Vay

I am probably one of the few persons who does not go "P'TEWY!" after saying "Sega CD." This was one of my favorite video game systems ever and I think it is unfairly underrated.

Anyway, "Vay" (pronounced vEYE) was my favorite video game on that system. It had a superb story and great voice acting. The graphics may not have been the greatest, but the gameplay was top-notch. The cine-cuts were also ahead of their time, albeit the colors could have used some brightening. The music is what I REALLY loved, tho. That techno soundtrack really carried the game along.

Still, remains one of my favorite and I would love to see one of the new generation systems redo it.

Vay was another game I used to play when I was working at a video game store. This was another great release from Working Designs. The original game was produced in Japan and WD made a version for the North American Market during the mid-nineties. The version I played was on the Sega Cd and it's older than the date indicated on IMDb. What I love about Vay is that the story line is cool and the characters are very likable. It's very dark and the apocalyptic overtones made this game all the more interesting. Unlike the Lunar series, Vay didn't catch on and it wasn't remade for other consoles.

The Sega CD was unfairly maligned during it's day. But it did produce several interesting video games and a few winners.

Highly recommended

Had Vay been localized by any company except Working Designs, it's rather unlikely I'd have rated this game at anything more than a 5. I'll get to the reason why in a minute. But first, the strikes the game has against it. There is no gameplay here that hadn't been seen before, and apart from the cut-scenes, the environs are rather average-looking. So what sets this game apart from the numerous other 16-bit RPGs released in the early 90's?

The answer is in the translation. Whereas nearly all of Vay's contemporaries were brought to western audiences by translators who did little more than convert the Japanese text to English verbatim, Working Designs actually attempted to make the text more accessible to English-speaking players. Vay contains numerous pop-culture references and some rather off-color jokes, including a bizarre reason why one supporting character is called the "Wind" Fairy. Yet even with all of the goofiness, there are a few lines and scenes in the game that rank up there with some of Hollywood's finest sound bites. ("The game is *over*, puppet. Time to cut your strings!!")

If you still have a working Sega CD and can find an inexpensive copy of Vay somewhere, I recommend you snatch it up. Though the game is one of Working Designs' weaker titles, Vay still delivers enough fun and nostalgia to make revisiting it worthwhile.