Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth is one of those games that came out of nowhere! This is a port of a game that was released many years ago on the PSP and now it is coming back. From what I understand this is a direct port of that original game so do not expect any bells or whistles to be added, but this is a damn fine RPG and while it is available for mobile as well, I would say skip that version and play the main one instead.

Preparing For Ragnarök

The story that Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth is one that really got its hooks into me. The game takes place at the start of Ragnarök and we play as a Valkyrie that has been sent to Midgard by Odin and Freya. The idea is that you need to find souls that are worthy of joining the fight against the Vanir! I like the story being told here and as someone that always loves his Norse mythology, I got a kick out of the way it was used for this game.

Pulling Off A Hit Chain

It is the gameplay of Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth that got me so hooked on it when I played this on the PSP back in the day. This is a very unique kind of RPG. The idea is that you are training these souls so that they can fight for you and you train them in various dungeons. The thing that is neat about this is the combat system. It is all done in 2D and the way it works is that each character is assigned to a certain button and the battles happen in a semi-real time fashion. You can just button mash as if it were a beat-em-up. However, more of your attacks will miss than hit. The secret is to time the button presses, you get this right and you can hit these epic hit chains that can destroy your foes.

Square-Enix At Their 2D Best

One area that I am very interested to see how this port performs is with the visuals. Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth boasts some incredible 2D art in the game. I know that these days amazing 2D pixel art is a dime a dozen, but back then 2D games were not as popular as they are now as people wanted realistic and high-resolution 3D graphics. This game went back to basics, but there is nothing basic about the way that this game looks. It will be great to see how this looks in 4K on a modern system.

A Product Of Its Time

The one area where Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth may not be as awesome as I would like is with the sound design. The music is ok, it is right around what you would expect from Square during this time period. You have more kinds of techno/metal upbeat tracks along with some more mellow and dramatic sounding music. It is the voice acting though that is pretty brutal! It is bad, like not so bad it is good, just bad. It kind of makes the story less epic and interesting than it really is if I am being honest.

Pros:

• I liked the Norse mythology-based story
• There are many dungeons to explore and fight in
• The battle system is fun and more complex than you would think
• It has some fantastic 2D sprites

Cons:

• This is not a remaster; it is pretty much a straight port from what I can tell
• The voice acting kind of spoils what is actually a really good story