Vay

My favorite game console is the Sega CD, so Vay has a special place in my heart. There were CD-ROM based consoles that predated it, but Sega had so much market share that more companies jumped at the opportunity to produce and localize games with awesome FMV and redbook audio in the west. Vay is essential playing for anyone with a passing interest in JRPGs shift from game cartridges to CD-ROM technology. It's firmly rooted in the traditions of the former and stumbles figuring out how to implement the latter with spontaneous, short cutscenes. The first time I played Vay it was an absolute grind, with insane encounter rates that made gathering your bearings incredibly difficult. The final dungeon required me to grind my characters SEVENTEEN levels, which took days. I had a lot of time to do this when I finished college, willfully unemployed while I waited to get my teaching certificate, but now I couldn't really manage that. The game is actually the weakest in the Sega CD library after Dark Wizard, Lunar, and Shining Force CD, but it still has that early CD-ROMantic quality that makes me feel like a kid again. With all the quality of life improvements, I managed to skid through the game in 7 hours! Who cares if a fully fledged RPG isn't great when you can finish it in a few evenings? I used exp and gold multipliers and only turned off random encounters during one super long series of backtracking quests. Some people are complaining that this isn't the Working Designs port, but Vay was their weakest localization anyway. This is essentially the same experience with a lot of cool features, making it THE definitive version. A must for people interested in this interstitial time when CD-ROM tech was rapidly becoming mainstream, bad for anyone who dislikes old school grinding.

Vay is not a classic RPG. It's an average game, an okay game. But I had a Sega CD when I was a kid and I played this title a lot. This port adds some great features to make this grind heavy JRPG a lot /less/ of a grind fest. You've got experience and gold modifiers, faster running speeds, and the ability to turn off enemy encounters. These features make an unforgiving old RPG a lot more enjoyable. But this is not a good port. This version is based off of an old mobile port and you can tell. Blowing up the game to full screen immediately introduces blurriness and artifacting to the graphics. There is a toggle to turn off dithering to get rid of the blurriness, making the pixels of the sprites pop. But this only affects the graphics on the world map. Battle sprites are still very blurry. But the biggest offender are the cutscenes. These are so blurry and so bogged down with artifacting that they are almost unwatchable. Also if you are expecting a nice new translation, you will be disappointed. The terrible pop culture reference filled Working Designs localization has been replaced by the terrible pop culture reference filled Somoga localization. You have references to Aliens, Princess Bride, and most astonishingly there is a sequence where a character tries to placate a monster with NSync lyrics. Also, achievements are busted. Not for everyone, but for some people. This should be an easy thumbs down, but... I am giving it a thumbs up. Yes, it's not a great game. Yes, the port is not great. Yes, the translation is horrible. But... It is a port of an old RPG that is impossible to play anywhere else. Somoga have taken something inaccessible and made it accessible. And it looks like they will be providing updates. So I have to give them praise. Vay might not be the port I would like it to be, but maybe Somoga have it in them to give it the facelift needed to make it a great one.

I ordered this game because I had originally played it on the Sega CD over 30 years ago. Unfortunately, I opted for a refund because this version is not the Working Designs version like I hoped it would be (In hindsight, I should have researched it more before buying it in the first place...lesson learned). The music and game play are virtually the same; however, the cinematic audio has been completely redone and it's horrible. I'm a purist; so, these types of changes are bothersome to me. As enjoyable as the original version was, I don't think this game was influential enough in its heyday to warrant a re-release especially if the original folks couldn't be involved.

I wasn't sure what to expect going into this. The Sega Genesis was one of the only consoles I never had growing up. So I wasn't sure if the positive reception to this remaster was nostalgia fuelled. It wasn't. This is a fun li'l game (with admittedly silly voice acting - I've been told the original was much better on that front). It's your typical linear fare of olde, with "you're the only one who can save the world go get all these things that were scattered across the land" type plot. But the added quality-of-life features, such as rapidly increasing the rate (4x!) you get experience and gold, to turning off random battles entirely, make this an excellent jaunt for a busy girl like me. Pleasantly surprised by this one.

It was hard to get a hand on the original game back than (in Germany). And I can only remember that I played the game...but not good or bad parts of it....that means back than it was an game without anything special....only noteworthy because of the lack of JRPG for the Mega. Now this game....My guess is that no one would complain if they had improved the game. Especially the low-res graphics. And I can't think that the game was that easy to play (usually you needed to gain 4 - 5 levels before even thinking about going into the first dungeon). Maybe this is a game for those playing an JRPG for the first time...no, if they would do they would never play an JRPG again. Left only nostalgic players....but even they (my guess as one of them) would be dissapointed.

A very simple 90s jrpg. Completion took around 10 hours. The last dungeon is absolutely terrible and was the longest one. The game does have random difficulty spikes throughout. This version does offer cheats and will make it substantially easier. For the price it is definitely worth a look, but I would live to have lunar.

Excellent remake of one of my favorite Sega CD Games. I love the option to turn off random encounters and the fast walking. Minor touches go a long way with these older games.

Oi Vay !!!

I want to give a warning before I begin this review. I only recommend this version of the game for those who don't own the original Sega CD version (which is can cost somewhere between $75 to $300 depending on what you are going for, it is a Working Designs release after all) , those who don't have both the Sega CD and the original physical release, or those who want to play on the Steam Deck. Now with that said, I will start. Back in 2011, I was in a retro game kick (thanks to the Wii's Virtual Console) and I wanted to get the Sega CD because I wanted to experience some of the titles worth playing on the Add-On. So while I was on the hunt for games like Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side, Mickey Mania, The Space Adventure, Snatcher, etc., I came across this game called Vay (it's pronounced weirdly, think of the word "My" but change the M to a V so it's not pronounced what people would think of the word "May." It's difficult for me to explain on typing in text on a computer). I looked at the screenshots and thought this looks pretty good. So I got it and loved what I was playing. Yeah sure the combat was about as basic as games like the first seven Dragon Quest titles or Lufia 1 and 2 and random encounters were ridiculously high but I loved the story. I'm not going to explain the story because I don't want to spoil it for everybody. The voice acting ranged from decent to really good (depending on the delivery of course). The music was very memorable for me (especially the battle, boss battle and final boss battle themes) and I can still get those tunes stuck in my head at times. So yeah, this game is definitely on of the best JRPGs I've played not only for the add-on, but in general..... Which is why it's going to be very painful on what I am about to type in here. So this version is based on an 2008 Apple mobile release. It has new voice acting (which is something I am going to talk about later), upscaled FMVs (which look extremely pixelated), new UI, some features to cut down on grinding and farming for gold (also talking about later), the ability to change the name of the characters (which is good so I decided to change the names of the characters to their Sega CD counter parts), and other features. I want to talk about the voice acting in this version. Simply put, it's bad. I mean really bad. Like I want to know who the hell voiced the main character because that individual should of not have been given that role. Ever played "Last Alert" on the Turbo Grafx 16? You know the guy who mentions the Stealth Bombers in the back of the factory? Yeah, THE MAIN CHARACTER SOUNDS LIKE THAT GUY!!!! This is something in rereleased games that I absolutely disdain these days: new voice acting in older video games because the developer or publisher doesn't want to pay the OG actors. For F***'s Sake, just do it, man! I compared the voice acting on both versions and they are Night and Day. Another big thing I noticed about this release is the ability to multiply the amount of XP and Gold. I only recommend doing this is if you are in a grind session because it took forever to grind in the original, but please, don't do it the whole game. I found out people were beating this game in a day. That's not the way this game was meant to be played. The best way I recommend playing this is with HARD MODE turned on when you want to advance the story. It replicates the random encounter rate with that of the Sega CD release. If you want to grind, then turn off HARD MODE, turn up the XP and Gold multipliers up and grind for a while, then turn those off and put HARD MODE back on. The original was a difficult game. You had to grind a lot, just don't exploit these features to a ridiculous degree. Overall, I have to say that this is a pretty disappointing re-release because the core game is good, it just has problems that were not in the original. I wish that this looked more like the Sega CD version (4:3 ratio, original voice acting, button mapping, a proper TITLE SCREEN!!!!) but sadly that never happened. At least this version has achievements, but you can get them all in one playthrough. Until my physical copy dies on me, I will play the SCD version instead. Shame on you SIMS Co. Ltd!!!