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Valkyrie profile

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
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14,982
I loved the first one, every other paty of the series has felt lackluster to me. To be fair I didn't give covenant much of a try; handheld games are a pain. Maybe I'll try it out on emulator some day. But despite Silmeria having some interesting mechanics, the effects of those mechanics felt too trivial. Like sure, you can break body parts and do weird stuff with the equipment, but it never really mattered. The original game is much more solid in that regard.

I recommend playing the first one blind on hard. You'll miss stuff but the game is fun on a replay and you'd miss stuff doing a 'good' ending run with a guide anyways. You can't do it all in one playthrough.
 

mediocrepoet

Philosoraptor in Residence
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Combatfag: Gold box / Pathfinder
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I only played the first one back on Playstation when it was a cult title that was hard to find. I thought it was extremely overrated trash, but the silver lining was that it was hard to find and sold for a good price on EBay.
Anyway, my recommendation is don't waste your time.
 

SerratedBiz

Arcane
Joined
Mar 4, 2009
Messages
4,143
The first one is definitely worth a playthrough or two. Fun combat mechanics, interesting out of combat gameplay, solid waifus.

I could never get too far into Silmaria either.
 

spekkio

Arcane
Joined
Sep 16, 2009
Messages
8,278
I only played the first one back in VGS era and liked it. No jPRG like this one (Norse gods, you have to "let go" of some party members, etc.). ENG sub is an acquired taste, though. And undub is only available for the PSP version, which is inferior to the PS1 one (US release has some improvements, which original JAP version is lacking).

wikipedia said:
Several improvements were made to the English release of Valkyrie Profile, including more cinematics and the ability to adjust all characters' armor instead of just the active party as well as being informed when changing Lenneth's weapon from sword to bow. Some editing occurred during translation, but visible blood, drinking, and sexual comments remain. Badrach's smoking was cut out but the animation of him smoking after a successful battle remains, minus the cigarette.

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth is the PlayStation Portable (PSP) port of the original Valkyrie Profile developed by TOSE and published by Square Enix in 2006. The port is of the Japanese PlayStation version and does not have any of the gameplay improvements or changes made to the original English version, though the additional cinematics included in the English version are intact. Full motion video has been added to story events in the game and replaces all original anime scenes.

Lezard Valeth's teleportation circle was changed from a pink pentagram to a purple circle though this was left unchanged in the PlayStation Portable version. The names of Frei, the elder sister, and Freya, the younger, were reversed from Norse mythology and from the Japanese version (though in the former, Frei is the elder brother).

The English version of Lenneth uses an enhanced version of the original game's localization and reuses the original English voiceover track. Square Enix cleaned up the original game's English script and additional voice over dialogue for the CG movies was recorded by New Generation Pictures, rather than the original company, TAJ Productions.
 

Falksi

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Feb 14, 2017
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Nottingham
Only played the second one. Lovely style & vibe, frankly awful game though.

I'd say try it though because if it's plus points float your boat there might be enough to carry it for you.
 

victim

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Possibly Retarded Vatnik
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Feb 12, 2014
Messages
778
Only played the second one. Lovely style & vibe, frankly awful game though.

I'd say try it though because if it's plus points float your boat there might be enough to carry it for you.

The Plume game that was an SRPG wasn't awful (not sure if that is counted as the "second one" or not as it may not be part of the "main" series) It is still one of my favorite tactics games. Never tried any of the others longer enough to have an opinion (and none of them were strategy games I don't think)
 

InD_ImaginE

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Pathfinder: Wrath
The first one and Covenant of the Plume are good and enjoyable. SIlmeria not so much, not really sure why.
 

Terra

Cipher
Joined
Sep 4, 2016
Messages
896
Loved the whole series personally and am gutted that we'll probably never get a 3rd entry since triAce decided to churn out shite Star Ocean entries instead and have been fucking it up since after the PS2 era.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
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Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
VP1 it set up as a series of vignettes with the actual story hidden away. If you play through it blind you'll never learn what the game is actually about. Finding the best ending requires a ton of luck, multiple replays with extensive trial and error, or just looking up a guide. I think it's worth getting since it makes the game a lot more interesting, but the normal playthrough has merits too. On a normal run you can keep one of the best characters until endgame, but on the hidden ending you have to give him up. The game has some great characters but bad voice acting. I think it kind of works after awhile, but some people can't stand it. The over-the-top final attack quotes and spells are some of my favorites.

It's a pretty deep game with a lot to uncover. If you play on hard mode, it doesn't make the enemies tougher, it just starts every character at level 1, forcing you to level up a bit more. It also unlocks a harder but much more rewarding set of dungeons. Fully unlocking the bonus dungeon also requires you to collect items only found in hard mode. I'd say 40% of the game is locked behind hard mode. Combine that (normal + hard mode) and the two main endings (normal ragnarok vs The true ending) and you have a ton of content for one game. The PSP remake also has some updated cutscenes but I haven't played it so I don't know about all the changes.

VP2 is more of a normal JRPG. Town-cutscene-dungeon-boss-cutscene repeat. Unlike the first one it's a single main narrative so the cast is smaller but you still find a large set of party members. They are all pulled from a list of generics and have no story purpose whatsoever. There isn't much reason to use any of them* so unlike the first game you're not cycling through a new team every chapter, and it gets dull as a result.

*However, the main story characters almost all leave part way through the game permanently, forcing you to switch to generics. If you take the time to level the story characters up to some absurd level, they give you the best weapons in the game *AND* the bonus dungeon when they leave. So if you like curbstomping everything with overpowered grinding, VP2 is for you.

VP2 also has a progressive scan mode and is one of the best-looking PS2 games, so if you emulate it be sure to enable those settings if possible.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
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Messages
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VP1 it set up as a series of vignettes with the actual story hidden away. If you play through it blind you'll never learn what the game is actually about. Finding the best ending requires a ton of luck, multiple replays with extensive trial and error, or just looking up a guide.
People always say this, but what you need to do isn't THAT tricky. Half of it is really obviously hinted at and the other stuff boils down to 'don't skip any dungeons or be bad at the game'.

Nobody is gonna to get it on the first blind run, but getting it on the second isn't that hard.
 

Saark

Arcane
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A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
Lezard Valeth is one of the best villains and a pretty cool dude. Go play VP1.
 
Joined
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694
I played a bit and i didn't liked it, not a fan of games with hidden true ending and obtuse mechanics. Maybe one day i'll go back to it to see if i can change my mind about the game.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,982
Lezard Valeth is one of the best villains and a pretty cool dude.
His whole summoning monologue is stuck in my head. It's fucking awesome. Pretty much all his lines are great honestly, voiced or not.

 
Last edited:
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
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I've loved the first game since it was released. Had a copy and sold it a few years ago, now it's worth even more, crazy.

Anyway, I just played the demo for the new game, Valkyrie Elysium, and it's fucking shit. It's like a slow Devil May Cry clone with shit celshaded graphics that runs poorly and has huge empty levels with 2-3 enemies to fight at a time. Plus you have to break barrels to get gems to upgrade weapons.

Terrible.
 

somerandomdude

Learned
Joined
May 26, 2022
Messages
650
Elysium isn't a Valkyrie Profile game though, it's yet another ARPG (way too many these days).

Would have rather they made another actual VP game, and did a similar type of battle system the first 2 games had, and built on it a bit.

I recently replayed 1 and 2. 1 was way better.

The reason 2's system was worse, was because it ended up being meta to just stack damage multiplying skills/accessories/sealstones and attack with 1 character and direct assault the game while totally ignoring the battle mechanics. Also, the release mechanics and the stat buffing items you get make it more efficient to just stack them all on 1 character. By chapter 3 onward, I was killing everything with just Zunde (but honestly, any character works), and every boss got direct assaulted. To actually make the game challenging, you'd have to go out of your way to intentionally gimp yourself, like no releases, use 4 party members, don't over level, don't use damage multiplying skills/accessories, etc.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Dec 19, 2012
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1,633
VP1's combat system is truly great, and the game is a perfect example of genre-blending combat done well that makes me love JRPGs despite whatever flaws they may otherwise have.

My 2nd playthrough came right after putting a lot of time into Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, where the concept of building a team synergy around calling assists was a big part of getting good. Certain characters assists were good enough to justify a placement on your team, even if the character themselves wasn't amazing when piloted. Wesker's downwards pistol assist, for example, had a useful OTG (on-the-ground) property that would let you hit grounded enemies to extend combos. After having some experience with this type of gameplay I was suddenly 1000x better at VP1 in my next playthrough, and certain characters and moves I thought were completely useless the first go-round I suddenly found a place for during combo strings. I thought the spear dragon girl waifu's kick attack was completely shit, but it's basically Wesker's OTG assist.

Point being VP has one of the better battle systems I've ever played. Both it and MVC3 have fun battle modes where you could lose hours just drilling and optimizing combos, and VP has a really good game underneath it all.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,640
Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
The Elysium demo is bad even for a non-VP game.

You start with a tutorial that's alright if bland and drags on a bit too long, then jump into an intro level that is also essentially a tutorial, minus the summons and it's even longer. Just, what? How did they think this was a good way to sell the game? Even if it gets better later I couldn't bother to get past that first stage.

One of the marks of amateur developers is overstuffing repetitive content into a game. Modders do this constantly. It's not fun to wander through giant empty areas and fight the same three enemies repeatedly. Should have given you a full party from the start and jumped into a normal dungeon like VP 1 and 2 did.
 

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