Valen Quest - Review by Ozark

[Archive manager note: this review of Valen Quest was written by Ozark in 2019, but was not added to the archive until 2024 (not my fault, I didn't take over until well after). As Valen has continued to run through 2024 and beyond, take the review below with a grain of salt. Also, swear words have been censored to circumvent Pastebin blocking, sorry.]


Review of “Valen Quest”, written by Riz (no prior quests), started in May 2015
Up to Thread 72


Synopsis:

Set in the fantasy country of La’fiel, discover the fate of Irue Valen; heir-apparent to the most prominent noble family of the late centuries, as she fight her scheming family to retain the right to inherit her late parent’s heritage.
With a main cast of slaves turned servants (it’s a long story) whose trust she’ll have to gain quickly, witness her race against the clock to discover the meaning behind the elusive Testament lest she gets declared unfit to lead and becomes married against her will.

Raid dangerous dungeons, lead expeditions into the wild, get eaten by a wild treant then spat out, weave through intrigues and villainous conspiracies, have a shadow-version of you take over then cry all the time, lead your servants towards glory, get stuck in a time-loop for two weeks, bully a small child, make moral decisions with your fate on the line, drive to suicide a tribe of beastkin and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP GETTING F*CKING IMPALED!
Also she has a lot of trouble remembering stuff, I guess? We’ll get to later.

tl;dr: Average fantasy world n°1234… or is it?


Story:

When talking about the story of a quest – so far, because both Court of Swords and Panzermagd are still fairly short – I have tried to stay somewhat vague regarding the story itself since it’s not really suited to being recapped. With Valen Quest this is another story(pun intended) since at 72 threads of densely woven story there is a LOT to unpack.
As pointed out before, the premise to Valen Quest is nothing if generic but it’s the unique way in which the story is driven that makes it so interesting. Coming in blind (though with high expectations), I was expecting either a Banished-bis or a Noble-Intrigue Quest. Valen Quest, at the risk of offending Riz, is neither of these.
At its heart Valen is a quest whose story revolves around its main cast in a way that is emphasized beyond traditional exemples, since it focuses on feelings and getting IN THE QUEST whereas any other quest would have you beat the tar of your enemy to loot its corpse then move on. I have to set a difference between the average /qst/ diplomancing/shadowrunning and Valen’s very personal take on dialogue as this quest needs you to understand yourself (Irue Valen), the others, and what you’re going through to progress through anything. Ateliers, for exemple – this world’s versions of dungeons – can be Conquered but it is widely known that they are actually puzzles whose goal is to have the intruder understand the builder, empathize then learn from their mistakes.

With this insufferable soliloquy out of the way then, what is Valen Quest’s story about?

Simply put, Irue Valen must win a mysterious rite called the Testament involving taking a slave and raising them to be your equal so that you may no longer call them your enemies but instead your friend. Then she’ll be deemed an adult and be eligible as heir, this normally involves only one slave except Irue took three to spite her aunt and uncle… which proves to be a questionable idea.

But Valen Quest is also about heart. It’s about a lone girl whose destiny had always been evident until her remaining family betrayed her and she had to rise to the occasion despite being clearly outmatched by the hardships standing in her way. It’s said very explicitly by Riz that by taking on the three testaments Anon had chosen Hard Mode and it shows as the quest doesn’t pull any punches yet Irues continues, makes friends, enemies, takes risks and crashes and falls and gets up, all to prove that she is an adult and that she deserve to take the lead of the Valen family, something she had been promised all of her life.

All the while, the story ramps up as the stakes grow with Carona – the neighboring city – looming over the horizon and Irue struggling to gain influence in her own domain, let alone the world. In short, the stakes are very much real and it feels like a race against the clock to stay ahead of whatever problem may arise next to finish the Testament.
Now that we are in the second Season of the quest (out of three according to Riz), many elements of the story have nothing to do anymore with the beginning but due to staying in relatively the same area there are many things with which Irue interacted that are having an effect to this point in the region which denotes how densely packed the plot is.
On top of that, characters who’ve had their loyalties proven are now given the chance to shine and shine light on the hidden aspects of the story but also their part, leading to more discoveries and character interactions.
In essence, Valen is more an exploration about Irue Valen’s loveable band of misfits, with continuing developments to this day (it’s rare to see character development this late into a quest but I would argue that each character’s arc is far from over). It’s now the story of a personal struggle rather than what some quest try to achieve, namely complete immersion into another universe.

Note: “I SWEAR IT’S NOT A SITCOM GUYS, COME ON/20”



Setting:

While I said that Valen Quest resembles a character study more than most quest, it doesn’t mean that the universe is uninteresting but I will be the first to admit it is not this quest’s strong point.
When reading quests like Northern Beasts, Lamplighter, and also Joker Quest; it might just be that the dark brooding setting is more appropriate to setting the mood but I can simply imagine details and picture sceneries and environments for it better than for Valen. There were never any moments where I could just picture myself inside of Irue’s journey. As with Panzermagd, the setting needs more details in its more minute reaches to truly gain the appeal one might find in another quest with an “original” base; both to deeply establish the characters and give that much more immersion in the environments.
That said I will be the first to admit that though the lack of details is disappointing, it’s far from a dealbreaker for a quest whose main appeal is its character’s interactions... who could stand to be a bit more detailed, I still have zero ideas what age most of them are.

What’s there and original is already very interesting; it’s not just “Fantasy with a twist” as it goes enough into depth where needed – which sadly isn’t the case everywhere as pointed out before – and can definitely carry the plot especially since so many of the important elements of the quest use those original parts as groundwork for plot-laying. Truly a great lesson for writers everywhere: when making an original setting, focus on its original parts, what makes it truly unique (to an extent, this also applies to fanquests). In this particular setting, Manas are so important that they impact literally every character but in a way that feels different to just “magic A is magic A”.

Note: “YET ANOTHER GENERIC NAME FOR ANOTHER ISEKAI PIECE OF SHIT THAT NOBODY WILL READ EXCEPT THIS TIME IT’S NOT AN ISEKAI AND IT’S PRETTY GOOD AND MAKING A JOKE ON LIGHT NOVEL TITLES DRAGS ON FOR WAY TOO LONG/20”


Writing in general:

Okay... the writing. For me, this is THE thing that distinguishes Valen from any other quest, both in good or bad – because sad as it is, there is some bad there.

While it may look in this section that I will concentrate on a lot of negative stuff I have to assure everybody that the good definitely outweighs the bad but I want to ensure that all the criticism I have is properly explained – a.k.a it’s easy to say something is good but harder to say something is bad then provide proper criticism of it. Plus it’s almost always easier to fix something bad than to improve something excellent and don’t mistake my point there, Valen is mostly excellent even if it could stand to improve in a few areas. I’ll even say Riz has started working on fixing most of these.

To start with the good then, I have to give credit to Riz for the absolutely staggering amount of hindsight/preparation/plot-laying that has been achieved in Valen; each option being its own personal portal to plot devices yet undiscovered or already explored; I’ve never seen a quest in which rereading provided that much details to the present situation. You have situations reaching across multiple threads where the answer was provided twenty threads ago and the repercussions will tangibly affect the plot multiple weeks later; it’s just insane. Chekhov’s gun is in full effect here as characters and objects that have barely been mentioned can suddenly turn up as major plot points that can dramatically affect the course of the quest… or we never see them because we missed an earlier opportunity.

(As a side note, I suspect this is only possible because the tribulations of Irue are fairly well contained geographically and more than often take place in the same region, meaning that there is a fair amount of overarching elements that are effective over a large period of time. It gives it a somewhat unrealistic density of important event per square kilometer but oh well.)

Then there is the world-building itself. It’s very clear that what original content Valen brings to the table has been well thought out and woven into the story. I never thought I could still be surprised by a variant of the classic Elementalist trope (the Adepts, local mages of the setting) but Riz managed to combine classic elements into never before seen ways to give it an entirely fresh flavor.

Another gem is the backstory of the world itself as it is very detailed and engaging in a way few fantasy texts manage to recreate. Too often do we see ancient civilizations where their whole place in the setting is to be “ancient artifact dispensers” and are just left to that with just passing mentions. In Valen not only are there no cliché “Precursor race of eldritch power”, the objects of the past coexist with those of the present in a seamless way; one that really fits the setting. It is absolutely an example to follow on how to properly integrate the past and mystery of your world without it feeling out of place or hammered in. I suppose some might feel confused given my earlier assessment in “Setting” so I’ll outline it this way: Valen’s setting isn’t necessarily original but what is is integrated extremely well in a manner that feels both appropriate, organic and always stays relevant no matter the present occupation of the MC.
But perhaps the crown jewel of Riz’s writing is the mind-blowing amount of effort dedicated to properly translating the player’s actions; be it in their tone or through the consequences they have. The way the quest is written, every choice that the players have made – and the manner in which they expressed each choice – has had a tangible impact each time. There is a great deal of time spent properly combining each Anon’s vote so that it may be woven into the story both in a micro way – the post making sense in character – and a macro way – making each post a tangible anchor that may be called upon during the quest at any time – in a way that meshes well with the rest. Sure there are misunderstandings and times where both parties are frustrated but by large this is the quest where I would say each individual vote matters the most. Something of note, no doubt, since quests are called “collaborative storytelling” by the sticky on /qst/.
However, all is not sunshine and roses in La’Fiel.

There are three main complaints I have to address: choice, pace, stakes (you may find it strange that I already talked about these but keep going).

If Valen Quest places a great amount of emphasis on choice – with tangible and often immediate results – that is all underpinned by the absolutely absurd amount of mysteries, complications and catches that make ALL decision-making an absolute minefield. In essence, I’m somewhat reminded of old school point & click games where clicking the wrong hot-dog would mean you’d choke and die instead of completing the puzzle.

Before I delve into the details of what make the choices hard, a few examples: thread 3; we partly burn our home down with an elemental due to a natural 100 in sandwich making, thread 37; a fan-favorite character is killed due to not understanding the question we were asked, thread 43; we get impaled not once but TWICE which is apparently a good thing according to Riz; thread 67; we finally start to patch over the budding friendship we started with a child… that we tore down with a brutal verbal beat-down fifteen threads ago.

That he choices we make are dependent on things we might not entirely understand is fine. Riz very explicitly doesn’t do take-backs and has emphasized how every action we do carry consequences which is also fine. The modifiers surrounding our choices and their consequences can be VERY long-reaching and still be of importance multiple threads later, which is fine.
However all three combined make every choice a landmine where giving one answer could be dramatic without us even knowing why. Choices need to be clear to be fair and while the occasional exception can be tolerated – with unknown variables giving an enticing part of risk-and-reward –  it is no wonder that some people feel like the quest is an unending slog to win back what we lost at the beginning. Nothing is ever simple, Point A to B, understand how to oust bandits from the forest and send some troops; instead we find out that the bandits are secretly mages of a secret cabal trying to destroy the world via ritual sacrifice which we didn’t prevent thirty threads ago when we were asked a question about whether to interrogate a prisoner for our moral sake(this doesn’t happen by the way but is a good indicating point of how most problems go).
It is absolutely maddening how blind we are about most thing of the world which is justified by Irue being a recluse but isn’t justified at all by the constant barrier our followers put between us. I won’t give anything away but there is a character in the quest that could simply tell us how to use a Relic correctly – and thus avoid a few massive tragedies – but doesn’t for… reasons? It’s explained why later but it’s just frustrating how we struggle with basic shit that could be explained if one person was honest and forthcoming just this once… and most important characters we trust are not.
Making a choice of great importance is fine once in a while, but doing it blind? It’s just brutal and a testament(pun intended) to how making choices without the full picture can f*ck you over in the long run; you might find yourself screaming “WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST TELL US?” at your screen.

Which would be acceptable IF we weren’t making choices like these every single thread. The second problem I have with Valen is the pace, which manifests in a schizophrenic whirlwind of constant hurry mixed with a glacial time progression… underpinned by bizarre time-skips.

The fact that we have to make constant life-or-death decisions that may come back to eat us threads later gives the story a frantic quality that I didn’t question until I saw mentioned that the entire first arc takes place over 6 months; I had estimated that to be about 2 weeks at most. On top of that, that there are no established “cooldown moments” like chilling with our followers or going shopping and the like means that this whole rush feels uninterrupted.
And then a month long time-skip happens. Because we get drunk. What? I wish that was false but the second arc opens with Irue having drunk away a month of her time while VERY PRESSING AFFAIRS are still waiting to be resolved. In the same vein, going from Irue’s estate to her childhood friend’s takes literal weeks because nobody has a carriage or something like that; we’re up to thread 72 and that still hasn’t changed. On another note rescuing one of our kidnapped followers takes more than a month in a dangerous environment, something which I could understand the writer for unrealistically speeding up for dramatic tension when every second matters. The annoying thing being that each of these odd jumps in time make sense within the story but still kill the pace when reading.

Yet what baffles me most is how little it feels like we’re getting done in each individual thread; the list of what Irue had managed to do in the span of the first arc felt so… small and limited to me. For the soon-to-be most influential person in the country, Irue strikes me as almost insignificant: she has to walk herself to places she wants to visit, nobody even knows her and most of those who do don’t acknowledge her as the heir, she has to bargain in a position of inferiority with everybody she meets, assert her authority later on even though it’s been officially handed down to her, which makes her feel as if she’s not even a noble, let alone an important one. I believe it takes us an inordinate amount of time doing anything that needs to be done for results that seem fairly constrained in regards to our country; which Irue is supposed to be spearheading soon. To clarify, the choices we make are very important to Irue as a person but don’t really have the necessary “grandeur” to feel like the fate of our country may depend on us (which it might) to the point that it feels to me like you could separate the rest of the Valen Estate from Carona and our actions probably wouldn’t feel different in their repercussions…

Except when we’re uncovering a world-changing secret. Which happens way more than seems likely; due to Riz having to mesh together Rinnier, Kara and Ari’s stories together. One day we’re trekking through the forest because we can’t afford a horse, another we’re taking on elemental beings that can wreck cities… all at the same level of intensity; it feels bizarre. And then during each of those events we have to make a choice that is both important to us personally and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things… to then have it come back flipped around as a matter of life or death to the whole country simply because we didn’t get a missed connection during the first threads. There’s this whiplash of sorts regarding what level of importance we’re supposed to stay at, where we should already be delegating and overseeing so much stuff but we’re already doing it ourselves. It feels like much of what we struggle with shouldn’t be a problem to somebody of our importance but we’ve managed to corner into doing it ourselves one way or another.

At this point frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if this could be turned into a civ-quest – it’s certainly at the right time for it – but then again we’d have our glorious blonde androgynous leader getting in so much trouble the civ would collapse immediately despite having the resources to thrive.

All in all, the effect this has on the writing is clear: it’s a gripping story that will keep you hooked but will also get you hella frustrated and leave you devoid of energy by the end of it. Catastrophe after catastrophe raining down on the MC certainly sounds intense – and it is - but past a certain point it just gets exhausting. For my personal experience, though it was different in that I was binging it, I literally had to take a break at the last chapter of the first season because I was just getting too frustrated to keep reading, it was insane. Chapter 43 is literally the only time - in any quest I’ve ever read – I’ve had to say “F*ck this, I need a break from reading” to go process my feelings.
That said, someone might say that writing capable of extolling that much emotion from the reader certainly did their job right.

(On the side though I have to ponder the weird disconnect Valen Quest has with violence – more of a personal opinion – as I feel like it is handled in a very sanitized/disconnected way from everything which might mirror Irue a bit. Lives are thrown away, people get massacred, our heroine even kills people and get terribly maimed in the process yet I can’t help but feel like it’s just a matter of course the way it’s written. It doesn’t detract from the writing but is interesting to note nonetheless.)

Note: “I CAN FEEL THE VALEN OVERTAKING ME. IT IS A GOOD PAIN/20”


Main Character:

Irue Valen. Heir to the Valen family. Orphaned of her parents and sister since she was ten. Mana studying recluse with only one friend/servant.

Irue Valen. Inconsequential pawn to the machination of her family. Has an entourage of Testaments for whom she would lay her life. Expert in talking to people and reading them.

To me, Irue is a massive walking contradiction; which amusingly some people in media res actually comment on; she has been called out on some on her motivations being hypocritical and while she is usually strong-headed enough to trample through her problems sometime those rants hit a sore spot that needs to be touched and she gets some much deserved self reassessment that leads her through a subtle but far-reaching character evolution where she goes from “I deserve to be heir” to “What can I do to be respected and earn my place as heir”.

One of the biggest sore points I have with Irue is how much of an informed ability her “social prowess” is seeing as Anon keeps playing her as an angry drunk Glaswegian out to step on everybody’s feeling. Sure there are passages in text where she very explicitly uses her knowledge of psychology to predict people and she is naturally – and somewhat successfully – manipulative if not clearly sociopathic as pointed out by some BUT I can’t help but feel like this is a part of her which isn’t shown enough and deserves more screen time i.e not enough characters bamboozled by us. If we’re given a character that can manipulate people and get away with a lot by virtue of their eloquence, I’d like for them to get more opportunities to use their talents.

Note: “DON’T TOUCH MY HAIR YOU DOUBLE NIGGER/20”



Side Characters:

Ari was once a tortured slave with no hope of ever being worth anything/being of use to anybody… She has redirected her affection towards Irue whom she adores with all her might in a way that borders fanaticism but still leaves her looking like a cute and shy wallflower… Or is she? Literally last thread (71) we got some information that makes us see her in a different light and I can say that I approve of this change of direction since having the character evolve was a necessity to keep her interesting since she’s otherwise pretty average and cannot bring as much to the table as a demihuman and a princess. Now of course, I’m exaggerating a bit and there is some subtle characterisation happening but… it’s too subtle, I feel.
Kara is literally a beastkin dog-girl with tard strength. And yet to me she feels refreshing in that in a world of complicated intrigues and secrets she’s just a really earnest character that wants to help and is nice about it. On top of that, her latest developments regarding her pack make her even more active and interesting so I can say confidently that she’s an all-around good character whose point of view should be used more.

Rinnier is a character that many people following the quest hate and I kinda find myself wondering why. Sure she is wildly suspicious of Irue and seems to view everything done by her with a layer of distrust and cynicism making her feel rather hostile and counter productive but you have to remember her origins: she was a princess who was sold into slavery following the fall of her country into civil war due to their local Mana “disowning” them; so it makes sense she would be somewhat on edge and suspicious of wild promises, especially coming from a blonde lunatic with a penchant for getting into trouble. On top of that, she is hands-down the most useful/skilled of our follower – especially in the second Arc where she can give her managerial skills a dust-off – and her experience in dealing with people makes her a wonder where Irue can’t shine… namely not being an autist and that despite a sheltered princess for the most of her life.

Asche? Asche is probably the character I appreciate the least out of all the “main” cast and for good reason: the archetype of the maid is one I’ve always found hard to integrate – maybe it’s just the name maid that grates me instead of servant… except she wears a f*cking maid outfit – and the cute but silent type makes for intriguing character provided they don’t keep secrets on top of that. Then she keeps WAY too many secrets for no damn reason, to me she kinda feels an anime trope that is weirdly out of place there. What’s really distressing to me really is that once you peel all of that tedious facade her character seems to be really interesting with hidden depths that reach far into the setting but there is just so much “WHY” surrounding her it makes it tedious to reach.

As for everyone together and as with every character driven story, a story arc is necessary and Riz’s technique of mashing together Ari, Kara and Rinnier’s own into one giant convoluted mess is one I personally regret but can understand as they are integral to the larger picture available. That said, it could stand to be less disjointed as it really feels like we’re bouncing from character mess/arc to another in what could otherwise be something more fluid. I cannot know which part of the story belongs to each character and what exactly is “stand-alone” but all I can say without spoiling is that it makes for a bumpy ride towards the Testament and after we get the results. I wish there were more interaction between our Testaments as they seriously don’t mingle much between each other – especially Rinnier who seems to hold everybody at arm’s length – and I can only hope that there will be more opportunities for team building in the future since restricting the quest to purely back-and-forth between Irue and single Testaments cuts deeply on the potential for interactions.

From what I’ve seen, the first season is about laying the bases… and it maybe takes a bit too much time with that but the next one is picking up the slack by focusing on humanizing our companions which will give them some more material to work with.

Outside of the Testaments, the cast is there but doesn’t really shine really in the first season. Characters are introduced and have a presence but their screen-time is short and their interactions either meaningless or mindblowing which leaves little time to flesh them out through more normal interaction with just the right level of intensity. They are merely very convincing hollow shells that remain to be filled with interesting details, a task that has thankfully already begun with the second season introducing some genuinely engaging characters and fleshing out some of our earlier servants.
I won’t say too much about Dopplerue/Shadowrue, all you need to know is that she is best girl forever and always.
Note: “WHY ISN’T THIS A MAGICAL GIRL SQUAD/20”


Votes/Rolling:

Valen prefers to eschew traditional rolling in favor of a more narrative driven experience where the given choice matters more than how well it would do. Interestingly enough though, EVERY vote is counted in that greater counts of Vote 1 with low counts of Vote 2 will lead to Irue doing Vote 1 with shades of Vote 2 unless those options are mutually exclusive. This gives again a greater emphasis on finesse and explaining as it’s plain to see that Riz also uses the commentary that is used beside the vote to flavor the text, sometimes drawing upon Anon’s frustration or happiness to color Irue’s speech. As such, all votes are important which means that everybody can feel useful. Until Forgettings happen.
At their core, Forgetting are small prompts at the bottom of the vote queue that ask you to recall a specific happening from the entirety of the quest and to simply link it to the current situation in a way that make sense. This sounds easy; it is very much not.

Barring the fact that we’re now up to thread 72 now, a simple prompt is about as vague as can be despite the text of the update providing some sorely-needed guidance; on top of that the multitude of things we’ve done and on top of that the shit that can apply makes it that it’s increasingly hard to deduce what we have to say, especially when it sounds obvious to some people. Despite this, the fact that so many of these are failed for a multitude of reason can only attest to something I’ve scratched at in my first review about CoS: the idea that players as a whole make any kind of complex and difficult actions harder to implement in “game”.

Valen’s Forgetting is the narrative equivalent of CoS’s combat in that it trades its complexity and depth for a need to put yourself perfectly in the head of Irue AND recall what exact part (and why) applies to this specific situation, something that is both incredibly interesting… and difficult. It is a great example of a mechanic I would personally do as a one-off as it puts the players (actual humans who have their emotions, thoughts, timeslots, ideas and more) up against a wall that is sometime so specific that it is all but unreachable, simply due to the narrative needs and character experiences we’ve had until then combined with our thinking process.

As both a QM and a player, I’ve never read something as depressing as the “List of Forgotten Things” included in later threads of Valen Quest; it’s genuinely amazing how 26 mere questions – some won, some lost -  can fill me with such dread and despair; don’t read it to avoid spoilers. Every time a Forgetting comes up, there is a wild scrambling to the archives matched with a kind of somber resignation that simply feels different to anything else I’ve seen on /qst/. That the answering period has gone from 1 hour to a FULL DAY is a small mercy for many as it merely gives them more time to grieve in advance… but come the day where the answer is correct and watch the exultation!
Note: “AM I FORGETTING SOMETHING?/20”

End word/Recap:
Valen Quest is a quest unlike any other I’ve ever read (and I’m starting to have read a lot of them by now), despite being in a saturated genre, and with a style that finishes setting it apart from the rest, perhaps even making it the ultimate “narrative-only” quest at this time. It’s a wild roller coaster of emotions and I can honestly say I regret none of the time I spent reading it despite wanting to tear my hair out at some points. It is riveting like few others quests can be, with both its highs and lows and I would love if it could get some attention.
That said, I am aware that there are things in this quest which can rebuke some of you and I will be the first to point out its flaws but again I need to stress out how much of a hidden gem this quest is.
In a way, it reminds me of every Russian non-action indie game there is: beautiful, clunky, brooding, frustrating, fulfilling, thought-provoking and very very VERY underrated.
If you liked this, you might want to check out: I’m drawing blanks on this one, I don’t really know other books/media that’s quite like this.