Valkyrie Profile

"Collecting dead people has never been this much fun"

To tell you the truth, I at first was turned off by the way I heard this game played. ''An RPG with side-scrolling dungeons? They better be DANG good to pull that one off!'' Well...they were.

Story 9/10: You are Lenneth Valkyrie, one of the three goddesses who governs destiny. She has the ability to hear the cries of souls soon to die, or hear the undead itself. Using this power, you search the land of Midgard (the world where humans dwell) for heroic (or potentially heroic) souls to train in battle. Valkyrie has been assigned this mission by Lord Odin to train heroes for Ragnarok, the Norse end-of-the-world. There will be a great war, the Sacred War, between the Aesir and the Vanir (basically, the good guys and the bad guys). You have to train strong heroes (called your ''Einherjar'') to send to Asgard (where the Gods dwell) to attempt to WIN the war. Aside from this main plotline, Valkryie is also searching for her own past, and her own destiny as well... Not a bad storyline at all. It doesn't ever seem to intrude, but usually takes a backseat to everything else. Seeing as how the story involves finding people who are going to die or already dead, the game doesn't exactly have a happy overtone to it (reflected in the towns and in the music), but it doesn't harm the overall effect.

Gameplay 10/10: Ah, the meat of this great game. This has to be one of the most detailed RPGs I have ever played. When Valkyrie uses ''Spiritual Concentration'' to sense souls, it opens new dungeons or story events to obtain new characters. Once obtained, you go to dungeons with your ''Einherjar'' and kill stuff to become stronger. The game has so many features, I can't begin to touch on all of them in this review. In order to make your Einherjar worthy to enter Asgard, you have to build up specific Traits to to bring up their ''Hero Value'', such as increasing ''Bravery'' in the swordsman's case or bringing down ''Snobbish'' in the princess's case. The game is split into Periods and Chapters. When you enter and leave a town or dungeon, it uses Periods, and it takes a certain amount of Periods before a Chapter ends. Each Chapter has its own requirements for your heroes, such as raising certain Skills on your characters or a specific Hero value (or both). The battle system is very unique, in that each character corresponds to a button, and when you press the buttons in different orders, you can create combos for you characters. If you pull of a really nifty combo, it brings your Special Gauge to 100 and you can pull off an extremely powerful and very cool-looking Special Attack, such as Valkyrie's divine assault ''Nibelung Valesti''. It gets very intricate, and is a wonderful battle system. All-in-all, the gameplay is so detailed and fun that it deserves every bit of that 10 out of 10.

Graphics 9/10: Some very slick 2D going on here. The characters and their profile pictures are colorful and detailed, and animated beautifully. The special effects in battle can be remarkably impressive at times, as well. The backgrounds are all pre-rendered beauties, and were done very nicely, with mini-FMV's for doors opening. The world map is just 3D polygon stuff, nothing fancy, but nothing too shabby. Pretty good stuff here!

Sound 9/10: Whereas Enix never really has had the musical prowess of other companies named after geometric shapes, it manages to pull off some very mood-setting music in this game. Most of the music is rather dreary because the world is war-stricken, but its nicely-done dreary, at least! The more upbeat songs, such as the battle theme and boss theme, I found rather entertaining to listen to. But now to the voice acting. Enix seemed to have outdone itself in Star Ocean: The Second Story's voice acting ''talent'', but apparently they learned the error of their ways. The voice acting here isn't really bad at all, and doesn't intrude upon the dialogue of the game, only enhances it. Nicely done.

Play Control 8/10: Not much to say here. Fly, run, jump, shoot crystals, swing sword. My complaint is that I tend to have trouble jumping at times, but nothing serious. Everything responds nicely, and the battle system controls are just fine.

Overall 9/10: Good 2D graphics, actually-decent voice acting, solid control, nice music, and KILLER gameplay give this game a 9 out of 10. Great job, Enix, on an amazingly original and fun title!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/06/01, Updated 07/06/01