Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth

"Possibly Square Enix's greatest non-FF game"

Square Enix is a company that is best known for creating the famous Final Fantasy franchise. Sadly, almost all the games they've created without the Final Fantasy marker are usually ignored. When the thought of trying something new appeared in my mind, I decided to pick up Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth. After playing this game, I quickly realized that Square Enix should start advertising their other non Final Fantasy games such as this great creation.

Being a remake of the PSX version, I have already welcomed the classic graphics of Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth. It's interesting to see that Square Enix has remade the opening sequence and cutscenes with CGI designs. This has greatly describe the personality of the characters within the game.

The gameplay is a little bit more unique than your typical old-school RPGs. While each force still stand on opposing sides, you can actually make combos with each of your characters as turns are judged by teams rather than individuals. This makes Valkyrie Profile Lenneth better than the typical old-school RPGs where you have to wait for each unit to make their move. Battles are won when the opposite side is completely obliterated.

Due to the storyline, you might have to keep switching party members throughout the game. With the exception of your main character, it's nearly impossible to get a good outcome if you have a certain unit with you for the whole game. This actually contributes to the story with the price of making the gameplay far too complex. By this point, I can easily state that Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth is not an easy game.

There are lots of weapons and equipment present within the game. Although there are lots of goodies that can be bought, acquiring the resources (or mana) to purchase them is rather tough. Due to the lack of optional quests, slaying monsters is probably the most common way to acquire mana. To make the game even more challenging, selling equipment and items in Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth is completely pointless as the amount of mana you gain from them are worthless.

As I expected from Square Enix's games, the plot of Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth is unique and well scripted. You play as a Valkyrie called Lenneth who serves the god of gods known as Odin. In this time, the gods are having a civil war due to the hunger of power. Odin's right-hand god, Freya, sensed that the opposing god's forces will be arriving soon at their homeland of Asgard. As a Valkyrie, Lenneth's job is to travel to the human world of Midgar and recruit deceased souls for the Asgard army.

The massive amount of characters that you can acquire is what makes Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth different from your everyday RPG. What makes it even better is that all the characters have some sort of backstory before their deaths. This is a great addition to the plot as it makes the characters more than just a moving pixilated image.

Like all of Square Enix's games, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth contains a large array of music that enlightens the game's mood. Since the plot is rather dark and mysterious, most of the background music sounds menacing. The voice acting is good, but it's certainly not the best one I've heard.

Unless you've accidentally picked Easy mode when you wanted a challenge, there isn't much reason to play this game a second time. What's interesting about this game is that the higher the difficulty, the more things are available within the game. This gives Hard mode more than just a challenge.

Overall, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth is a great game to add to your PSP library. It's certainly not the best RPG in the PSP, but I can say it's one of the few that's worth playing. All I can say is that this game certainly proves that the Final Fantasy franchise isn't the only thing worth playing in Square Enix's library.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/30/09

Game Release: Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth (US, 07/18/06)