Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria

"Advice for Tri-Ace: Sometimes, Less is More"

Pros:
-Gorgeously rendered 2-D graphics
-Generally pleasant music
-Effective and unique combat system
-A wealth of party-oriented customization and tailoring options
-Two-dimensional platforming exploration is engaging
-Lezard Valeth

Cons:
-Repetitious grinding emphasis
-Incessant micro-management required
-Gorgeous audiovisual presentation marred by lack of polish
(voice-sync, cinematic presentation, stiff or unconvincing dialogue)
-Story is poorly paced and inconsistently motivating
-Script is poorly written
-Skill customization interface is cumbersome

Intro:
Valkyrie Profile 2 was an RPG that I bought some months prior to the release of Final Fantasy 12. While ostensibly a “filler game” purchase, I retained reasonable expectations for the game. While I was aware of the original Valkyrie Profile for Ps1 – and had even played it for a handful of hours – that familiarity was only vague. Therefore, this was a fresh experience. What I initially discovered was an impressively crafted game. However, as game progression advanced, I ultimately found it to be an often polarizing, occasionally disappointing experience. Lack of refinement and excessive content inclusion too often detracted from the game experience.

***Aspect Summary***
Graphics: (9/10)
The awe-inspiring 2-dimensional graphical content is an unquestioned 10/10. 2-D backgrounds were always a treat to view. However, in Valkyrie Profile 2, the 3-D graphics, including cinematic sequences and battle renderings, tend to suffer slightly. They still tend to be easy on the eyes. Soul Crush animations, cinematic backgrounds, and party character renderings are still quite gorgeous. But lack of polish is evident regarding character facial expressions or environmental detail during cut-scenes. While this flaw isn't pervasively bothersome, the awkward lip-syncing in this game is clearly noticeable. However, 3-D graphical anomalies aren't limited to voice synchronization; they also relate to awkward and inconsistent character gesturing during key moments of exchange between party members.

Also, too often re-used monster palettes and ugly battle backgrounds diminish what is an otherwise uniformly beautiful presentation. In summary, the good generally outweighs the bad in the graphical department. Therefore, while still graphically impressive overall, Valkyrie Profile 2 doesn't quite warrant a 10/10, and garners a respectable 9/10 score, instead.

Sound: (8/10)
Motoi Sakuraba, by and large, delivers a satisfying and appropriate score for this game. When at its best, the music in VP2 is particularly epic and appropriately placed. Notable tracks occur during some significant dungeon treks in Chapter 3 and Chapter 5. The introductory theme is also pleasant, and “special battle” themes were typically outstanding.

Unfortunately, this level of musical quality was not uniformly achieved throughout the game. Certain dungeon themes seem terribly misplaced or inappropriate. For example, an epic and dark dungeon might feature music that you would expect to hear in a whimsical Star Ocean romp. Now I enjoy Star Ocean, but Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile are games with highly distinct themes. Therefore, it was jarring to hear Star Ocean-esque synthetic rock sounds in deep, gothic dungeons.

The standard battle theme is passable at first, but REALLY wears on you by Chapter 4 due to the excessive battling required. Speaking of battle sound, you will likely want to disable battle voices as soon as possible, perhaps after Chapter 2. These sounds will definitely grate on you. The handful of satisfying and appropriate battle calls won't justify subjecting yourself to the wealth of poor battle calls, and even the appropriate ones grow old rather quickly. As far as other sounds are concerned, many of the menu sounds, field themes, and battle effects are excessive yet catchy. I enjoyed them and their distinct “Tri-Ace” flair. But, truth be told, it did all feel misplaced amongst the game atmosphere.

Voice-acting was a mixed bag, and difficult to classify. On one hand, most voice choices were appropriate and suitable to character personas and physical characteristics. Therefore, the character voices, of themselves, sounded appropriate. However, lines and dialogue were often delivered in such a way to really hamper the enjoyment of cinematic sequences, battle calls, or anything else that involved vocals. I also feel that some voice actors suffered from over-emphasis or unnecessary theatrics. Any heavy warrior and Rufus immediately come to mind as examples. On the other hand, the valkyries, Odin, and Lezard feature truly excellent voice-acting choices that were typically pitch-perfect. Overall, VP2 sound showed great potential, but was marred with too many mediocre tracks and vocal performances.

Story: (6/10)
Passable is probably the most suitable description for this aspect. Truly, I found the plot to be poorly paced and lacking any driving motivation. I practically yawned through the cliche and hackney plot establishment up through Chapter 3. The situation became slightly more interesting at the onset of Chapter 4. However, I must emphasize “slightly”. Simply put, Valkyrie Profile 2 was an entirely game-play driven experience, in my opinion. After combat and customization mechanics became stale, I finished the game because of my completionist tendencies, as opposed to the purpose of attaining story resolution.

The problem with the Valkyrie Profile 2 plot is the same problem that repeats itself in almost every other facet of the game. The plot progresses like a well-written first draft, with lots of potential, but still requires two more rounds of edits to generate a refined and believable finished product. The story required more cohesion and more tangible transitions. The over-arching premise of the story had compelling aspects, but story transitions were linked too conveniently, even clumsily. I won't go into any details to avoid spoilers, but you'll be feeling particularly incredulous at some highly capricious plot transitions, or character “oversights” that juveniles likely would have seen coming.

Matters are made worse by poorly orchestrated cinematic scenes. Sometimes, certain sequences were altogether unnecessary, displaying awkward or irrelevant character interaction points. Too many exchanges between Rufus and Alicia in the game's latter half illustrate this point. Moreover, despite VP2's lofty encompassing themes and ambitions, most character interaction can best be described as juvenile or simplistic. The game deals with matters of grave importance and bearing on the world around them, yet the characters hold conversations in the style of a situation-comedy or a typical anime melodrama, often lacking the sober demeanor one might expect under such circumstances. Dialogue delivery and emotional displays were often unconvincing, sometimes downright awkward (think awkward Tidus/Yuna Final Fantasy 10 moments). This results from poorly-written script and poor voice actor performance. Dialogue held by characters outside of the valkyries, Odin, or Lezard often felt completely misplaced and inappropriate to a gothic-era adventure. In a game set in this era, you wouldn't dress characters like they came from the 21st century, so why should their dialogue resemble 21st century television drama banter?

Not only was the plot content poorly presented, it was also paced in an incoherent manner. This was partly affected by game-play mechanisms (ie. necessary grinding) that mandated a slow, choppy pace to the story. Without level-grinding, it would be exceedingly difficult to advance story progression, necessitating a slow and frustrating pace. However, because of time spent level-grinding, the story still ground to a halt in some areas, compelling you to lose track of its already faint pulse.

Finally, the game is a prequel and advertises as not requiring knowledge of the original Valkyrie Profile; however, once the story was told and revelations were being divulged at game's end, I felt that plot points made far less impact due to my lack of experience with the original. The whole plot still “made sense” but I felt myself asking “ok, why is this event/person/circumstance all that important?” Therefore, an introduced character or circumstance that probably held great weight for a Valkyrie Profile veteran ended up feeling very generic, and inspired little reaction from me.

In summary, a slow and cliche start, poor pacing, awkward dialogue, and predictably convenient transitions combined to form a tedious experience. The story is salvaged somewhat by some ambitious story arcs within a decent framework, and a small handful of intelligently articulating characters, Lezard Valeth being chief among them. However, this area is too flawed to grade out any better than ‘passable'.

Game-play: (7/10)
Grading this game after Chapter 3, I probably would have given the game-play an 8/10, almost a 9/10. Concepts are fresh and innovative, whether in the dynamic 3-D combat environment, platform adventuring across a field dungeon, or customizing your party with a variety of skills, accessory abilities, and einherjahr members. It's safe to say that very few other RPGs play quite like Valkyrie Profile 2. It's all very compelling… at first.

Through the duration of the game-play, the 2-D platform adventuring element remains a compelling aspect of the game. It's always fresh, adds a nice wrinkle of challenge, and spices up dungeon-trekking and exploration, which can be an otherwise dull experience in other RPGs. It can be difficult or obtuse at times, especially at times when the mini-map or your photon powers are removed, but this method of exploration is more often rewarding than frustrating. Adventuring is also augmented by the presence of and necessity to manipulate “sealstones” during the course of your dungeon trek. This was another uniformly neat wrinkle. By manipulating sealstones, you can augment your advantage while putting foes in a difficult spot. It's mildly cerebral, in that it requires some forethought and planning, but the sealstone system is well-explained and becomes intuitive after a short time. Exploration and manipulation of this system is an engaging game-play aspect. Unfortunately, collecting orbs to ‘restore' seal stones in order to more effectively take advantage of the system adds to the game's already enormous grinding mandate. I will elaborate more on the necessary grinding later.

The customization system is, at first, another welcome game aspect. The problem is that you will essentially spend a large chunk of your gaming time involved with the menu. You'll need to constantly revert back to cure wounds (happens often during hours of grinding with monsters in long dungeons that typically hit for significant damage), set skills, change/adapt equipment, release einherjahr, heal status, re-arrange your party, etc. etc. Every RPG requires a good deal of interaction with your party interface menu, that's generally accepted. But VP2's menu interface requires more time investment than any RPG in my recent memory. Quick loading times make this process less daunting, but I felt that the game experience could have been eased by more automatic functions and a more painless interface. Tri-Ace also would have benefiting from taking a fine instrument to the absolute wealth of items/weapons and collection options. The problem stems not from having too many choices; the problem is that the wealth of choices exposes the system's lack of streamlining. Efforts should have been taken to reduce item ‘added effect' redundancy, or management tools for these items should have been made more intuitive. Goal-based equipment optimization options (ie. optimize equipment to learn skill(s), maximum attack, maximum defense, etc.) would also have been welcome, yet none were found, forcing the gamer to slog through the poor interface.

Another detriment is found in the sheer amount of battling required. At first, encounters are a welcome and engaging experience. The system is fresh, the challenge is significant, and pursuing enemy leaders is fun. Unfortunately, as your experience with the system increases, you will find yourself repeatedly employing similar tactics against similar opponents; the differences being that you are operating at higher levels with greater HPs and hitting for more damage in mildly nuanced 3-dimensional environments.

Killing leaders to end a battle quickly is a fantastic idea. However, by Chapter 4, I can't imagine if the option was NOT included in battles. Had it not been there, the game might have been impossible to complete by anyone, save the most die-hard Valkyrie Profile fan. However, I perceived that the battle density was a conscious design decision, not an accidental byproduct. VP2 felt very much like a “dungeon crawler” RPG. That's fine, but an effective interface and dynamic system are required to make that style of game persistently compelling. Many PC RPGs (Bioware and Bethesda products) succeed at this, whereas Japanese RPGs seem a less tenable choice. In my opinion, this game needed to pare and refine item/weapon/sealstone/einherjahr, while scaling down dungeon length and making encounters more consistently dynamic and strategic. There's just too much “rinse-and-repeat” in every facet of the game-play.

Atmosphere: (7/10)
Conceptually, Valkyrie Profile 2 possesses a very legitimate and engaging atmosphere, rife with mythology, authentic-looking Norwegian villages, an expansive and fantastic world map to explore, and characters steeped in sword and sorcery. From a theoretical perspective, Valkyrie Profile 2 makes good choices and does everything right. From an execution perspective, Valkyrie Profile 2 simply falls short and negatively impacts the gaming experience. Captivating dialogue to motivate the action is not present. Gorgeous and conceptually intriguing town design is wasted on the relatively static and disengaged role that towns play on the overall game mechanic. In effect, they are often reduced to glorified fuel stops. Moreover quests are often not properly motivated, with fetch-questing and back-tracking being the order of the day, at times. This isn't effective game design and it all serves to decrease the gamers' sense of immersion.

Furthermore, attempts to endear the player to party characters also fall short. Cinematic sequences are often stiff and unnatural. Interactions and relationships often feel contrived. Not enough is done to ingratiate Einherjahr (who may become fundamental characters in your party) into a legitimate role for your adventure. Each simply functions as a generic tag-along, instead. Minor initiatives are made to lend them legitimacy, such as the availability of a brief background, or the surfacing of released einherjahr in relevant locations in the world. But yet, these inclusions feel like far too little considering their relatively important role in Valkyrie Profile 2.

Beyond those factors, the incessant grinding necessary for game progression functionally mitigates any positives established by the game architecture. While the game-play system can be ingratiating and rewarding, it simply isn't strong or dynamic enough to warrant the repetition that it requires of the gamer. It therefore becomes an obstacle, rather than a vehicle, for motivating the gaming experience, thereby prohibiting the gamer from feeling any sense of ingratiation to the story, setting, or environments.

***End Aspect Summary***

Conclusion: Valkyrie Profile 2 truly plays like a well-written yet unedited first draft. Enough innovative game-play concepts accompany a potentially solid framework to cause initial excitement about the prospects offered by VP2. However, as one progresses through the chapters, the inevitable reality of “great potential, poor execution” begins to set in. If a gamer absolutely falls in love with the system, he or she may be able to perceive certain documented flaws as strengths. Then, the repetitious aspects are certainly mitigated. However, there remain other detracting aspects that still hold this game back. With a couple of edits, this game might have been superior. As it stands, Valkyrie Profile 2 is an irregularly entertaining game. It may be worth your time, but you will need to be tolerant of repetition and inconsistently motivating story and dialogue to really enjoy your experience with it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/17/09

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