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Valkyrie Profile (disambiguation)

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Valkyrie Profile
Developer(s)tri-Ace
Publisher(s)Enix
Platform(s)PlayStation
ReleaseJapan December 22, 1999 United States of America August 29, 2000
Genre(s)Role-playing game
Mode(s)Single player

Valkyrie Profile is a RPG developed by tri-Ace and published by Enix (now Square Enix). It was released in 1999 in Japan, and later released in 2000 in the United States. Both were released on the PlayStation console. Today, the game is rather rare in the US, and prices can swell up into the hundreds. However, due to republishing in Japan, the Japanese copy is rather easy to find and is still at its suggested retail price. Overall sales have been over 700 thousand copies.

Square Enix announced a port of Valkyrie Profile for the PlayStation Portable. Titled Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, the game will be released in Japan in March 2006. A PlayStation 2 sequel, titled Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria, was also announced for a 2006 release in Japan. Plans for North American releases of both titles have not been revealed.

The game is based on Norse mythology. Players assume the role of a Valkyrie who must find the souls of people who die tragic deaths, shape them into powerful warriors post-mortem, and send them to Valhalla for the final apocalyptic battle between the Æsir and Vanir, Ragnarok. Each warrior has a 'Hero Value', a number representing their usefulness in Valhalla, and certain characters cannot be sent to fight in Ragnarok.

Mythology

Valkyrie Profile took artistic liberty with Norse mythology. As such, the game should not be used as a mythological source. During the game, the Æsir and Vanir are at war; however, in traditional Norse myth the Vanir are another race of gods with little differences actually expressed. In fact, Freya herself is of the Vanir. Frei, who is portrayed as a young girl in Valkyrie Profile, is actually Freya's brother, one of the more powerful gods in Norse mythology, and also in the ranks of the Vanir. The true opponents of the Æsir are the Jotun, the half-god Loki and his children, and the fire giant Surtr.

Lenneth Valkyrie herself is most likely featured after Brunhilde, a valkyrie who was punished by Odin for disobedience. Many of the events during the game resemble the events surrounding Brunhilde.

Game Features

The game boasts particularily rich game mechanics, although its gameplay is rather repetitive and largely consists of non-interactively recruiting new warriors (with cutscenes of the circumstances of their deaths) and training them in various dungeons.

Valkyrie Profile is distinct in that most of the game takes place in a 2D perspective (hence the name). Dungeon sections play more like a platformer than a traditional RPG. Lenneth Valkyrie, the player character, makes her way through these by jumping, sliding, and using her ability to throw ice crystals. These ice crystals can do a number of things, including making temporary steps and freezing enemies. Upon contact with an unfrozen enemy, an RPG-style battle begins.

Valkyrie Profile boasts a unique take on a turn-based battle system. The two sides doing battle alternate turns, all characters on one side acting on their turn. Each of the four party members is assigned to a particular button. Pressing the corresponding button on the player's turn orders that character to attack. Conventional fighters have three character-specific attacks, and can use those that their weapons' properties allow once per turn. Mages cast their preset offensive spells, which builds up their CT (Charge Time). Charge Time replaces MP, decreases slowly on its own and prevents spellcasting when above 0.

Stringing attacks together produces combos that prevent a target from defending or recovering, yield Magic Crystals and Purple Gems that respectively boost experience and reduce CT, and add momentarily to the Hit Gauge. When the gauge hits 100%, a character with no Charge Time may release a special attack ("Purify Weird Soul") that both causes great damage and refills the gauge by an amount, possibly allowing another character to use a PWS. Such attacks do cause CT. Fighters again have character-specific moves, while mages typically use multi-hit versions of their selected spells; the exception are mages wielding scepters with Great Magic capabilities that elevate spells into gargantuan cinematics that strike all on-screen enemies. Common Great Magic scepters have a high chance of breaking in such use, and ones that last are extremely rare.

One other distinctive factor of Valkyrie Profile is that damage and statistics are not 'capped' as they are in most RPGs; later in the game, it is not uncommon to do over 1,000,000 points of damage in a single combo. Indeed, one character is capable of doing this much damage in a single attack at sufficiently high levels. It also has a group experience system: In addition to battle experience, experience points are obtained from events that occur during dungeon exploration, and banked for dividing among the party members at a later time. This is especially useful in levelling up new characters who start off at low levels. As the battle system requires much forethought, there's a battle simulator.

Valkyrie Profile features multiple endings; based on player performance, the difficulty level selected, and in the case of the best ending, their actions, a player can obtain one of three endings, labeled as A, B, and C. Since only the A ending actually completes the plotline, this provides an incentive to perform well.

Valkyrie Profile features a wide variety of playable characters. More than twenty are attainable in total, each with a unique set of attacks and a unique special move, save for the mages, who can learn and forget any spells up to a maximium of ten but are set apart by their stats and their initial spell lineup. The difficulty level selected at the beginning of the game determines the availability of some of these characters.

In typical Tri-Ace fashion, Valkyrie Profile contains a bonus dungeon called Seraphic Gate. It's only available by saving in the game's last save point on the hardest of three difficulty levels, and Flame Jewels found in dungeons exclusive to that difficulty level are required to access sealed rooms with unique treasures and hidden characters. Often called a 'marathon dungeon', it has a single save point in the first room. It contains four distinct sections and one must traverse back to the beginning in order to save, even after defeating optional bosses.

One of the biggest incentives for venturing into the Seraphic Gate are the three most powerful characters in the game--Brahms, the vampire lord, Lezard Valeth, the necromancer, and Freya, who exceeds even Lenneth herself in power. All will join the party if defeated. The dungeon also features previously defeated bosses as random encounters, the best weapons in the game as well as Iseria Queen (who appears similarily in most Tri-Ace RPGs) and Gabriel Celeste as incrediably strong optional bosses. Both optional bosses are replayed by saving and reloading the dungeon. Each defeat of the Queen after the first will provide a book of riddles. The tenth one will drop 'Angel Slayer', the most powerful weapon in the game, though one with a hit trust of 1 which translates into attacks that might do 10,000 damage one turn and 5 the next. Finally, Seraphic Gate contains the enemy 'Hamster'. Extremely rare and fought in packs of four, they are the most formidable and difficult enemy to kill, mainly due to the fact that most characters' attacks will miss.

Localization

While Valkyrie Profile had very little edits during translation and ended up with more cinematics than the Japanese release, Badrach's smoking was cut out. However, the animation of him taking a drag after a successful battle still remains, sans the cigarette. Confusingly, visible blood, drinking and sexual comments remain.

In addition, the optional boss Gabriel Celeste was given a deep male voice in the English version of the game despite being an obvious recolouring of the female Iseria Queen. Character naming is also inconsistent. For example, in Norse mythology and the Japanese version Frey is the elder sister and Freya the younger (though in the former Frey is the elder brother) but the situation was reversed in the English version.

Cast

For a full list of characters, please see the article "Characters of Valkyrie Profile".

English

The voiceover studio and voice actor stock used for the English version was TAJ Studios, who were responsible for dubbing Slayers, Pokémon and other anime.

Japanese

Trivia

  • Lenneth Valkyrie is the 177 recruitable character in tri-Ace's Radiata Stories. Lezard also appears as an optional boss.
  • Lenneth Valkyrie and Freya also appear as extremely powerful optional bosses in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. The names Lucian and Lezard are given to minor characters who bear similar personality traits, respectively.
  • Star Ocean: Blue Sphere's final boss, Rival, has a total of 5 different forms in battle. One form mimics Lenneth Valkyrie in both shape and abilities.

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