What you're getting in Valdis Story: Abyssal City is a combat centric Metroidvania game set in a world torn apart by warring celestial factions. The visuals and soundtrack are both excellent and help the game stand out amongst other indie games. You will also find some questionable game design and mediocre writing.
Not only is the combat in Valdis Story a joy to play but it is also a source of a lot of replayability. This is due to RPG elements including player selected stats, skill trees and a wide variety of gear as well as each weapon having a significantly different play style. You can find forums online where people discuss their builds and which ones they like the best. Clearly there is a lot to like about the system and it has many people coming back for multiple playthroughs of the game. I think that the stats on gear deserve special praise because each one has unique elements that are so much more than your standard "+4 STR +4 STAM leather belt." Many of the skill tree options could be given this same praise.
At this time there are two playable characters, each with 3 unique weapons plus unarmed (which plays differently for each character and is a viable weapon choice) as well as their own skill tree. Both progress through the game in the same order but the dialogue is different, providing another viewpoint of the plot and a deeper knowledge of the lore behind this universe. The developers have promised 2 more characters but seem to be making slow progress on them. At the time of this writing the game has been out for 15 months and the 3rd character is supposed to be released "soon" with no estimate on the 4th character.
The visuals remind me of a top quality SNES game but with a higher resolution to smooth things out. Rich colors expertly applied along with a broad mix of cool, anime inspired characters make for an appealing looking game. Many games with much larger budgets have soundtracks that are made with great production values but still manage to lack that artistic flair that makes them memorable. Valdis Story has that artistic something.
That special spark does not transfer over to the writing, however. I really felt like there was a missed opportunity to bring these characters to life. Instead, you get average dialogue that mostly serves to advance the story and tell you what to do next. This is unfortunate because the developers clearly put some effort into coming up with an interesting backstory and locale to set the game in.
For a game that heavily features exploration it has some archaic and downright bad game design in this area. First, the map is pretty terrible. It's about as basic as they come with squares for rooms and a bit of color coding. Nothing is labeled by name and you can never see a full world map. So until you've memorized which zone lines lead where, expect to be wandering around trying to remember how to get to where you want to go. There are also no marks for where collectables are located. Now, I don't expect those to be there from the start but I really liked Guacamelee's feature where once you had come in close proximity to a treasure it would appear on the map. Often times in Metroidvania games you'll be able to see where a treasure is before you have the necessary ability to actually get to it. Valdis Story leaves it entirely up to your memory to keep track of those, which I think is a game design that doesn't lend itself to being fun.
As for those abilities that allow you to reach new places: there's flaws here too. The major problem I have is that they take up limited spell slots. So if you want to have a full range of motion you have to use up 3 of your 4 spell slots. This makes playing as a mage less fun because you frequently have to open the menu to swap to different spells. Playing on a PlayStation controller the R2 button is held then you use each of the directional buttons to cast the spell you want. R1 is the only unused button and could have easily been used for a second set of 4 spells or could even be locked to the 3 movement spells if the developers felt extra spell slots would unbalance things. The final critique I'll mention is that if you get hit while in the air your character locks up and you can't do a thing until you hit the ground, no matter how far you fall. This feels outdated and, again, somewhere where the developers lost track of the end goal of being fun.