Valkyrie Profile - any good?

[Ford Prefect]

Jesus, this is going to be redundant.

Basically, I recently keep on running into stuff related to the game Valkyrie Profile. I stumbled across its entry on the TV Tropes wiki, found it in stores and what have you. I'm thinking about buying it for my piano black PSP, and I'm wondering wether anyone has played it and what their thoughts are.

[Block]

Which Valkyrie Profile are you talking about? There was the original on PS1 I think it was, was rather uninspired, just a normal RPG. The others I haven't played, so I couldn't tell you.

[Ford Prefect]

Which Valkyrie Profile are you talking about? There was the original on PS1 I think it was, was rather uninspired, just a normal RPG. The others I haven't played, so I couldn't tell you.

This first one, which was ported to PSP.

[Block]

Yeah it was very average, it had an interesting idea behind it, going around collecting souls to help you fight in Ragnarok or something like that, but the way it was executed was meh. From what I remember anyways.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Keep in mind, it's a "Squaresoft trying to break the RPG mold," game. Which means like most of the latest Final Fantasies, it has a fair number of good ideas, pulled off in a range from 'Good' to 'Stop it, please.'

That said, it's interesting enough. The characters are controlled via the four buttons instead of by a menu. And the attacks and characters are interesting enough.

Supposedly the characters you meet are semi-random, so that each play through is different.

Myself, I have it... but like most of my PSP games, it's gotten very little play time. (The most I spent with one game on it was R-Type command.)

[Ravencrow]

I had this game a while back. I remember it has a in-game time limit of sorts looming over the whole main quest of gathering souls for the last battle and determines the results, which is just about the only thing that irritated me about the game. But I really like the stories.

Some of the stories for characters were very touching. I also remember the rather haunting music.

IIRC, the battles are turn-based but the attacks were a matter of timing in order to execute combos.

It is quite unique imo and is definitely worth a play.

[Darth Onasi]

Keep in mind, it's a "Squaresoft trying to break the RPG mold," game. Which means like most of the latest Final Fantasies, it has a fair number of good ideas, pulled off in a range from 'Good' to 'Stop it, please.'

That would be an interesting feat given that it was entirely developed by Enix's RPG developer house, Tri-Ace, several years before Enix's merger with Squaresoft.

I say it's a grand old game by the way, an interesting battlesystem, nice world and great story. There is a time limit but it won't bother you much.
One thing though, if you come to like the story, don't ever play Valkyrie Profile 2. It rapes VP1's story wholesale.

[Ford Prefect]

Okay, so I ended up buying it. It was cheap.

I'm enjoying it. The opening parts of the game are very expositiony, but I like Arngrim (and his ludicrously massive sword. I mean, wow), so that's fine. I have mixed feelings over the voice acting, but I had mixed feelings over the voice acting of Crisis Core too, at first. It's not fantastic*, but only a little of it has been utterly cringe-worthy.

I think the battle system is awesome. The focus on timing to build up combos in order to unleash the Purify Weird Soul (this game has the best terms since Digital Devil Saga ) is pretty refreshing. I love building up continuous streams of attacks; I only wish the Purify Weird Soul could be directed against other members of the enemy party and not just the one that was attacked. There's something cool about wailing on an enemy with every character's special attacks, though when they're already dead twice over it's kind of redundant.

It's a quick battle system too, almost as quick as Crisis Core's, so excepting bosses, the battles haven't lasted very long. However, given the limited number of enemies in a dungeon (or at least in the first dungeon), I think I'm going to find it difficult to build up new characters found in a chapter to send them off to Ragnarok. I would have been fine with continuous random encounters in this situation, simply so I could please the All-Father better with my offerings of Einherjar. I am actually amazed that I just asked for random encounters so I can level grind. I may have been playing too much Disgaea.

The time limit is an interesting - though limiting - game mechanic, every time you enter the world map it tells you in very clinical terms that the world is going to end. That tickles my Norse fancy, even if Midgard in this case has the occasional Japanese restaurant. In any case, I'm playing it on Hard so I have more time to do stuff.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

That would be an interesting feat given that it was entirely developed by Enix's RPG developer house, Tri-Ace, several years before Enix's merger with Squaresoft.

I suppose it would. Ah well, only time I had remembered hearing of it was as a Square title. Or I'm getting my wires crossed somewhere in my memory...

[Darth Onasi]

A couple of things to note - the difficulty setting in VP is different in that different settings give you some different dungeons to visit, different ending possibilities and characters join at different times.
Though obviously Hard gives you the fullest experience.

Another thing is that the "best" and most complete ending requires you to do events in a vague manner that you can only really find out how to do through a guide, so you won't get it the first time.
Also it gets some Norse mythology horribly wrong in some points (particularily with regards to Surt and Odin) but it's still a marvelous story in it's own right.