Valkyrie Profile (1999)

It's winter and I have just finished my first game for the year and it's one of my all time favorites. Valkyrie Profile has always been something that just makes me feel sad. It isn't overly depressing but it's just melancholic. Like winter you will be surrounded by muted colors and reminders of death both figurative and literal in the case of the game. It is a game that really makes me feel the winter and I don't think I'd change anything with how I started the year with this special game.

Valkyrie Profile is one of my favorite JRPG'S where you play as the titular Valkyrie named Lenneth. You are tasked by Odin and Freya to prevent Ragnarok by gathering strong Einherjar who will assist the gods in their war at the end of the world. So you travel around Midgar and find mortals who would join you as you train them up to be worthy for the gods. There is more that is going on to be fair. I know the premise sounds simple and I think for a majority of the time, it is.

I think this game is so beautiful in what it wants to accomplish but I also find a lot of the beauty of this game in its constraints. You have so many Einherjar to collect and so many cities to go to that it makes sense why things feel empty and desolate in these towns. It adds to the feel of the coming apocalypse, like Midgar is just stuck in waiting mode for the new rebirth to take place. It cannot oppose fate or move forward.

Even all of the Einharjar are a part of this. After all, they can only be recruited through death so you will see a lot of these characters die. Most of these stories I think are well done. Especially given how limited the screen time is with them. There are some that just get the point across effectively and you feel for them. Then there are others that Lenneth clearly doesn't like but she is under Odin’s orders to acquire strong souls. All in all the game works well within the constraints of when it was released.

Lenneth herself clearly has a lot more going on as well. You see it from the jump how she feels nostalgic from a memory she is having before walking across a dreary field in Asgard. You do get to learn a lot about Lenneth through the game so I won't spoil anything except to say that the story isn't completely linear and I kind of love how the story is handled in the game that way. It can be non-linear that you won't understand what's going on if you don't know that and aren't aware that there are multiple endings, it is easy to stumble across scenes and be left wondering what it all means. I would say for this right here that if you want to play this, pick normal for a first playthrough and just mess around. I'll talk about game structure in a second but I really had the best nostalgic experience fumbling my way through this game. If you need to see the whole picture and get the best ending there are plenty of guides for that and it will be hard to know what you are missing because some of the requirements are a little strict.

The game structure goes as follows, after your very brief tutorial in the beginning you are given a time limit of 180 periods to gather forces and face Ragnarok. It might sound like a lot because searching for souls, exploring dungeons, resting and visiting towns all take time away. I want to reassure people who might hear that and feel pressure or anxiety from something like having a countdown clock that I had so much extra time. The game is pretty generous and if you do follow a guide you should have no trouble. I do want to add that one of the endings that happens is if you intentionally do a bad job.

After you reach certain points you get a progress report from Freya about the battle going on during your time in Midgard. It is here that you get to check in on the Einherjar you send after they meet certain requirements. I know that mostly after you recruit them, their stories are done but it is very nice to have little updates about them as they converse with the gods. You learn how they regret and change or who they miss from their old life. It's another spot where I feel like there would be more here because none of the guides aside from Odin Freya and a couple of others are voiced and I would have loved to see or hear more interactions.

Thankfully though the game is just about always gorgeous with the pixel art characters and pre rendered background images. I loved walking around the towns and flying over the map in the overworld. I always think about the cutscene imagery in particular. It is very good and wonderfully handled. I'm sure this is nostalgia speaking but the game still looks great and I wouldn't change a thing. The other thing I would not change is Motoi Sakuraba’s score. It just fits here well. There is just something about it that helps add to the melancholy. I wouldn't call it depressing but I just felt down while playing.

It's a good thing then that the feelings of melancholy gets obliterated by the constant serotonin of the combat system. Before I go more in depth here I want to say that I am so happy that enemies are clearly marked in dungeon and it is up to you to engage in combat. No random encounters here. Once you do initiate battle you will get to play around with a system I really admire. You still take it in turns but each party member is tied to a face button and it is your job to execute combos with them to break off big finishing moves. It is really cool that all of the recruitable characters have their own super moves. One thing to keep in mind which can be a tad frustrating is that move animations have hit boxes, it is like you are playing a fighting game. So if you aren't sure how to use the character or figure out how to combo, it can feel frustrating to see your characters whiff. I do want to also mention that you don't have to be a fighting game guru to beat this game. The game is pretty responsive for something from 1999. I just wish there was something like this again because now Valkyrie is just an action game and that makes me sad because there was something special here that very easily could have been refined and iterated on.

So where does that leave me? I talked about winter because it's normally a sad time for me. I don't always love the holidays with my family and I also just get sad. Playing Valkyrie Profile really just helped me see winter evoked in a video game. I don't want to sound like I'm crying for help here or anything but it just helped me be sad and be okay with being sad for a bit. Valkyrie Profile really does feel like a one of a kind series that just pulls a lot of design choices that feel chaotic when isolated but it somehow forms something greater than itself. It's why it was one of my favorite games to play in my childhood and even now all these years later, why I know I will come back to it again. So please, if you love JRPG's and really want something that is unique and really not like anything else, give this game a chance.

I first seen this game in the early 2000s when my university roommate was playing. I remarked how similar the battle music was to Star Ocean 2, and any game related to that had to be legendary. So this game has been on my wishlist for decades and I only now got around to playing it. I tried to play the playstation version on PSP but it always froze during the opening. Instead I played the PSP version on Hard.

In the beginning I did not know about the shop in the menu so I was using the breakable weapons. I used Arngrim and Jelanda for the entire game while the last slot was Belenus at first. I transferred the archer Llewellyn and gave Bel the indestructible sword Valkyrie started with. Bel was actually using fists for a while until I found a second sword! Soon enough though I found the shop and bought a bow for Valkyrie. In retrospect I should have transferred Bel and just used a 3 person team. Then I got Lawfer and got the spinning spear with 3 attacks and bonus to CP on level up; he kicked ass and kept that spot for the entire game. I wasted periods early on by visiting each town; visiting towns should have been free because otherwise it discouraged checking them out for world building. From then on I transferred 2 characters each chapter with the most basic gear and minimal xp from the xp orb; usually level 3 to 5. It was much easier with the emerald necklace and its CP boost on level up. I used that and the bracelet of zoe to maximize everyone's level ups but it was incredibly obnoxious to constantly monitor the team's xp and swap equipment. Those items really should have been passive boosts for the entire party rather than equipment. I didn't quite understand the artifact and evaluation system so I gave all the beginning ones to Odin like a good Valkyrie. After a few chapters I realized I could save before opening the chests to see what each did and reload to only keep ths good ones. Later I realized that it was best to keep everything because transferring 2 people each chapter gave a massive boost to evaluation.

I spent excess periods grinding xp in the best dungeons available. I did the plant laboratory several times, and Oddrock dungeon many times even up to the final chapter because it only cost 1 period and was the best way to spend the last period. The tower of Lezard had better xp later and I did it so many times, and of course I found the materials to make the creation jewel for overpowered equipment. I used the dragon slayer swords to kill the zombie dragons. Later the Dipan castle had better xp and was much more straightforward. At the end Arianod dungeon had the best xp by far, and navigation was simple with those number levers. I made a simple map and designed an optimal route to hit all enemy floors. By this point I had upgraded to better swords but I had Arngrim go back to the icicle sword for all the ice weak enemies here. I did check a walkthrough several times to help with puzzles because I had better things to do than spend too much time figuring them out. The only time I had real trouble in battle was the wraith boss in chapter 6. Gravity blessing one shot everyone except Valkyrie but she did manage to solo the boss afterwards by chugging healing potions. It helped that she had lightning resist armor and helm. Afterwards I reloaded and checked the walkthrough how to win properly. Oh yeah that holy water artifact could kill it instantly. I ended up using the 2nd holy water towards the end game on a similar regular enemy that I let get powered up by posses; it did not even kill it in 1 hit and I was worried I might wipe. I got the B ending and was very overpowered for the final boss, since I had been using learning rings and coins of fortune to boost xp gain. Jelanda was the only one not wearing a leaning ring regularly because the combo of magic bangle + fairy ring was too good. I saved the xp in the xp orb to manually level up characters that were close to minimize the level ups without the bracelet hp boost. Near the end I dumped the entire orb on Valkyrie, then what I got in the final dungeon on Jelanda. All 4 had completely maxed out skills and traits, even useless stuff.

Final stats

Valkyrie: level 82, 74397 hp, 96 seal, levantine sword, mask of the dead king, mithril plate, glare guard, valiant greaves, power bangle, mighty check, mirror of pleiades, coin of fortune, timer ring (treasure ring for dungeons, enemy ring for farming xp).

Skills: guts, auto item 100% revive, reverie, dark. She used bows for most of the game until the sweet creation jewel swords. I gave her every stat upgrade item and focused on her survival because of how the others would automatically die in 3 turns after she did. Though the auto revive probably would work better on the other characters for this purpose since I thought it was self only. I hated how her skills unequipped when switching between bow and sword, and I had to change her move order with 3 hit swords to have the slide be first. Otherwise it missed too much.

Arngrim: level 74, 78757 hp, gram, valiant helm, armor of aleph, glare guard, valiant greaves, power bangle, crack ring.

Skills: guts, first aid, reverie, dark. He used cure condition for most of the game instead of guts. I often used him to attack first due to his higher hit chance and found his 2 sword move list better than the 3 sword; the middle hit with the 3 sword was slow and often fooled up the timing. I wanted him to do the same as the 2 sword with the slower swing tagged on the end but there was no way to order that. His special attack was guaranteed to fill up the energy bar.

Lawfer: level 83, 71485 hp, dinosaur spear, dragon faith, reflect armor, glare guard, valiant greaves, power bangle, mighty check.

Skills: guts, first aid, reverie, dark. Again he used cure condition for most of the game. I found him to do the most damage of the 3 fighters while having the most trouble landing hits due to the delay between his first and second attacks. He worked best attacking stunned and frozen targets. At end game his special attack was by far the most powerful but did not build up much energy.

Jelanda: level 78, 49817 hp, unicorn horn, supreme Garland, sylphan robe, glare guard, elven boots, magic bangle, fairy ring, coin of fortune.

Skills: guts, adept illusion, stun magic, wait reaction. Spells: fire storm, heal, poison blow, icicle edge, sacred javelin, mystic cross, reflect sorcery, sap guard, might reinforce, guard reinforce. She actually used first aid and cure condition for most of the game, but by late game it was more important to keep her alive. She used fire lance for most of the game as her main attack, which later was set to javelin. She devastated regular enemies with spells cast from the menu; I preferred ice for the chance of freezing enemies, but poison and holy did better when the enemies were weak to that. I never used lightning magic, sap guard or guard reinforce. I only used might once during the final battle and it nearly doubled the damage of each hit; definitely should have used it for other bosses. Heal was used often. I usually had her attack first to put the enemy off guard.

This was truly a legendary masterpiece, one of the best Jrpgs and playstation games of all time. Excellent battle system with significant tactical depth and plenty of opportunity for skillful timing. It was incredibly innovative to assign each character to a different button, and this was far more engaging than the traditional menu based combat. The platforming and puzzles were creative, though I did not like how there seemed to be acceleration on jumping. It was like the distance she jumped changed drastically depending on how long or hard the direction buttons were pressed. It made the platforming more difficult than necessary but at least the penalty for failure was almost non existent, except for that one annoying part of the celestial palace. The little side stories for each character were better than the main stories of many full games. The main story was less interesting but I imagine it gets better on ending A. I was getting some Ogre Battle, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Fire Emblem vibes from the way you recruit people and send them up to fight in the god war. It was all done abstractly but I could definitely see a spin off strategy rpg expanding on that aspect of the game. The music and voice acting were phenomenal. I especially loved the high energy forceful conviction of Valkyrie; the actress totally nailed being a paladin/goddess of battle. There were not many flaws at all. It did become tedious grinding the same dungeons over and over, but that was optional. The final dungeon had a sweet 100k xp enemy that respawned so all that grinding I did to optimize periods was not really needed. My only other complaints were the inability to sort items and spell lists, inability to skip cutscenes and special animations.

Then I played through again to get ending A. It was largely the same except I had a better idea of the mechanics and what to do. Most of the differences were around how I used the mage. She used the higher power breakable wands since they could only break during special attacks, and never even used the unicorn horn. I foolishly sold the wand of apocalypse last playthrough because I mistakenly thought it could not do great magic, so I made sure to use it this time. Most regular battles until chapter 6 were 1 shot by casting magic from the menu. Poison shot and mystic cross did the most damage, and I added dark saviour for those annoying suicide wisps in Lezard's tower, and lighting bolt for Dipan castle. I kept every artifact, which gave me 3 bracelets of zoe for less fuss micromanaging the hp gain on level up. The early emerald necklace gave a head start early on but having 2 was pointless. In chapter 1 I did not waste time visiting all the towns and thus had more time to farm the dungeon. I sent both Llewellyn and Belenus, who were over leveled a bit. Chapters 2 and 3 went pretty much the same as last time. Chapter 4 was where I had to follow the guide to get the A ending, which meant fewer times farming Lezard's tower, which was A ok to me. I had all the xp farming dungeons pretty much memorized from doing them so many times. I cleared the tower once without killing the boss so I could get Lorenta and exited to send her and Aelia. Made a backup save just in case but it all worked out well; transferred the 2 at 100 seal value then did the tower and all events to drop the seal. During chapter 5 I only sent up Yumei for her swimming, then by chapter 6 the seal value was as low as 2 and I sent up 2 people. I might have even been able to send up 2 during chapter 5. I maxed out their traits and even bought the otherwise pointless accessories to boost hero value as much as possible, which earned me more money than last playthrough. This time I bought Valkyrie's best armor and helm and gave the mask of the dead king to Arngrim. The rest of the late game was mostly farming dungeons again. I still bought a gram and made sure to get another as random reward. The many times farming Arianod dungeon seen me swap between gram, icicle blade and daemon slayers to best exploit the enemies. I could not believe that neither slayer sword broke. At the end of chapter 8 I sent Lawfer and Jelanda figuring I would get them back in Asgard like on ending B; nope so I had to watch that 30 to 40 minutes of scenes again.

Ending stats:

Valkyrie: level 90 with 83186 hp

Arngrim: level 74 with 80628 hp

Lawfer: level 75 with 70196 hp

Jelanda: level 85 with 55697 hp

I mostly put the coins of fortune on the girls, which was why they were so higher level. Otherwise same as last playthrough. The story on this ending was much better though there was a plothole that bothered me. I was under the impression that valkyrie's power was in allowing human souls to manifest in Midgard as physical entities able to fight. So how could the dead characters that saved her manipulate the environment without her? I also found the idea behind her and previously Odin's power made no sense; that gods were powerful but static while humans were weak with potential to grow, so combing them would give extreme power. Especially that anything in the physical world would affect the divine in any way, like the artificial body they made for her. This nonsense reminded me of the Falcie in FF13, only more ridiculous because the Falcie were essentially portrayed like machines made by gods. It would make more sense if the Aesir, Vanir etc used to be human long ago; that gods and human souls were essentially the same thing only those few with power keep the others down by forcing them to reincarnate in the physical world. Then I did the Seraphic gate using dimension slip to skip all regular battles. I did not do well against Lezard; I killed him quickly but the damn beholders revived him, then he nuked the entire party for more than 99,999 hp each. So this was where the guts, auto revive, angel curios shenanigans started. I had everyone set up with guts, first aid and damage boosting accessories. Though only valkyrie failed guts and I probably could have struggled to victory, I reloaded, changed loadouts and took out the eyes first. Freya and Brahms were easier. Then I beat Gabriel and the queen back to back without going back to save. Gabriel cost me 1 angel curio while the queen cost 4. Everyone had 2 curios equipped, except Jelanda who had 1 with a fairy ring as I used her more for support with might and guard buffs, power and guard debuffs, and healing. Valkyrie did the most damage by far with upwards of 80,000 damage just from the final explosion of her special attack. Not many games are good enough to beat twice back to back, and I would like to try out Easy mode in the future because it is supposed to be far more difficult due to the lack of powerful items. I think it will be interesting to see how my party line up would change without new recruits starting at measly level 1.

9.5+/10

I don't particularly want to buy Valkyrie Elysium to get a copy of this, it is listed separately on the PS store, albeit without a price, but there's no telling if this will come to PS+ Premium as a PSP game or if it will be sold separately.

Yet, none of that matters. I want a physical copy and I wonder if that will happen. It won't in North America, but it might in Asia. Here's hoping for a regional version from Asia with English.

At the time of writing this, Valkyrie Profile may well be one of my favorite PS1 era JRPGs. While it isn't quite perfect, it is almost perfect.

The story is excellent. You're introduced to your protagonist, Lenneth who has to gather souls of deceased warriors to fight for Odin in the war against the Vanir, preparing for the ever-present Ragnarok. From there, you enter a somewhat episodic sequence of recruiting party members, who all have interesting stories preceding their imminent deaths. Even the more generic stories are engaging, but there's no lack of stories that are enjoyable. From there, you will uncover conspiracies about the world and Lenneth herself. How far you go in that direction fully depends on whether or not you get the A or B endings.

The game is very open ended and has a lot of replayability; from the three difficulties that have completely different dungeons, to the three different endings that also vary greatly. There are 24 playable characters, so each playthrough can be something unique. The game gives you a time limit that varies slightly depending on the difficulty to go to dungeons and recruit characters, but you can skip some of both. Sending warriors to Valhalla is voluntary and allows you to net rewards depending on whether or not you meet certain criteria.

Valkyrie Profile has one of the most engaging battle systems. The player uses a party of 4 characters that are assigned to four buttons. Clicking a button will make your character attack. If the weapon permits, clicking multiple times allows for multiple hits. This is important for when you want to land the very important combos, which allows the characters to fill a meter that allows them to use special attacks or it may cause the enemies to drop gems or crystals, which recharges special moves/magic or multiplies experience, respectively. This system made grinding enjoyable, as it never felt old, and I've always felt compelled to try to get as many experience crystals as possible against tougher enemies.

The various items that can be found add to this. Spells that can be given to mages can be found as book items, while other general skill books can permanently teach every party member a useful skill, which can add new fighting techniques or boost stats. There breakable and unbreakable weapons, the former of which are usually more powerful, but will sometimes break, as the name implies. The transmutation system allows the player to change one item to another, which allows for further customization and experimentation with certain items.

The art direction is top notch. The spritework is really well done, as is the character art. The pre-rendered backgrounds are very nice to look at, and each town and dungeon has it's own personality and is very memorable. The game is filled with a soundtrack that will leave you humming some of the tunes.

The voice acting can be very hit or miss. Many of the characters are actually voiced by VAs who appeared in the Pokemon dub of all things, so that isn't all that surprising. Hearing Mystina speak in general can be a real treat, but then characters like Lucian really reveal their acting ability, or lack thereof, at dramatic moments.

Some of the flaws of this game includes the under-utilization of characters. Apart from Lenneth, Freya and Lezard, most characters only get about two appearances at most, which is a real shame because many of them are established very well, and you will grow to like them more as you use them in battle. Even the true main villain is only given a handful of appearances.

Which brings me to the other, commonly cited issue that the game suffers from: the very obtuse requirement for getting the best ending. In the context of the story, it makes sense that you have to do what's required, but nowhere in the game does it make an reference to what's required. It was one of the few instances where I turned to a walkthrough, and I don't know if I would have been able to figure it out without one.

Incidentally, the other instances where a walkthrough was needed was a handful of the hard mode puzzles. Most of the hard mode dungeons have at least one annoying gimmick, from rotating rooms, to bottomless pits that boot your ass to the world map (wasting two periods in the process.)

One more positive is that the game has a legitimately satisfying post-game dungeon, a huge labyrinth that not only push your put your abilities to the ultimate test, but allows you to recruit some god-tier party members that cannot be recruited in the main game.

Ultimately, this is a game that I would highly recommend for people looking for a classic, but timeless, JRPG, a good story, or just someone looking for something different. Hell, I'd recommend to pretty much anyone who is reading this, even by accident.

This is a tricky one. I'd heard so much about this game back in the day, and picked it up in 2008 when I bought a PSP. Sadly due to life circumstances it fell by the wayside, and only now, during my 2020 backlog project (because what the hell else am I going to do to while away the pandemic), did I finally get to it. And...

I feel like if I had played this back when it first came out I might feel differently, but I bounced pretty hard off this. It's -gorgeous- to look at, and the soundtrack is pretty great, but its story and storytelling is weak as all hell. The writing is definitely of its time, but that makes it quite difficult to go through now without nostalgia or pre-existing affection guiding my hand and helping me through.

It's also obtuse AF and about as monotonous. I heard so much about its unique combat system, and yes, it is unique, but it's also quite dull and lacking in strategy. Or, I should say, lacking in the sort of strategy that I find interesting in most RPGs. In the end, it left me about as cold as Star Ocean: Second Story, which I also found to look quite beautiful (at the time) but played terribly.

In the end, I made it to chapter two or three but was getting nothing from it. Not one character's story evoked any degree of emotion or interest, and the overall plot is very loose and not terribly involved. Even for its time this is weak storytelling. It's clearly more interested in the individual vignettes, but unfortunately none of the vignettes themselves are well written or all that interesting.

Cool concept overall, and gorgeous visuals, but where I am these days that's just not enough to carry me through. I either need to be emotionally invested in the story/characters or I need to feel like the gameplay is actually requiring something of me, and I felt neither of those here.

Jeanne D'arc is next, and then I can finally say I'm done with the PSP portion of this backlog...