Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth

"Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth Review"

*Pros*: Unique gameplay mechanic. Load times are quicker than a hiccup. Probably the best traditional RPG on the PSP yet.

*Cons*: Dated graphics. Story will make you sad. Story will make you angry.

Full Review:

I must admit, I am a lover of really good RPGs. You name it, I played them all and saying that I am familiar with all the RPG cliches is an understatement. All you RPG fans out there know what I mean. It always starts with a naive young guy buying a bottle of suka for his mother (or doing some other mundane task) and ends with him saving the universe. Valkyrie Profile however, is different. Its a whole lot different. For one thing, you can't save the world! You can't even save the members of your party. You even end up killing some of your party members to recruit them!!!

The game starts out with you being summoned by the god Odin. Apparently, the world is going to end and the war in Asgard (heaven) between good and evil has begun. You are sent down to Midgard (earth) to recruit souls of the recently departed, train them and send them up to Asgard to become soldiers in Odin's army. Wow, this story line brings back memories of the Nameless One and his pal Morte, the floating skull... Never have I played a more unique game since that one (Planescape: Torment).

Note that while you are recruiting souls down on earth, the war in heaven is still ongoing and with this, the time is literally ticking. Also, those recruited souls most often than not, need to be trained as they are not ready for sending when you first get them. This adds a bit of tension to the game unlike other games.

The actual recruitment process is done from the world view which is essentially a top view map of Midgard. You then activate spiritual concentration which serves as your way to detect the recently dead or the dying. You then fly down to the location of the soul and are treated to a long (5 to 20 minute) but interesting story showing the circumstances of the soul's demise.

Note that spiritual concentration also serves as a way to detect the many dungeons you can visit to level. The dungeons themselves is standard 2D platforming. Here you fight an enemy by striking it with a sword. This activates a kind of real-time turn-based battle. Its turn-based because each combatant, depending on his weapon, has a fixed number of turns. Its real-time because you actually need to time your attacks. Each of your characters are assigned a specific button and you have to time the actual button presses. As you attack, a sort of special meter is filled up by a certain amount. When it reaches 100, any of those who contributed to the combo can perform a special. If after the characters attack you are able to refill the special meter back to 100, another character can do his special. As you can see, properly timing your attacks can result in a quick battle. Not only that, combos also lead to more collected loot. This leads to a simple but deep combat system that is very refreshing and never gets old.

Now each action you do consumes a fixed amount of time. When you consume a good amount of time, you are summoned back to Asgard and your actions are evaluated. Depending on the soul you send up, the gods send back artifacts that you can use in your quest as well as a number of materialize points which is in apparently the currency of choice for the dead. These materialize points can be used to "buy" new weapons, armour and items, as well as to convert existing items you have to other more useful items. Another chapter then starts with a new set of characters to recruit and dungeons to visit.

As you can see, the game is very unique and engaging.

With that though, the game is not perfect. For one, the transition between PS1 and PSP is not at all perfect. Graphics wise, the game is a bit dated but that is in my opinion forgiveable. What is not forgiveable is the fact that they didn't properly modify the graphics to fit the wide-screen format of the PSP. The end result is slightly blurred graphics on some portions of the game. Aside from that, there are a number of speed hiccups that should not have been there. The graphics in my opinion was very sloppily ported.

In actuallity though, graphics is not that important when it comes to RPGs. Yes you can't show off your shiny new PSP with this game but because of the unique gameplay and deep story, you'll be hooked by this game. I just do hope that more effort would be put in any of the future RPG ports.

- Summary -------------------
Graphics: 7.5 / 10
Sound: 7.0 / 10
Gameplay: 9.5 / 10
Longevity: 10.0 / 10
(Tilt: 9.5 / 10)
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Overall: 8.5 / 10
(Overall with Tilt: 8.7 / 10)
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Expect a full character FAQ in a couple of weeks.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/04/06