Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria

"tri-Ace and Square-Enix gives us a return trip to Midgard in this sequal/prequal to the 2000's Valkyrie Profile."

'To what end, woman from Gaul,
False of heart, would you enter my realm?
Fair woman, if you want the truth,
You have bathed your hands in the blood of men.'
---an exert from Helreið Brynhildar (translated by W. H. Auden and P. B. Taylor)

Deafened by the sounds of the fallen that reside inside, the Princess moves swiftly across the marble floor. She keeps running as her legs burn with every terrible stride. The unseen enemy chases her. Light illuminates every crevices and dark, dank place. She has to keep running for the voices will her so.

Splitting the sky like a cry from heaven, a golden spear imbeds itself in the woman's path. A warrior maiden, lo' a valkryie steps forward to claim the prize. A beauty, battle-hardened and cold to all but the darkest of emotions, beckons not the princess, but her sister inside. By Odin's edict Hrist orders Silmeria to return with her. The same anger that cost the Valkyrie her freedom flares within. Burning upward and outward, the Princess (no longer in command of her bone and sinew) grabs the spear and thrusts it at her pursuer. The voice, that doesn't belong, echoes that she'll not return. A cacophony and fragments rushes from where the spear finds its mark. Nothing can survive that exhibition of power…or can it?

Poetic license aside, this describes, in brief, the opening scene of Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria. The sequel of the cult hit (and recently re-released on the Playstation Portable) Valkyrie Profile finds its way onto your PS2 via tri-Ace and Square-Enix. Will the long anticipated sequel live up to the hype? Take a journey through the land of Midgar to find out.

Two souls bound by one flesh is the story of this game. Alicia, the “supposedly” dead princess of Dipan, finds that Silmeria Valkyrie has been bound inside of her. Odin punished Silmeria for her disobedience by imprisoning her inside the body of the young princess. It's a race against time. Silmeria/Alicia must save not only themselves, but Alicia's home city of Dipan. Can they do the impossible? Can they impose the will of the Odin?

A Sight to Behold…

Square-Enix really outdid themselves this time. Many a game studio needs to sit down and take notes from them. This is how you take advantage of aging hardware to show a game that borders artistic in its beauty. The player will be amazed by the open fields that stretch forever to the darkest of depths with the solemn light of a torches one's only solace.

The normal view is the shown in the traditional second dimension of the original. Side scroller or not, that does not take away from the sheer beauty of the game. Once a character enters battle, the game switches to a full 3D view. The battle fields aren't barren, either. Ruins from fallen columns, trees or other such debris are usually scattered here and there. The detail in everything is quite exquisite.

With the great abundance of detail in the environment, one would imagine that the character designs would take a hit. This is completely not the case. The characters themselves are designed with great attention to detail. Some warriors are riddled with battle scars while others are adorned with jewelry and other such trinkets. The monsters are colorful and varied in appearance. They take damage and lose armor and even body parts during the course of the battle (more on that later). Watching these characters throw themselves at each other in an explosion of violence and particle effects is truly a sight to behold.

The CG movies are just as impressive as anything that's come from Square-Enix game. So, no one should be surprised how wonderful they are. The developer, tri-Ace, didn't really have to rely on impressive CGs to move along the story. The graphics are amazing that most of the cinemas are run through the graphics engine itself. Great stuff!!!

Visually, the only blemish worth mentioning is the lack of anti-aliasing. This is the fault of the hardware itself. Everything has a slight shimmer around the edges. However, it's something that many PS2 owners are all but familiar with. It still without a doubt one of the most pleasing games to cross your PS2 in a long time (some people may argue that it's even better than FFXII).

Not Your Grandfather's profile…

Valkyrie Profile 2 builds upon the foundations of its predecessors. In many ways, it's instantly familiar and accessible but it doesn't always tread the same ground. tri-Ace built this game for both the fans of the original and also fans of rpgs in general. However, some of the additions and design choices lead it to the hardcore crowd.

The game is paced like a normal RPG. tri-Ace axed the time period feel of the original; thus, allowing the player to return to any place without fear of punishment from the game. This makes the game more linear and the game a more traditional RPG in progression. The party still ventures and explores dungeons to level up or gain treasure, but it still a bit of the downer that a game so revolutionary in execution would have a follow up that plays it by the numbers in many ways. Not everything has seen dramatic changes such as this, but its worth noting that the pacing is totally different from the original. Moreover, shops and inns are introduced in this game. Also, weapons no longer break under repeated use (thank god).

Shops serve another function as well. Old weapons, armor, items, and accessories can be combined to create new and more powerful equipment. The trick is having enough of those material to create the item (which may require frequent battling), but high enough standing with the shop has to be attained to gain access. This may drag things down a bit because players may have to trek to an out of the way places to hoard items; also, enemies may only drop a specific item by having the right part of the body attacked. However, finding these areas is half the fun

Traveling the path less traveled…

Dungeon exploration, in many RPGs, seems like a test; a test to see how much patience a player has and how much tedium they can endure. The VP series alleviates many of the problems with dungeon exploration. VP2 (as well as VP1) handles exploration as a platformer (a 2d platformer to be exact). Even though platforming exploration is nothing new, it speaks volumes to the genre as a whole that allows this to seem so refreshing.

Alicia/Silmeria has access to photon powers (this replaces Lenneth's ice powers from the original). She can launch concentrated energy to encase enemies (to allow the character to avoid combat or even solve puzzles) or other items in the world. The system is different in implementation. The player can no longer create pillars of ice or ice mist to get to higher platforms. The player can only freeze objects or enemies and teleport with a second blast. This opens up the game to all new puzzle possibilities. The player can bounce photon particles off the ceiling or the ground to reach out of the way places and then quickly switch places with the frozen objects. Building ice pillar steps was perfectly fine, but tri-Ace shows that taking the same basic component and changing slightly can sometimes make a world of difference.

Sealstones play an important role in dungeon exploration as well. Sealstones are concentrated sap from the great tree Yggradsil. In certain areas, there are altars where sealstones. Placing a sealstone on an altar provides status effects to the enemies in the area. A party can also carry a sealstone and the effects will pass onto the characters. Unfortunately, only one sealstone can be carried at a time. These elements combined can cause some tricky puzzles to surface, and there are areas on which photons and sealstones have no effect.

Alicia will explore dungeons to not only get valuable loot, level up, or progress the story, she'll come across artifacts that resonate with her einherjar (warriors that have fallen in battle and are collected by a Valkyrie to fight in the battle of Ragnarok). In contrast to the first game, Silmeria already had her collection of einherjar from the time before she revolted. Objects will unlock these characters as the player progresses throughout the game. Silmeria isn't releasing them for Odin's benefit as well. As the player levels up their einherjar they can be released after reaching a specific level. The reward for releasing these powered up characters (it also helps to have excellent equipment on the einherjar before release) is one time stat boosts that can be applied to any character. They range from strength, magic, etc. and are permanent. The party may even run into them once they have been released for resurrection in the real world. One can never expect when they'll show up and give the party a valuable item.

A downside to this system is that the einherjar are not fleshed out in anyway. Their back story is only listed as a few paragraphs of text. It's a change that may upset fans of the original. Each Einherjar had a story sequence that showed the events leading up to their subsequent death. Now that doesn't mean the main characters aren't involved with the story, the einherjar are just there to fill out the party and provide stat boosts for the main characters. In many ways, they can be viewed as the “soldiers” from a strategy RPG

How fearsome can a Valkyrie be?

As stated earlier, all normal battles can be easily avoided. The player can easily avoid all battles (but what's the fun in that????). The battle themselves, like the original, are represented as a monster character that you come in contact and it will initiate the battle sequence. Alicia can strike the monster with her sword to gain initiative or come in contact with the enemy (and run the risk of getting an ambush).

Once battle begins, each of the four characters currently in the party is represented by one of the four face buttons. The party is moved around the field in real time and can also be split into two different parties to attack enemies from the back or sides. The team can move along the battle field or use the dash to advance quickly unto enemies. However, problems can arise when characters get stuck on objects in the environment. This can lead to an incomplete team attacking the enemy.

Once a target for the inevitable onslaught is selected and everyone is in position, any one of the characters can initiate combat by pressing their corresponding button. Other characters can attack and chain attacks together to create devastating combos. Every hit of the combo does a small increase in damage. Attacks stringed together increase the Soul Crush meter (know as PWS or “Purify Weird Soul” in the first Valkyrie profile) which allows the characters to unleash their incredibly powerful Soul Crush attacks. It pays to string attacks together instead of taking pot shots at the enemy. During the course of the attack, enemies can lose armor or limbs from focused attack. For example, if you destroy an enemy's head, it'll just lie there prone waiting for another onslaught. In addition, enemies drop certain items depending on which part of their body is destroyed. The leader of the enemy party can be defeated first for increased rewards and a bonus item (beware there is a timer on the right side of the screen).

It would be easy as pie if players could just worry about getting into position and attacking, but tri-Ace changed things around with the AP meter. The AP meter starts out at 100 points. Actions such as attacking, dashing, or using magic all drain the party's AP points. It can slowly be regenerated by running around the battle field or quickly by defeating enemies, clicking the Right analog stick, or being attacked (each time the party is attacked, it adds 60 points back to the bar). A player has to not only watched the position of their attack but to make sure they have enough AP points to make an effective push.

Nibelung….

The sound in VP2 is topnotch across the board. From the voice acting to the music, the atmosphere the game creates is very nice. The soundtrack is varied and fits the total theme of the game. The designers have taken great lengths to match the quality of the original. One would have to be hard pressed to find fault with the music.

The voice acting is generally good. From Alicia to Silmeria, each character has an appropriate voice to fit their traits. Some recurring characters are voiced by different people, and some fans of the original may find fault in that. There are hit and miss moments where there are unnatural pauses that can break up the pacing for certain scenes. It's not something that happens on a regular occasion, but it's still a fault

Rounding out the audio experience, the sound effects are pretty good overall. You have the wide range of shouts, yells, clanks, bangs, and any other assortment of battle noises that are found in your typical RPG. The effects are good but nothing a person hasn't experienced a thousand times.

…Valesti

Valkyrie Profile 2 gives back to you the same amount of effort you put in. The story moves along at a fairly good clip. Increasing one's levels and trying to snoop out the latest and greatest items will increase the amount of play time exponentially. Considering how many times you have to fight certain monsters to get those items, it could be awhile until the game is all said and done.

The Seraphic Gate makes a triumphant return. It's a bonus dungeon that opens up when you complete the main game. It's pretty difficult and adds new bosses to battle and new items to collect for the player. Additionally when the game is completed, a repeat played through is offered that allows for increased difficulty. The more times the game is completed, the harder the game becomes.

Overall

Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria is a beautiful game with a rich battle system to back it up. Some of the additions and subtractions may be a little hard to swallow (especially for fans of the original), that does not mean this game is any less excellent. It holds up well to the original and a great addition to the series.



Graphics-9.5= The lack of anti-aliasing is the only fault here. Everything else is A++++

Gameplay-9.0= 2D platforming and 3D battles are at their best here.

Sound-8.5= The Soundtrack is exceptional. The voice over suffer from some awkward pauses and the sound effects are nothing new.

Lasting Appeal-9.0= Side quests, extra dungeons...This game has it all. When this game is over...its actually just beginning.

Fun Factor-9.0= The battle system is soo good that level-grinding is not even close to being a chore.

Overall-9.0

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/12/07

Game Release: Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria (US, 09/26/06)