The Vita certainly is a strange beast. Every time it seems like the little handheld is on its last leg, a title comes out of nowhere and proves the Vita has a lot of life left in it. Despite the lack of support from major developers or Sony itself, smaller publishers and the indie scene have kept the games coming to the Vita throughout 2017 with more coming over the next year, fans of the handheld have little to worry about. However, before we close the book on 2017, we have one more surprise for the PSVita in the form of Project Xenon Valkyrie+ from Cowcat Games and Diabolical Mind.

Embracing its retro ascetic from the onset, Project Xenon Valkyrie+’s story is summed up in a brief cutscene that happens upon booting up the game. While this optional cutscene doesn’t do much to inspire the player with a brilliant story, Xenon Valkyrie manages to expand an otherwise generic tale of darkness engulfing a peaceful world through the use of the game’s NPC. This allows the player to get as much or as little of the story as they wish.

I enjoy this take on storytelling, especially for a game in this retro style, as it allows players who simply want to play the game the option to ignore a bulk of the world building and enjoy the game, while giving those who are more interested in the storytelling something to sink their teeth into.

Xenon Valkyrie has the privilege of offering an odd combination of genres as a 2D rouge-like, action-platformer with RPG elements. Once you start the game, you’ll be given the option of one of three characters to play as. Each character has slightly different starting attributes and weapons and each has their own special ability. The game doesn’t give you much to go on with any of these characters, however, tasking the player with trying each of them individually to see which best fits their playstyle. I personally enjoyed using Eloen, as I found her ability to use explosives much more useful than either Nue or Renna’s ability.

Being a rogue-like title, it’s important that you know going in that Xenon Valkyrie isn’t going to hold your hand. When you die, your character loses all of their levels and equipment, but unlike games like Dark Souls, in Xenon Valkyrie there is no reclaiming your lost gear, so in this game death is permanent. While this may sound like a detriment, I found this aspect of Xenon Valkyrie to be the most engaging. With stages being randomly generated, revisiting levels never felt boring, and since equipment you find is randomized as well it was always great to see just how far I could go after finding a new weapon that was more powerful than what I had previously.