Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth - Purify Completion!

Valkyrie Profile completion 3am ish. Verdict: Get thee hence!

Story 4.5/5
Alright so I enjoyed the story. It was a bit sappy which was completely unexpected... who would've thunk this game would have romance in it. There was an interesting twist to it which you realize a bit past half way through the game - whoa 'gods' aren't really what you think they are?!

I played to a certain point and aimed to get the 'A' Ending, which is the 'correct' ending per se, allowing you to see all the cutscenes and get the, ultimately, happy ending.

Even though I say the story's good... they're still quite a number of unanswered questions, mostly regarding the past. I would only assume it's answered in VP: Silmeria or VP: Hrist, if they ever make the latter one.

Gameplay 4/5
The gameplay is truly unique to this series. Your chosen 4 characters are each assigned to a button and in battle you can build up the combo meter to allow them to unleash a finishing move at the end of their turn. It was great of a feeling to have "unlimited mana!" as you were able to cast whatever you want (one spell) in your turn (when you can go) but mages often had long charge turns. So remedy this, you'd beat on your enemy like a punchbag to make them drop 'magic gems' which lessen charge turns. However, they don't always go straight your mage. So your solution would be to beat it even more and hopefully some of those go to the mage.

The period and chapter concept was something I was first afraid of. Oh gawd what if I went and wasted important time in a place I wasn't supposed to! The story turned out to be a lot more linear than I originally thought. I ended up having a lot of free time after going through most of the revealed places. That was my fault for picking the Normal mode instead of Difficult.

The difference would be the available dungeons, and available players you can recruit. I actually might just want to play it again in Difficult to grab all the other people. But essentially I went through the correct main story and got the good ending.

Characters 3.5/5
My favourite was definitely Lenneth and her story. The little Arngrim, Mystina, and Lezard bit was rather amusing and I've grown to like that trio. Now I'm just dying to know what the past life deal with all about. I need to dig up VP: Silmeria.

The other characters didn't particularly leave any crazy good impression. The fact that I took the 'A' ending, I didn't get the awesome Einjerhar I sent up back. I liked all the characters I sent up and if I was able to play with them for a longer period of time, perhaps I would've liked the rest of the cast more.

My final battle players were Lenneth, Aelia, Janus and Shiho. I hate Janus for his weak RDM (defense) and he was essentially the useless one by the end of the game. He hit things for 0. All the mages were all the same to me, so I just stuck with Shiho. Aelia was able to use one of the better weapons made from a broken spear, so I kept her instead of Arngrim.

Sound 4/5
Voices. Why is it always the voices that kind of ruin your experience sometimes? My favourite voice was Lenneth's for sure. And then... for the rest of the cast, it was Pokemon all over again! Brock was disguised as Lucian, Ash was disguised as Aelia, Misty was disguised as Jelanda, Jesse was disguised as Mystina -- they were EVERYWHERE! Some of the voices were so badly done.. it was a bit annoying, but you got used to them.

As for the actual sound, like say, the music - it was GREAT. The music Motoi makes for Valkyrie Profile is so different, I loved it! All the tracks were great up until the staff credits roll, which reminded me too much of Tales.

Graphics 3.5/5
Nothing much to complain about it nor was it anything particularly special. The extra 3D cutscenes were beautiful and it added a nice touch to it. Makes me wonder how the original anime cutscenes were like.

Overall 4/5
The music and the story really did it for me. The unexplained plot holes and nasty voice acting ruins it a bit but the overall aftertaste was good. It makes you want to know more of the story which S-E should work on instead of releasing that other Lenneth side story on DS.

And a side note, the Tri-Ace logo easter egg in the final CG cutscene was amusing, emerging from the ground.