Retro Review - Valkyrie Profile

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Some years ago when my liking for RPG games was just beginning, I had the opportunity to play several games of this genre, some I liked more than others, others I did not like so much, but among all that list of RPG games that I played, , there was one that I did not finish and not because I did not like it, I remember that in his time I liked that game, but for some reason I do not remember, I did not play it anymore, but that wohuld be until a week ago , that after several years I was finally able to finish this excellent game of the RPG genre.

After quite some time I bring back a Retro Review of: Valkyrie Profile.

With only the first minutes of the game we can notice that Valkyrie Profile takes inspiration in everything related to Nordic mythology (although with just the title of the game gives us an idea of this), set a game in Norse mythology is something little seen in the industry and certainly this mythology gives much for the formation of a good argument of a game, as an example we have the new game of God Of War, which left aside the Greek mythology to take a trip to Scandinavian mythology and He gave a positive result for his audience.

The story of the Valkyrie Profile begins when our protagonist, Lenneth, who is a Valkyrie, receives the call of the Father of Everything, Grimnir, the hooded or as best known the god Odin. Already in the spectacular palace of Valhalla (where they send the warriors killed in combat) Odin notifies our protagonist that Ragnarok is approaching, an event that will cause the end of time and everything we know, therefore entrusts to Lenneth the mission to go to Midgard (the world of men) in order to collect the souls of the most powerful warriors to end the Ragnarok.

And so, without further starting the Valkyrie Profile story, our adventure will be full of action, magic, death and many revelations, always with the aim of preventing the chaos that is approaching.

Valkyrie Profile is the games with more and better details, as far as the graphic aspect is concerned, of the old but dear PlayStation 1. As was customary in many games of that time, all the scenarios are rendered, therefore the quality of details and drawing was much better to most of the 3D scenarios of many games of the time. In addition to this, the atmosphere found in Valkyrie Profile is very appropriate and fits perfectly to the time and the game's argument, remember that this game is based on Nordic mythology, therefore we can find a lot of details about to this mythology, from the typical medieval architectures to forests with magical ambience.

In the same way the characters play an important role when it comes to the graphic aspect, they have excellent designs that fit (in the same way) perfectly with the ambience and plot of the game itself, and although these designs can be seen a little pixelated, this does not take away personality to each of the characters present in this game, because despite this small detail, the characters and likewise the enemies that we find during our stay playing Valkyrie Profile, will have very original, colorful and quite distinctive, giving us a great variety of characters with excellent designs and drawings.

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The sound aspect of this game is another character, since each melody has its own personality, worthy of the best melodies that we can find in the videogame industry. As usual in the games of the genre RPG the composition of each of the melodies that we can hear during the time we are playing, have a very professional and excellent work for the type of game and especially for the atmosphere of it. Each town has its classic melody, that is, the typical melody that we can hear when we are in a village, a more enveloping and calm melody compared to those we can hear when we are in normal battles or in battles against bosses, since they present a level of intensity very characteristic to game of the genre RPG. In the same way the effects of sounds with excellent, and like something I have always said in many of my reviews, a good melody along with good sound effects greatly improve the player's experience and create a better immersion in the world that wants us present that game. I am always impressed with the great musical level that we can find in many games, and without doubt this is an aspect that in my opinion is little valued.

Video Author Jiseng So

Explain the combat system of this game is a bit complicated, even after completing this game there are things I did not know how to do them and other things I did randomly, but in part the gameplay Valkyrie Profile goes something like this: Our The main mission in this game is to gather as many powerful warriors and take them to Valhalla to stop the Ragnarok, however after "recruiting" our warriors after his death (since our protagonist, so to speak, is an angel of death), but that alone is not going to be enough since we must train them and improve their skills (like any RPG game), and then send them to Valhalla, for this reason during most of the game, our group of warriors changing, since after sending those warriors that we believe can reach where Odin is, we will have the opportunity to recruit new characters, this is undoubtedly a very little seen aspect No games of this style, but it fits perfectly with the game's plot.

Being Valkyrie Profile an RPG game, it has many different things from other games of the same genre in terms of playability. Many we get used to seeing in the RPG games to the classic menu where we see the option "attack" where after pressing that option displays a list of attacks that our character can use, in Valkyrie Profile we will not find that modality, in this game each character counts with an assigned button (PS1 control buttons), therefore at the moment of pressing a certain button, for example, the Circle the character that is selected to that button will carry out his attack in real time, in this way the variety of attacks that we can perform in our battles and the amount of strategy we can perform is very high, because thanks to this type of gameplay, our attacks can be done in sequence mode or in some cases, when the abilities of our characters allow it and are appropriate for the situation, our characters can attack at the same time, which are usually called "attack combos".

In our battles we can have 4 characters, including our protagonist Lenneth, being the other 3 those warriors selected to go to Valhalla and of course, as you can guess, the warriors we can recruit have different classes, we have the typical wizards, Archers and swordsmen, each of them have abilities that can be combined with other warriors of different classes in such a way that we can perform combos of greater effectiveness and greater damage against our enemies.

Valkyrie Profile is an excellent game, a RPG like few and very original, with a lot of complexity in terms of the handling of our characters and especially in the management of the menu, even so, it is one of the best RPG games that we can find in this genre, but Despite strongly recommending this game, personally, I do not recommend it for those who have little experience in games of this genre, since it has many complex aspects and in many cases, difficult to understand, that will make a person who has played a few RPG games is overwhelmed and therefore get bored of the game, maybe that was the reason why I stopped playing a few years ago, but it is a game that I recommend to those who already know the RPG genre.

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