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Valkyrie Profile is Back

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 59 / 62
Date: July 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

A lot of people haven't played the original Valkyrie Profile. Check around here and you'll easily see it going for more than $100. It's ridiculous to pay that much. Greedy gamers and collectors are like that, and they know some consumers will pay. However, if you're not up for collecting the original copy, you could easily shell out the money for this version. It's basically a port of the original Playstation version with a few tweaks here and there. It beats paying some greedy collector over one-hundred dollars, doesn't it? Valkyrie Profile is a unique RPG experience that if you missed six years ago, now you'll have your chance to play it.

Players of the original often express their love affair with this game and it isn't entirely hard to see why. Our main hero, Lenneth, is a Valkyrie. Lenneth serves Odin, the leader of the Gods. In the world of Asgard, a sacred war has broken out among the Gods. Odin needs brave souls from humans to form an army to fight. It's Lenneth's job to go to the mortal world of Midgard and find the brave souls of humans to send to Odin.

The game spans eight chapters to get you through the game. There is a time limit, however. Everything you do from resting to trumping through dungeons takes time. If you're feeling very brave and gutless, you could rest for all eight chapters and then take on the final boss. Your average gamer, however, doesn't want to do that, and so you just might opt to go and find those souls. You can recruit up to fifteen souls (despite that you probably won't need all fifteen), and only three can enter battle at a time with Lenneth.

As you crawl through dungeons, you'll get the feel of playing some kind of action/adventure game. For one, you'll go through dungeons running around, jumping on platforms and shooting ice-crystals, which can also be used to make platforms. Sometimes it just feels weird but you'll quickly adapt to it. Sometimes crawling through dungeons feels like a pain because some of the controls are so awkward. Each dungeon is also crawling with monsters. Battles are contact-based so if you touch a monster you'll be hurled into battle where you'll control each character with the use of the buttons on your PSP. Each button controls one character. The battle system feels refreshing and original at times. It also calls for a bit more strategy. By timing button presses you can string together combos, and you can also use magic by pressing the select button in battle. You won't use magic often (and pressing the select button to use magic just feels weird), and stringing together combos is usually enough to thwart any opponent.

Experience points are divided among your characters how you see fit. You will, of course find it better to spend them on your current party. Although, you might want to consider spending some experience points on your outside souls because Odin will be wanting strong souls. Not weak ones. Depending on how you do this may also affect the ending of the game. To get the better ending you will have to send Odin strong souls. There are a multitude of endings for you to get as well. Seeing as how on average it'll only take you twenty hours to complete the game, going for the different endings is pretty worthwhile.

The best thing about Valkyrie Profile is the music. Some of the best I've heard in an RPG before. The soundtrack, beautifully conducted, is what makes this game really worthwhile in the end. It always has the right music at the right time.

Valkyrie Profile also has multiple endings and diffculty levels. Your actions make a difference in the ending you get. Even better, some endings and souls can't be obtained unless you're willing to play on different difficulty levels. This brings Valkyrie Profile's replay value way up.

There are a couple of things that keep Valkyrie Profile from being as fantastic as other RPGs. For one, the story, while fantastic, is very slow. A lot of cutscenes are long and spend a lot of time talking and rehashing conversations that have already taken place. Some cutscenes have voice acting. Some voices are really good, sounding just the way you want them to sound. Others sound a little too over-dramatic and over the top at times. Still, for what it's worth the voice acting is perfect.

However, my biggest gripe with the game is how the recruiting system works. I didn't play the originl Playstation version, you see, and the game does a horrible job at explaining how to recruit souls. They do a horrible job at explaining how to organize and manage your party. In other words, the learning curve to this game is pretty steep. You may need some outside help to get you going. By the time you yourself learn the bells and whistles of recruiting, you'll come to see that your team isn't nearly as good as they could be. Luckily though, once you get it down you can really make a power house team. I just wish that they had explained it better.

The game also takes a very long time to load. Several PSP games suffer from this, but Valkyrie Profile suffers a great deal from it. It takes a few seconds to open the menu and to get things going within the menu. For example, the game has to load every time you equip a character, use an item, etc. The load times are horribly long, but they stack up really quickly, especially with how much you're in the menu. To accompany the often annoying load times, you'll also be faced with slowdown at some parts. So while it's a port it isn't a fantastic port. Some of the mechanics didn't make it over to the PSP all that well. Still, it beats shelling out more than one-hundred dollars from a greedy collector.

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth is a fantastic experience for those who want to re-experience it and for those new to the game itself. It's not as good as the Playstation original, and it may be another port for the PSP, but it's still an overall rewarding experience.

On the Positive Side
+A port of one of the Playstation's most sought after RPGs
+Engaging and perplexing storyline
+Great Gameplay Mechanics...
+Fantastic Soundtrack
+Multiple endings and difficulty levels make for replay
+The games short length also makes for replay value
+Beautiful Artwork

On the Negative Side
-Long load times
-The gameplay mechanics don't get an in-depth explanation making for a steep learning curve
-Long drawn out cutscenes make the pacing of the story really slow

Marvelous

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: August 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is great. Except it is really hard. But I played it in normal mode so it is probably easier in easy mode

AAAAARRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 31
Date: August 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Pretty much sums up how I felt after 15 minutes of introductory waffle, hellishly annoying bingy bongy music and (admittedly very pretty) cut scenes, totally emotionless voice overs, impossibly slow conversations that served little or no point.

And to be honest at that point it was either switch off the psp or throw it against a wall. I decided to switch it off.
Now I'm a big fan of adventure games, played untold legends 1 till it gave up on me (literally left hanging around with nothing to do and no more quests on offer).

From what I can gather, the in game graphics for Valkyrie (after 15 minutes [though it seemed like much longer]) I'd seen some really cool character graphics - bit like tekken DR in-game graphics - and some of those horrible 2d munchkin japanese rpg graphics, which are the in-game stuff.
So the bit you play looks like it's 20 years old and should be on a gba, the cutscenes are nice but there will no doubt be far too many of those - ie: 5 minutes of slow cut scenes for every encounter.

I can't say this is a proper review as I couldn't stand this title long enough to get to any actual gameplay and there's no way I'm sitting through that intro again.

My advice, if you like the long winded old style walk-and-talk for three hours before actually doing anything, japanese rpgs. Get this (or better still go to an antiques shop and find an old text adventure).
If you prefer a game where you actually play the character and do stuff - avoid this like the plague.
I've got high hopes for dungeon siege when it comes out (but then I had high hopes for valkyrie too :-( ), but for now untold legends 2 is okay, not as good as it should have been but a helluva lot more fun than valkyrie.

I would like to point out that I've never played on a ps2, xbox or game cube - so this is the first time I've seen a valkyrie profile game. I didn't have any preconceptions, obviously if I had I'd never have gone anywhere near this title in the first place :-)

A moving story.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: August 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Graphics: 7/10.
Well, we are talking about a PS1 port. So don't expect much here. But the new CGs are nice, and even the old PS1 sprites are actually pretty nicely animated. And the super/special moves (PWS) are rather nice, too.

Sound: 6/10.
The dialoguing is very annoying at first. It's very much apparent the moment you start up the game, when you have to go through the prologue. Once you get used to it, it's not bad. The sound effects seem a bit primitive too, but again, this is a rather old game. Btw, as the fans will quickly note, the game uses the same voice actors as Pokemon. :D

Gameplay: 7/10
It's an interesting mix of platforming, puzzles, turn based and real time combat. Personally, I did not enjoy the platforming part. That genera was never my favorite, and the PSP's diagonal insensitivity makes some of the jumps a pain to do. The combat is rather fun and original. But after about mid game, your characters are so over-leveled and over-equipped, almost all of the battles except for a few boss battles become trivial.

Replay: 8/10
There's a lot to do here. And the chances are, that on your first game, you've missed out the "A" ending, the true ending. The standard "B" ending is pretty mundane. And there are quite a few characters in the game, and you probably will not get to explore all of them until you replay the game. Personally, I'm a story driven player, so once I know the plot, I have little interest in replaying the game, but I think many players don't mind going through the story again- and for such players, the replay value should be fairly high.

Story: 9/10
A most excellent story. The many characters that you come across have rather poignant stories, and you learn that each of them, are small reflections of your main character. The plot is weaved very nicely, although it is somewhat slow in the beginning. My only negative that's keeping this from being a 10/10, is the very last scene- it somewhat left me unfulfilled. But I hear that's a matter of opinion.

Great remake, but where's the fast forward! My kingdom for a fast forward button!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Great remake, but where's the fast forward! My kingdom for a fast forward button!
This was a great game! The cut scenes were a nice touch that helped draw in the player into the story line, but would someone please give me a Fast Forward/Skip button. I understand that the makers of the game want you to get involved and appreciate the storyline, but without a fastforward/skip button, this game game has a limited replay value. I have already played through the game once, and now that I am running through it again, I am going insane! The long cut scenes, and the seemingly endless, "next" clicks were fine the first time, but come on! For a game that has 3 different endings you would figure that the developers would give you a break!

OK, now that I have said that, lets get back to the review. The character development and use of magical items, while definitely not unique, but they helped flesh out the fight scenes. The combos and skills moves made the game interesting and kept me coming back. While I would have liked to see the graphics slightly change when different equipment was used (swords, helms, etc) the combat and special moves graphics were definitely nice.

Should you buy? Sure if you like RPG's the game is definitely a buy, but be fore warned...be prepared to read, and read, and read, and click and click and click, before you even get to your first fight scene, and even then expect to much of the same long before you get to do things on your own.

The best RPG for the PSP so far...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: August 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Valkyrie Profile was an RPG that came out during the later days of the PSX. While it never achieved massive success, it went on to become an RPG classic and has garnered a very loyal following.

Fast forward to 2006, and we see the re-release of this awesome RPG for the PSP. However, don't make the mistake of writing this off as a plain old port.

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth includes "new" high quality CG movies that help immerse you in the story. The graphics consist of highly detailed sprites on pre-rendered backgrounds; when seen on the vivid PSP screen, it just makes the game look downright beautiful. Some of the combos are just awesome to look at.

The battle system is a mix of real-time and turn-based fighting that is surprisingly intuitive; newcomers and old pro's will have no problem getting used to it. At first glance, it might look simple, but as you progress through the game, you'll find a depth to it that makes it quite fun.

The main story, itself, is very well developed...even if this RPG doesn't follow the traditional linear way of telling it. One of the things I enjoyed most about this game is the character "episodes" you see when you collect a new soul to help in the battle to save Valhalla.

If you enjoy RPGs, or feel adventurous enough...I highly recommend you buy this game. It's definitely a must have PSP game.

Square Enix, I expected more from you!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 10
Date: September 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

this game has a 25 minute introduction or story. Square Enix was really creative and the stories are so good! However I do expect them to put something like "Skip Intro" cause impatient people could really get mad at the stories! I, however only get a game every five months so I am fine with that. This is only a minor flaw. Another flaw is that when you want to look at the map or statistics, you have to wait 5 seconds until it appears. Very annoying, but again a minor flaw. This game depends on how much you like to battle the same creatures over and over and over again! It get very boring after awhile. You have to train those dumb spirits and sometimes you just want them to level up quicker. This game gets very boring after awhile and you will want to ditch the game as well as the characters. There is not much action and you have a limited amount of monsters to battle.

1.0 ~ 3.5----- terrible
3.6 ~ 5-----bad
5.1 ~ 6.5-----average
6.6 ~ 8-------good
8.1 ~ 9------great
9.1 ~10------must buy excellent!

graphics- 9/10 great
sound -9/10 some voice acting but great
fun - 5/10 depends on how patient you are and how you react to battling the same monster over and over again
average- about 8

my grade- 7 good

Great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: October 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

if anyone has played any of the final fantasy games then im sure they would love it. It dosent have the greatest graphics but it is sure worth playing. The only thing that made me want to pull out my hair was how long the begining was!!

I like how idiots complain about this game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 14
Date: October 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The introduction ISN'T boring, it ISN'T long, and it IS one of the best introductions to a game made by Enix/SE. If you don't like the omg 25 min to wste on into2111!!!1, then don't buy another RPG for as long as you live. RPGs are supposed to have stories, and this one is no different. If you don't like it, take it back and get a refund... don't play RPG's like this if you can't stand words. Go play some GTA or something--- oh wait, theres words in that too.

It'll Keep You Busy

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 12
Date: November 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

All in all, it's not that fun of a game. There's no real story line to it, and a lot of the mechanics are so complex that it's not even worth it. The good news is that it goes on forever. If you enjoy aimlessly walking around in dungens beating up bad guys with no real goal, then this is the game for you. I've got almost 20 hours of game play on it and I'm only about half way through, but I've accomplished next to nothing, and I couldn't tell you the names of more than two characters (due to the lack of story). There is an overwhelming number of characters, which could be good or bad. If you like leveling up characters and collecting countless numbers of items and weapons, than buy this game. For most of you, I wouldn't buy it unless you have already played a Valkyrie Profile game and know for sure that you like that style of game because this is no ordinary RPG.

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