Apparently there are a series of games called Valkyrie Profile and they're traditionally turn-based JRPG's. It's one of those game series that just passed me by for whatever reason. The last Profile games came out in an era where I needed to either know a series from previous experience (like Final Fantasy or Resident Evil) or word of mouth needed to bring them to my attention. So I never got into them, and as a result when this game, Valkyrie Elysium, was shown during a Sony State of Play earlier in the year I thought nothing of it.
But as you guys are aware this year has been pretty fucking dry in terms of releases and the few releases we have gotten have not exactly been everything I had hoped for *cough* Saint's Row *cough*.
But hey Valkyrie Elysium came out yesterday and you know something. It's not a JRPG.....actually it's nothing like I expected. It's a pseudo Devil May Cry / RPG game actually. However it's far more basic than any DMC game. The basics are there though, light and heavy attacks, quick select magics, mixing and matching of combos, all of that familiar action game DNA. Combat is also responsive and quick, with lots of targets on screen at once where you can jump between who your attacking on the fly, quick dodge, parry, and even finishers. Some of this you have to unlock by spending the gems you earn from the enemies and breaking shit in the environment.
Basically you are a Valkyrie sent into the world by Odin to purge the world of undead monsters that have taken over due to Ragnarok, which seems to be a theme this year in gaming but whatever. So you go into the world kill shit and occasionally find a tormented human soul you can purge which will cause this person to join you as a summon spell. This is what adds another level of interest into the combat imo.
You see every enemy has an elemental weakness, and your human summons have elements associated to them (fire, earth, wind, lightning, etc etc) when you summon them they will fight by your side for about 90 seconds dealing elemental damage to enemies. When an enemy takes enough damage from an element they don't like it breaks them causing them to be stunned. While stunned you get a ton of free damage on them, but once they break out of the stun they are immune to elemental damage for a short period of time so you can't just spam stun them. This is only important on bosses because your general enemies will die from the stun damage you'll do to them unless you ignore them for some reason. Additionally when you summon your human elemental dudes, they charge your weapons with their element so that you yourself also do that elemental damage with your attacks while they are out. So summoning becomes a nightmare for the enemies if you have a summon that they are weak to.
The Valkyrie also has three upgrade trees which behave a lot like in DMC where you can unlock more health, more mana, more combos, double jump, double evade, super parry, and more. Enemies killed drop gems and gems are used for these upgrades. Gems can also upgrade your weapons which you'll have a small arsenal to choose from and you can have two equipped at any given time. Upgrading weapons unlocks more combos.....do you see the theme? MORE COMBOS! Upgrade your combos so that your combos will have more combos and then you can do more combos! COMBOS!
So the combat is great. However where this game falls flat is in the level design and production value. Voice acted cutscenes are fairly minimal and the lips don't match any possible language. You venture into levels from a small hub area, and then each level is a simple maze with combat arenas broken up by sections of box breaking and box breaking is important for more gems which of course gives you more COMBOS, so you wanna break boxes. There are a few collectibles too in the form of memory flowers which add a small bit of fluff to the events going on. While on a mission in a level you might encounter spirits which you can talk to for side quests, but these side quests cannot just be done as you do the main quest, instead you have to activate them from your hub and enter the level specifically to do them.
That last part is something I actually really like, because it helps my systematic brain keep track of knocking out quests in a list so I actually like that part. Though I can see how other people would rather just be able to do everything in one trip. So it's personal preference in that regard. Otherwise the game's pretty fun, the bosses are big and challenging, but once you kind of figure out the weakness and the patterns they aren't that big of a deal. It's a cool action game and @BrawlMan might like it if he can stomach paying for a $60 game
But as you guys are aware this year has been pretty fucking dry in terms of releases and the few releases we have gotten have not exactly been everything I had hoped for *cough* Saint's Row *cough*.
But hey Valkyrie Elysium came out yesterday and you know something. It's not a JRPG.....actually it's nothing like I expected. It's a pseudo Devil May Cry / RPG game actually. However it's far more basic than any DMC game. The basics are there though, light and heavy attacks, quick select magics, mixing and matching of combos, all of that familiar action game DNA. Combat is also responsive and quick, with lots of targets on screen at once where you can jump between who your attacking on the fly, quick dodge, parry, and even finishers. Some of this you have to unlock by spending the gems you earn from the enemies and breaking shit in the environment.
Basically you are a Valkyrie sent into the world by Odin to purge the world of undead monsters that have taken over due to Ragnarok, which seems to be a theme this year in gaming but whatever. So you go into the world kill shit and occasionally find a tormented human soul you can purge which will cause this person to join you as a summon spell. This is what adds another level of interest into the combat imo.
You see every enemy has an elemental weakness, and your human summons have elements associated to them (fire, earth, wind, lightning, etc etc) when you summon them they will fight by your side for about 90 seconds dealing elemental damage to enemies. When an enemy takes enough damage from an element they don't like it breaks them causing them to be stunned. While stunned you get a ton of free damage on them, but once they break out of the stun they are immune to elemental damage for a short period of time so you can't just spam stun them. This is only important on bosses because your general enemies will die from the stun damage you'll do to them unless you ignore them for some reason. Additionally when you summon your human elemental dudes, they charge your weapons with their element so that you yourself also do that elemental damage with your attacks while they are out. So summoning becomes a nightmare for the enemies if you have a summon that they are weak to.
The Valkyrie also has three upgrade trees which behave a lot like in DMC where you can unlock more health, more mana, more combos, double jump, double evade, super parry, and more. Enemies killed drop gems and gems are used for these upgrades. Gems can also upgrade your weapons which you'll have a small arsenal to choose from and you can have two equipped at any given time. Upgrading weapons unlocks more combos.....do you see the theme? MORE COMBOS! Upgrade your combos so that your combos will have more combos and then you can do more combos! COMBOS!
So the combat is great. However where this game falls flat is in the level design and production value. Voice acted cutscenes are fairly minimal and the lips don't match any possible language. You venture into levels from a small hub area, and then each level is a simple maze with combat arenas broken up by sections of box breaking and box breaking is important for more gems which of course gives you more COMBOS, so you wanna break boxes. There are a few collectibles too in the form of memory flowers which add a small bit of fluff to the events going on. While on a mission in a level you might encounter spirits which you can talk to for side quests, but these side quests cannot just be done as you do the main quest, instead you have to activate them from your hub and enter the level specifically to do them.
That last part is something I actually really like, because it helps my systematic brain keep track of knocking out quests in a list so I actually like that part. Though I can see how other people would rather just be able to do everything in one trip. So it's personal preference in that regard. Otherwise the game's pretty fun, the bosses are big and challenging, but once you kind of figure out the weakness and the patterns they aren't that big of a deal. It's a cool action game and @BrawlMan might like it if he can stomach paying for a $60 game
