Valkyrie Profile

About Valkyrie Profile

Valkyrie Profile (1999) is tri-Ace's Norse-mythology PlayStation RPG in which the valkyrie Lenneth gathers the souls of the dead for Ragnarok, mixing side-scrolling dungeons, a strict time budget and button-per-character combat.

Valkyrie Profile in Depth

Lenneth flies over Midgard in 3D and uses Spiritual Concentration to find dungeons, towns and the einherjar, souls of dying warriors whose death scenes are shown as she recruits them. Dungeons play like a platform game: she jumps, slides, swings her sword and shoots ice crystals that freeze enemies or make temporary steps for puzzles. Striking a visible enemy first gives her the advantage in the battle that follows. In towns the view turns to 2D and she disguises herself as a human.

Each of the eight chapters is split into periods, 16 on Easy, 24 on Normal and 28 on Hard, which visits and recruiting use up, so time has to be budgeted. At the end of each chapter at least one einherjar must be sent to Valhalla to meet the gods' requirements, and offering artifacts rather than keeping them raises Lenneth's Evaluation; let it fall to zero and the worst ending follows. In battle the party shares one turn, each member mapped to a face button. Chaining attacks fills a Hit Gauge, and at 100% a character can unleash a special Purify Weird Soul attack, while mages are limited by Charge Time instead of magic points. There are three endings, and the true A ending, revealing Lenneth's human past as the girl Platina, is only reachable on Normal or Hard.

Making Valkyrie Profile

tri-Ace developed the game and Enix published it in Japan on 22 December 1999 and in North America on 29 August 2000. The English release added more cinematics and let players adjust the armour of every character rather than only the active party. It sold over 310,000 copies in Japan by the end of 1999 and over 709,000 worldwide by September 2005, 636,000 of them in Japan. Famitsu gave it 35 out of 40 and it scored 81 on Metacritic; IGN praised its deep if complicated systems and its writing, while Next Generation found it ambitious but more management-heavy than other RPGs. Tose ported it to the PSP as Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth in 2006, and two prequels followed, Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria and Covenant of the Plume.