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By Alex Kraus, USA TODAY
It's hard work being the goddess of death. As Lenneth Valkyrie, one such "battle maiden" of Norse mythology, it is your job to collect the souls of brave warriors who have died in battle. You must then train each warrior, and send them up to into the heavens to fight in Ragnarok, the apocalyptic celestial war that takes place at the end of Valkyrie Profile.
Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth is a PSP re-release of the PlayStation role-playing game Valkyrie Profile, originally released in 2000. The original release sold poorly, but thanks to post-release buzz through word-of-mouth, the first release became one of the most highly sought-after PlayStation titles, regularly fetching over $100 on eBay.
The game makes it clear from the start that your job is to recruit new warriors and send them off into the sky to fight. Odin, the high god, is an impatient boss – he has deadlines. You have 192 in-game days (called "periods") to collect and train as many warriors as possible.
MULTIMEDIA:Screenshots | trailer
Unfortunately, the game is unclear on how exactly you're supposed to recruit and train your human heroes. The game's manual includes only one page on how to build up new characters, while in-game instruction is non-existent.
For the first two in-game hours, you'll make your way through a linear scenario to recruit your first two characters (one, a comically spoiled princess; the other, her unruly knight). But after that, your guide says "goodbye and good luck" and the clock begins ticking.
Most movements in the game – including entering a dungeon or "meditating" on finding new souls to save – use up your "periods." That means that if you accidentally fly into a town and then fly back out, you'll have knocked two periods off of your countdown. Every group of 24 periods equals a "chapter," and at the end of every chapter, you'll receive an evaluation from your godly superiors. If you spend too much time aimlessly hopping from town to town, you'll find yourself with a poor chapter evaluation. Combine these deadlines with a lack of instruction on how to properly advance your characters, and Valkyrie Profile quickly turns into a frustrating experience.
Luckily for you, legions of fans have written extensive walkthrough guides, which you can find online to fill in the necessary holes. (I recommend GameFAQs.)
Once you teach yourself how to accumulate "Hero Points" – the tally that determines how well a character will fight in the game's end battle –Valkyrie Profile suddenly becomes an enjoyable and engrossing RPG.
After building an acceptable hero, the deadline system that frustrated you previously transforms into a unique strategy system that sets Valkyrie Profile apart from run-of-the-mill RPGs. The periods and chapters force you to optimize your time in dungeons. Unlike other RPGs, you simply cannot advance indefinitely.
The main challenge in Valkyrie Profile– aside from the many boss battles, of course – is one of timing. Since you need to send at least once character out of your party per chapter, you need a good deal of planning to ensure that your party doesn't become crippled when it loses its star fighter.
Valkyrie Profile represents an example of a game with a strong sense of artistic direction. The story adheres closely to Norse mythology, a quirk you won't find in other games. The environments are made up of pre-rendered layers of graphics which slide over one another as you move around the screen, producing a fake but intriguing 3D effect. Actual 3D graphics are limited to the world map and battle screen backgrounds.
Graphically, Valkyrie Profile looks nearly identical to its PlayStation source material, although the screen size has been cropped and reformatted to fit the PSP's wide ratio. For the most part, the visuals were done right the first time, which means that the six-year-old console graphics still look way better than most portable RPGs. The characters are a bit blurry and the menu screen is stretched out, but otherwise I have few complaints.
The game includes a mixture of CG movies from the 2000 release and brand new scenes. It's easy to tell the difference. As with all of Square Enix's top-notch computer graphics, the new movies are a visual treat. The new ones, crafted specifically for the PSP's wide screen, are crisp, colorful, and above all, realistic. One shot even shows all the intricate skin pores crafted into Lenneth's face.
The game's emphasis on making you rotate your characters adds a level of management glossed over by most RPGs. Add to that a rich pre-rendered world and you will find a satisfying role-playing title, but only after you've mastered the details of doling out Hero Points to your characters. It's no accident that Valkyrie Profile is one of the most coveted games of the 32-bit era, and Square Enix is smart in making it available for a second time.
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