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Valkyrie Profile: Enix 2000 Ok, I am gonna start out by saying that this game was my "favorite game I didn't own" until I found a copy of it and bought it. Then it became my "Least Favorite game I own." "How does that work?" you may be asking right now. Very simply. Now pay attention as I explain it all to you. Let's start with a basic plot. Very cool here. Valkyrie is summoned by Odin to find souls of fallen warriors, the Einherjar (don't ask me how to pronounce that.) and build them up to fight when Ragnarok comes. "Cool," you are thinking, "A norse RPG. Who woulda thought of that?" Enix did. They gathered those great guys who made Star Ocean 2 so weird that I couldn't play it, and created a very-very-very innovative RPG. The game plays like this. Valkyrie finds a person about to die, goes and hears about their life, watches them die, and they join her. Sounds cool. We get to see people die. In fact, the first person you get kills himself on screen. He is fighting billions of guards, and winning like it is his job, so he realizes that no one alive can kill him, so he kills himself. On screen. How cool is that? But then the game gets bad. Let's start with the battle system, since that is what you are gonna be doing most of the time. You can have 3 Einherjar and Valkyrie in your party. Each is assigned to a button on the PSX controller. You push the buttons in different orders and they do different team-up attacks. Man, that sounds so cool. And it is. For the first few hours. Then you find out all the problems with Valkyrie. 1. The game is on a time system. No, you don't have a limited amount of hours to beat the game. Even worse, you have a limited amount of areas you can enter per section of the game. Then a limited amount of sections in the game. There are 2 types of places to go in Valkyrie. First, dungeons. It would be fine if the dungeon's enemies came back while you were in them, cause then you could level-up your characters. But they don't. You only get a certain amount of enemies in each dungeon. Then you have to leave. And then enter again. And that takes away "time." The second place is towns. But since you only get a certain amount of time per section of the game, don't plan on going into towns much, for you need that time to level up your characters in dungeons. 2. Next you have to send at least one of your characters up to Odin every section. So you spend all this time building up your character, just to lose him/her when in the next section the game gets harder, and the characters you get to replace him/her are weaker. Figures. So yes, you will spend a lot of time in dungeons. Next, another thing the game really likes, as opposed to games like Vagrant Story, is extra zeros at the end of things. "I don't understand," you are asking. Well, let's look at the life bar. Valkyrie starts out at level 1 with 1,000 hit points. That is more than Crono ever gets. At level 30, Freya, one of the secret characters, has 36,001. As if that extra 1 is needed or anything. Sure, I'll be the first to admit that it feels good to hit the enemy for, like a billion points, but is this really necessary? Speaking of hitting the enemy for a billion points, I forgot to mention the other cool thing about this game. If you manage to hit the enemy enough in a round to get this bar on the side full, I'm not entirely sure how to, just get a lot of attacks in, each character can do a super special move. Rock! These are crazy carzy cool moves that last up to one minute, but are well worth it. Like summons in Final Fantasy, but not costing anything and all sprite-based, "wow" is all I can say. Valkyrie herself runs at the enemy, slashing him for a while, inflicting 12 hits or so, then flying into the air, her spear turns into a dragon and blows up on the enemy. All in glorious sprites. Ahh the sheer marvel of it all. Oh, yeah and there is some sort of build up your character with stats adjusters every level, and create your own weapons and items, but not as well done as Vagrant Story. I never really bothered with that stuff as much. The only good one is having your characters auto heal someone who gets hit, and it not costing anything. Well, I am sure there are other good ones too, but none I can remember off the top of my head. While building up your weapons sounds cool, weapons also break and can't be fixed, which suxs, cause it never tells you. All of a sudden, you will notice that your character is hitting for like 100, instead of 100,000. Then you have to somehow win the battle, and equip another weapon that breaks in another three battles. So, overall I am saying that if you see this game, and a friend has it, you may be tempted to play it, for it brings a lot of crazy silly fresh new ideas to the genre. But I found that it is better to wish you had it than to actually buy it, for when you have it, you find that it gets super hard super fast, and since you only get a certain amount of time in each dungeon, you get to the point where you can't beat a boss, and can't charge up anymore to get better and beat him. Then you have wasted 30 hours and have to start over. At least that is what I found. Something I should mention is that the artist draws women well, but doesn't draw guys well. All the women look soo cool, but none of the guys are well drawn at all. At least in my opinion. Also, Valkyrie is really cool. The dungeons are set up a la MegaMan, all sidescrolling. Valkyrie can run and jump, climb, slide and crouch. She can also shoot crystals and freeze enemies. If you slash the enemies with your sword then you start the battle, if not, they do. That's handy. My favorite part of the game actually is watching the Valkyrie sprite jump up and down, then slide. Sure it sounds disturbing, but it is actually a boat-load of fun. Try it. Wait, don't try it, cause you shouldn't buy this game. But if you do have it, I am sorry for you, you know what I am talking about. What I liked: Valkyrie is the hottest goddess I have ever seen. But she is mine, so you can't have her. We are married. Yes. Trust me. Super attacks that don't cost anything are also cool too. What I disliked: The "time" limit. Any time limit always scares the bejeebus out of me, and this did so as well. I am always racing to get everything done in the time limit, and then when you can't get but a certain amount of enemies in each dungeon, it creates an extremely hard game. (This is the perfect game to play in combination with Strider 2. bytheway.) Especially when you can't level up anymore cause you don't have any more time on the clock, and you have to beat an impossibly difficult boss. What to expect: Towns are side-scrolling, just as levels are. Towns also suck completely, as there in nothing to do in them, and the people, few as there are, are not that exciting at all. Also, the subplot about Valkyrie is extremely poorly done, everyone knows it right off, and you will too after seeing the intro. What not to expect: Fun towns, Characters to stay with you always, inns, the like. What different from other games like it: A lot. Read above, I am too tired to repeat myself.
Control: 5 - She moves around, she jumps, squats and slides, just like MegaMan. Nothing too orignal or noticable in it though. Remember that L3 opens up the items, magic and armor choices in battle though. It never tells you this. Graphics: 7 - It's sprites, but it is the best looking dern sprites I have ever seen. Sound: 6 - Divine Assault Nibelung Valesti! She actually says this. In a great voice. But the overall music is nothing to be proud of though. Style: 6 - Cause it has a lot of new and innovative ideas, just doesn't pull them off well.
5th hour: 8 - In the first dungeon still, watching Valkyrie jump. 1st week: Either 4 - Realizing how much you hate this game, or 8 - Still in the first dungeon watching Valkyrie jump. 1st Month: Either 2 - Gave up on the game a while ago. or 8 - Still jumping in the first dungeon.
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