Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth

"An RPG for Platformer fans...possibly!!"

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth was a bit of a surprise for me. living in the UK I'd never heard of it until another of Tri-Aces games came out, that being Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time. That game opened my horizons as a Final Fantasy fanboy and lead me into a world of RPGs I didn't know existed...

...Now as for Valkyrie Profile, it's a strange mix of action/platformer and RPG. You progress through the game on side-scrolling levels solving various puzzles, most of which rely on the clever use of the hero (Lenneth's) crystal forming ability. Firing with the square button near a wall for example creates a step to reach high areas.

The enemies are all out on the screen and can be dodged pretty much for the whole game, which is a bonus in my book ;). You can also freeze monsters with the crystal ability, if only temperary. When you do get into battles however, this game really shines. Pretty much every character is devestatingly strong and can pour out damage like nobodies business.

That doesn't mean to say that this game is easy, because it can become very difficult, very quickly. As you will discover at some point during this game, especially for first timers!

The Story of this game is quite unique as well, following Norse mythology. Basically Lenneth is a Valkyrie, a warrior/angel hybrid, who travels the human world of midgard to collect the souls of dying human warriors for Valhalla's army in preperation for Ragnarok (The End Of The World). As you can imagine this doesn't make for much cheeriness so don't expect any zany Japanese humour. In fact it can be quite a melancholy experience playing this game.

Another quite interesting fact about this game is that you can choose how much of the story you partake in. Since the only way you can get the whole story is to play the hard mode as well as its random chapter/mission set up.

This can be a bit daunting at first since most guides for this game are written for that players experience of the game and may be different from yours or mine and it gets a little confusing.

All in all this is a solid port from the PlayStation original that will delight fans of slighty left field RPGs but won't convert new comers and is aside from that, a top game for the PSP.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/12/07

Game Release: Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth (EU, 04/27/07)