unrestrained creativity and continue to come up with novel solutions.
King's Valley II is a better-designed game, yes, but when I play it, I can't help but long for that element of rawness that so drew me to the original. I wish that at least a small portion of it would have carried over to the sequel.
Though, King's Valley II, for however unforgiving it is, is still far more playable than the original because it doesn't desire to limit your opportunities. Sure--it starts you with only one life--three less than what you get at the start of original--but it also provides you the means to earn several more in short periods of time: You're awarded an extra life every time you complete a stage and whenever you accrue 30,000 points. And you can earn three lives by completing the slide puzzles found in the game's bonus rooms, which are hidden from view; they appear when you jump about (randomly) near the tiles that conceal them. There are a bunch of these bonus games hidden throughout the game.In truth, though, I only found one of these bonus rooms during my play-through, and that was by accident (at the time, I wasn't even aware that they existed). So keep in mind that when I say that there are "a bunch of them," I'm taking the manual's word for it.
Now, I've never been a fan of jump-in-random-locations-to-reveal-secrets mechanics, but I'm actually fine with King's Valley II's making use of such a system. Its presence helps to add an important atmospheric touch: It creates the sense that there's far more to the pyramids than what we're seeing--that there are big secrets hiding beyond their every surface. It imbues the game's world with an alluring air of mystery and thus strongly influences how you perceive it. And, really, that's what a game about exploring ancient pyramids should do!
Oh, and the game provides you passwords after each stage, so you can simply restart your adventure from the tomb in which you failed, with the only penalty being the loss of points. That's a very small price to pay for not having to replay all of the previous stages.
King's Valley II is an MSX2 game, so it's not surprising that its visuals are vastly superior to the original's. Whereas King's Valley had a rudimentary look--the type associated with early computer games, which were known to contain crudely-drawn characters and objects, a limited amount of colors, and single-hue backgrounds--King's Valley II has the appearance of a high-end NES game. All of its characters and objects are finely rendered. Its textures are richly colored, highly detailed and brightly toned (in some cases a little too brightly toned, I have to say). Its colors really pop. And in general, its environments have such a magnificent glow to them; they're so smooth-looking and so vivid that they always appear to be reflecting light.So yeah--King's Valley II is quite an attractive-looking game.
What's more is that each of its six areas has a distinct visual theme and a variety of backgrounds. And all such backgrounds are intricately designed, and it's always the case that they sport interesting patterns and eye-catching renderings of weird demonic creatures. And in instances when the game recycles backgrounds, it makes sure to alter their palettes in some way--a small change, yes, but one that goes a long way toward averting a feeling of sameness.
I like how the settings become futuristic-looking when you enter the game's final area. Suddenly backgrounds are populated with computerized panels, circuitry and all kinds of glowing lights. It's a nice bit of environmental conveyance; upon gauging these visuals, those who went in without having read the manual will start will to think about the game's world in different terms. "Are we in the future or something?" they'll begin to wonder. And for them, that'll be part of the fun.
For everyone, in fact, examining King's Valley II's environments will be part of the fun. They're just so interesting; they're filled with so many cool little details.
Be sure to stop and gaze at them if you can find the chance.
King's Valley II also does much to take advantage of the MSX2's improved audio capabilities. Its music has to it both great depth and reverberance, and its tunes are complex in both structure (each track utilizes three sound channels) and composition. Furthermore, its music has to it that wonderfully distinct form of instrumentation that many of Konami's late-80s MSX games used: that highly pronounced, deeply sonorous synth that's so rich in quality that it seems to transcend the platform's actual sound hardware and instead originate from some higher, perhaps-otherworldly source. For context: It sounds a lot like the music heard in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which is known to have amazingly resonant sound quality.Also, of course, the music has a strong Egyptian vibe to it and the type that works to generate a relaxed mood; really, it's the perfect music for a game about that's all about examining and thinking about puzzle-filled pyramid tombs. Though, its vibe is just unsettling enough to keep you feeling somewhat apprehensive--to plant in your mind the idea that danger is lurking behind every brick and that guardians are stalking you even when it seems that none occupy the current space. It wants not to break your focus but to instead disrupt it a bit--make you believe that it's not safe to remain still and stare at the screen for long periods; that the world around you is absolutely in motion and that you're not necessarily out of danger just because there's no activity occurring in your current location.
What's interesting is that each of the stage themes has its own unique tone--one that could be anything from mysterious to upbeat to enigmatic--yet, somehow, it finds itself imbued with that same quality. Whether it's delighting you or putting you in an investigative mood, it does brilliantly to produce that same understated feeling of anxiety and likewise evoke thoughts that unseen forces are silently stalking you. Whoever the sound director was, he or she knew exactly how to subtly subvert players and enter them into a mode wherein they were largely ignorant of how they were being manipulated.
That King's Valley II is able to toy with your emotions in such a manner is a big part of its appeal. It's how it cleverly bewitches you.
And every one of game's tunes is wonderfully composed. Each is comprised of a trio of vibrant, lively note strings that playfully interact with each other and in doing so create a melody that is both catchy and entrancing. As a tune's power takes hold of you, you'll feel inspired to sway back and forth in rhythm to its beat--give yourself over to it in a moment of willing surrender.
The music is that good.
King's Valley II has terrific sound design in general. All of its sound effects are crisp, clear and, much like the music, highly reverberant. Actions sound exactly as they should: digging tools drill, clack and bang; weapons, while in flight, emit propeller-like sounds; the guardians' explosions blare; and coffin lids slam shut.
King's Valley II is, to put it simply, a great-sounding 8-bit game.
Of course, you can play King's Valley II with either a controller or a keyboard, though only movement and "action" (jumping or using a digging tool or a weapon when one is in hand) are mapped to the former. To input function commands, you have to use the keyboard's function keys. Pressing F1 pauses the game. Pressing F2 while the game is paused prompts a map display. Pressing F4 toggles the music on and off (a useful option in those moments when you're trying to focus intently but can't because the music is starting to grate on you). And pressing F5 causes you to self-destruct, which you'll want to do when you find yourself trapped or when you've irrevocably messed up a puzzle; naturally you expend a single life when you do this.There's one cool little detail I have to mention: the game's pause animation. Whenever the action is halted, the hero starts to do push-ups! And as the seconds pass, he starts doing them faster and faster until he hits maximum speed, at which point he starts to strain and sweat begins to fly off of him.
It's a small detail, yeah, but one that provides the game so much character. It tells you that the developers weren't content to offer what was "standard"--that they wanted to go the extra mile and therein do whatever they could to charm you.
The tombs' guardians will do what they can to stop you. There are four enemy types, and each acts in a scripted way: There's (1) Slouman, a white mummy that emerges from a coffin and then proceeds to aimlessly wander about the stage. (2) Flouman, a gold mummy that is both speedy and tenacious; this one endlessly stalks you and does so using whichever pathways are most convenient. (3) Pyoncy, an undead pharaoh that slowly hops about the stage and generally stalks you. And (4) an interesting new enemy called Rock Roll--a stone golem that spawns in, looks back and forth for three seconds, and then curls into a ball and rolls in your direction; after he slams into a wall or drops to a lower level, he comes to a stop for about eight seconds--a span during which you can make contact with him without taking damage.Rock Roll serves as an obstructive force, yes, but he can also be an unwitting helper. In those moments when he's in ball form and immobile, you can safely jump atop him and use him as a one-tile-high platform. In fact, there are times when you have to interact with him in this manner; there are stages in which you're required to lure him (or them, if we're talking about stages in which two or more Rock Rolls are present) over to certain screen portions and use him as a makeshift platform; in such instances, your ability to find further access becomes fully dependent on how well you're able to manipulate Rock Roll's movements.
Really, it's a pretty novel enemy mechanic. I don't recall seeing anything like it in older puzzle games. And whenever I play any post-1988 puzzle game that contains something similar--a mechanic that has you manipulating enemies and turning them into unwitting allies--I can't help but think that its developers got the idea from King's Valley II.
All enemies share one ability: teleportation. If they (a) become trapped, (b) run out of lower levels to drop down to, or (c) find themselves well out of range of you, they can teleport back to their original starting positions for the purpose of restarting their cycles.
Also, of course, making physical contact with any of these guardians will result in instant death.
You can defend yourself from these guardians by striking them with any weapon of which you can get a hold--any of those that are strewn about the stage. This time, there are two weapon types. There's the returning sword, which functions the same: It flies straight ahead and continues traveling forward until it hits an enemy or a wall, after which it falls to the ground or to a lower level if there's no floor directly below. And then there's the newly introduced boomerang, which functions as expected: It travels horizontally at about a four-and-half-tile distance and then returns to you; if you're not there to catch it, it continues to fly in its current direction until it hits a wall or an enemy.
What's funny is that swords and boomerangs will travel along indefinitely if they're thrown on screens or screen-sets that contain wrapping mechanics. They'll just keep on goin', endlessly looping. You can actually use this to your advantage: If you want to give yourself a little cover as you traverse a level, you can initiate a weapon loop, doing which will allow you to temporarily keep that entire level free of enemies. Also, it gives you a way to attack enemies while retaining your jump!
When an enemy is destroyed, it'll respawn back at its original starting position after about five seconds have passed.
Interestingly (and I didn't know this until very recently), the events in King's Valley II take place in the distant future, centuries after the original's occurred. The game's manual tells us that the hero is "Vick XIII," the current head of the Vick family, and that he's the main player in a weirdly complex story that involves interplanetary archaeology and pyramids that can transport souls. Basically explorers and scholars probed too deeply into the pyramids and unintentionally destabilized their tombs' power flow, and now Vick XIII has to save the Earth from the destructive force of the "accumulated power of the pyramids," which will be unleashed if he fails to put an end to the core functions of El Giza, "the central pyramids linked to the pyramids of Earth." To do this, he must collect and destroy all of the Soul Stones.
So yeah--there's that element of the game. Did you get all of it?
I think it's great, actually. I mean, sure, the story is kind of silly and really not necessary, but the fact that it's so detailed tells you something. It shows us, again, that there was no part of this project that Konami was treating as an afterthought. They put earnest effort into every aspect of the game--even those that we regard as trivial. The development team went ahead and created an entire universe for their little puzzle game, and I appreciate that they took the time to do this.
It's worth mentioning that the game has a surprisingly robust Edit Mode/Stage Creation Mode. It allows for you make your own multi-screen stages and cram in as many weapons, traps and enemies as you like. If you're into that sort of thing, you might want to give it a look. It could be worth getting into, since apparently there's still an active scene for King's Valley 2 stage-creation.Will you find me there, though? Probably not. Stage-creation isn't something into which I'd ever invest a serious amount of time, since I have no aptitude for level design. Read my Wrecking Crew Memory Bank piece if you want to know why that is.
Also, I have to mention that King's Valley II has an unexpected link to one of our other favorite Konami series. I'm happy to tell you that Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin reuses music from this game! Background theme Demo Among Pyramid is given new life as In Search of the Secret Spell, which plays in the first half of the Forgotten City portrait area, and the simply titled BGM5 becomes Sandfall, which plays in the Forgotten City's second half!
It's a cool little connection, and it feels natural because King's Valley II and the Forgotten City have a similar theme: traveling through pyramids while being hounded by undead creatures (mummies and the like).
I always appreciate it when game companies give some type of acknowledgement to their past works, even if it's just a little nod.
And, lastly, I have to say that King's Valley II has quite a moving credits theme. It catches you off guard because you don't expect this obviously nonserious game to bring its events to a close with such an evocative, melancholic piece. It's too bad that very few people will ever hear it.For me, it always evokes the same thoughts and emotions: I'm reminded of how sad it is that so many of these little gems have either gone overlooked or become lost to history. Though, as the more-optimistic final verse begins to sound, I'm suddenly filled with hope--a hope that one day legacy services will significantly expand in scope and start to welcome wonderful platforms like the MSX, the Amiga, and the Atari ST. Appearing on the Virtual Console only in Japan doesn't cut it; these platforms need to be brought to the world! That way, enthusiasts everywhere will be able to joyfully delve into the history of their favorite medium!
And I'll be happy if I can play a part in making that happen.
Closing Thoughts
Over the course of my life, I've played a lot of really great puzzle-platformers and action-puzzlers, but there are only a few of them that I'd consider to be absolute top-tier (Solomon's Key, Donkey Kong '94, Toki Tori, those from the Adventures of Lolo series, and a few others). They form an exclusive list and one that's hard to crack because its games have set such a ridiculously high standard. And because the bar is set so high, it has become immensely difficult for any puzzler to attain that status--to impress me to such a significant degree.But I'll tell you what: King's Valley II has actually managed to do it. In our time together, it has demonstrated for me that it possesses all of the qualities necessary to crack the list and earn its place among those I consider to be the puzzle genre's all-time best works. It has everything that one would need to qualify: Its puzzles are well-thought-out, cleverly constructed, and fun to think about and solve. Its controls are solid. Its visuals and textures are sleekly rendered, finely detailed, and rich with eye-pleasing colors (with strikingly lustrous earth tones, appropriately). Its music is high in quality, amazingly resonant, and wonderfully beguiling; and it features some of the most impressive instrumentation you'll ever hear in an 8-bit game! And the atmosphere it creates is so unforgettably entrancing.
King's Valley II is just an all-around engaging game. It has a way of charming you and slowly taking you into is grasp. And when you're fully under its power, you'll no doubt be happy to be find yourself in such a state; you'll see that King's Valley II's style of subversion is a tremendously appealing one.
And that's when you'll realize, as I did, that King's Valley II is one of the best of its kind.
Be warned, though, that it's quite a difficult game. If you hope to beat it, you're going to have to devote many an hour to the cause, even if you're a puzzle-game master. Believe me: That thinking cap of yours will be completely worn out by the time you reach the credits. Though, certainly, you'll feel a sense of satisfaction. Every time I play an MSX game, I'm overcome by the same feeling: I wish that I'd known about the MSX's existence back in the 80s, when it was most relevant. When its was a burgeoning scene. My younger self would have loved to spend time exploring its library (well, whichever games would have been included in my more-adventurous brother's likely-huge library) and becoming intimately familiar with its collection of delightfully entertaining arcade-like action games and puzzlers--with wonderfully unique puzzle-platformers like King's Valley II.Today, these are the types of games that attract me to the MSX; they're what inspire me to continue digging ever-deeper into the platform's library. And as the journey continues on, I hope to discover many more of them--many more of the MSX's hidden gems.
And if I'm lucky, all of them will be just as shiny as King's Valley II: The Seal of El Giza.
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