Valkyrie Profile

"Valkyrie Profile" is quite a well-writen and addictive game that is excellent relief from the plague of the repetitive "Final Fantasy" series or the akward "Megami Tensei" games (though Persona subseries was great).

It follows the tail of a Valkyrie on a quest to retrive souls of the recently departed and help them live in the afterlife of Valhallah. As she does this at commands of Frey, Freya and Odin, she suddenly meets a familiar faces of the past and must learn more about it.

The gameplay is quite fun too. Kinda like a combination of the "Rockman" series meets "Super Mario RPG", plus, really vivid graphics and character designs.

But the flaw of the game lies within the voice acting (of both English and Japanese version). The Japanese version, almost everyone sounds really too squeaky or high pitched. Though they use a few TV, as well as seiyuu voice actors and actresses, some stood out more than others, but TURN DOWN THE VOICE VOLUME! Unless you want to hear people talking in pseudo-baratone or pseudo-helium pitched voices. Though the English version is a little bit of an approvement, I feel that the English voice acting is better done in scenarios than it is in the battle fields, when things get quite grating and repetitive!

But other than so-so voice acting, Valkyrie Profile is a classic that stands the test of time.

Ah, finally, I get to see "valkyrie profile" on the movie site, so I just can't refuse!

I think Lenneth Valkyrie, the main heroine of this game, is a very good, empowering role model for girl gamers, much better than Lara Croft or Tifa Lockhart. Lenneth is smart, takes crap from no one and stands up for what she believes is right. Yes, she does sort of wear a dress outfit, but hey, at least her bust is not the center of attention (unlike most video game heroines, who are just there for looks). I wish more RPG heroines would be like her.

And for once, the plot is (loosely) based on Norse/Teutonic mythology and Japanese history. Sort of how Akira Kurosawa would write Norse myths.It's also rather amusing when you send your dead-souls to Asgard and see his/her reaction to different events that are happening there.

But the part that really shines is the extremely fun gameplay, which is a hybrid of RPG and Platformer games. The exploration of towns and dungeons are in the style of platform games, but the fighting style is RPG styled. You pick magic, combo up and better yet, fight together and do your special moves called "Purify Weird Soul" that will send your enemies off to Nifelheim.

Oh, did I forget to mention that there are three different endings and different change styles?

Overall, Valkyrie Profile is a fun-addicting RPG with a powerful plot and a dominating no-nonsense female lead character. Enix, Tri-Ace, I salut you.

Valkyrie profile was amazing but it has to be more like castlevania castlevania and valkyrie profile should come from the same world the game needs more norse mythology and better magic.