Valkyrie Profile

RPG
Playstation
1 player

Graphics: While it doesn’t have the delightful 3D type universe that most PS games have today, Valkyrie Profile probably has one of the best 2D graphics you’ll ever get to see in an RPG.  Crisp, fluid moving sprites almost seem alive as they plunge themselves into battle.  Your magic users knock you off your feet with their spells and, if you give them the right wand, your untimely foes will get blasted to oblivion by a gorgeous, eye-catching finishing move…  But then again, all your characters look pretty awesome while dishing out their final judgment.  Backgrounds and the rest of your environment are beautifully rendered.  Snow drifts down to the ground.  Rain drizzles.  Leaves fall.  If you get the main character dirty by walking through the mud, no worries.  Just let the rain wash the dirt away.

Sound: Ever hear a valkyrie’s battlecry?  Well now you can.  Valkyrie Profile actually has voice actors that speak, shout, yell, grunt, whatever.  ( If you listen carefully enough, you can even pick out the voices of people from various animes. )  You can hear everything from the zap of the lightning spell, to the soft footfall of your main character as she travels the rough terrain.  The music nicely fits the mood of the situation and you might find yourself peeking through the music collection in Sound Mode.  (Sound recordings that you’ve unlocked are there too.)  Overall, the sound is exceptionally good. 

Story:  If you’re looking for a solid storyline that’s completely linear…  I would go find a different game.  While the beginning starts off with some sort of tale to tell, once Freya the Goddess leaves your party, there isn’t much of story.  You’ll get small snippets of a storyline every time you gain a new member to your team, but besides there isn’t much. 

Valkyrie wanders Midgard.  Valkyrie finds new member.  Valkyrie enters dungeon and vanquishes evil.  Valkyrie goes back to wandering Midgard and the cycle continues.

Of course this game has multiple endings and the closer you are to getting the best ending, the more storyline there is.  It’s mostly about the main character Valkyrie and her mysterious past.  It’s difficult to get and if you plan on draining some sort of story out of this game, I suggest you get a walkthrough for the best ending.

Controls: The controls are relatively easy to use.  Basically, it’s like every other RPG except for the battle system.  Each button represents one of the four members in your team.  Jamming the buttons all at once gets all of the characters to attack at the same time.  While it sounds cool to have all your characters gang up on the bad guy, it’s not the most brilliant idea.  The enemies can block the attacks or worse, it can dodge the attacks and serve your team with a nasty counterattack.  Depending on your timing and strategy, you can get each character to attack and just the right moment so they don’t miss their target or so they can break through the bad guy’s defense.  In the middle of battle, pressing select will bring up a small menu for things like, changing your equipped weapon, using an item, or picking out a magical spell to cast.    

Replayability: Slightly above moderate. 

While the game does have multiple endings, after beating the game.  I kind of didn’t like the idea of having to conquer evil again just to get a different one.  The game also has different settings.  Easy, Normal, and Hard.  You can adjust these settings to get more or less characters and to make things a tad bit more interesting when you play the game again.

Gameplay:  Over all, Valkyrie Profile is a pretty nice game.  Clear-cut sprites, great backgrounds, nice affects, and a few cut-scenes every now and then (although you never see people in these cut-scenes.).  Unfortunately, going around grabbing the souls of dead heroes and visiting dungeon after dungeon kind of loses its coolness after a while.  My only other complaint would be the voice actors.  Some of them were haunting me in my sleep.  While some of the voice actors fit their characters perfectly.  (Freya sounds quite noble and… goddess like.)  There were a few voice actors that made me cringe and still others didn’t fit the characters at all.  ( The character Lucian has Brock/Gourry’s voice actor!  Gah!) 

Graphics- 4.5
Sound- 4
Gameplay- 4
Controls- 5
Replayability- 3.5
Fun- 4
Overall- 4

-Little Chocobo – “The Funky Fresh Fried Chicken!