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Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria... Appreciate it, dammit!!
Cheesechick
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
VALKYRIE PROFILE: SILMERIA - The most under-appreciated RPG on the PS2?
Okay kids, I've dusted off my launch copy of Valkyrie Profile 2 and am giving it another go. I got to about chapter 3 the first time I played, but stopped for reasons I won't bore you with (none of which have anything to do with the game's quality.) I intend to finish it this time, and figured I may as well make an appreciation thread for it... in a thinly-veiled plea for tips and tricks.
The PS2 is bursting with top quality JRPGs. Between the Shin Megami games, the Shadow Hearts series, various Final Fantasies, most things by Nippon Ichi, and others, you might have trouble believing that there is yet another RPG worth your time and money. So what makes Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria so special?
Because even against all those top-notch games, it's still one of the best goddamn RPGs on the system. With that in mind, let's take a look at what truly sets this game apart.
The Battle System:
The main reason VP:S is so, so good (and it IS so good) is the battle system. Silmeria features one of the finest and deepest turn-based battle systems ever devised by mankind - indeed, it is so succulent it may lead you to believe that it was created by god himself (or herself. :winky:)
It's hard to describe without seeing it in action, but here's the gist, shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia:
tl;dr version: You run around a 3D battlefield, where every action you do consumes a certain mount of AP. Enemies only move and act when you do. Your characters are each assigned one of the face buttons, and when an enemy unit is in range you simply tap the corresponding button to attack with that character. Time this well and you can rack up massive combos resulting in a devastating special attack. There are also special sealstones you can gather which have varying battle effects. Oh you can break off bits of enemies - how many other RPGs let you do that?. In addition, the system actually REWARDS you for playing smarter, with item & exp. bonuses depending on how quickly you beat the encounter and how you attack.
But as I said before, mere words cannot do this system justice. BEHOLD - A boss battle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EehS4SnbQ6Y
Don't know how to embed videos, sorry.
The Out-of-Battle Gameplay:
The other main kickassery of VP:S comes from its dungeons. Normally gameplay in RPG dungeons is pretty dull. Move from point A to point B, get in random encounters. But Silmeria is something different. Like it's predecessor, the dungeons and towns take place entirely on a 2D playing field, with the gameplay being more akin to a sidescrolling platformer than a standard JRPG. There are no random encounters in Silmeria - see a foe on screen and hit it with your sword to start combat with a bonus, but if they land the first strike you may experience a negative effect.
Also of note: the main character has a ring that fires magic photons. Hit an enemy with a photon and they become entombed in ice. Hit them again with a photon and you'll swap places with the enemy. This can be used to perform some tricky jumps to reach out-of-reach chests, and even some minor puzzle solving.
To top it all off, this game looks fucking gorgeous. Oh hell yes, it is. It came toward the end of the PS2's life cycle and as such sports some of the best graphics you're likely to find on the system. Take a look at this shit:
More spoiler'd for size:
What's NOT to like about it?
The Voice Acting: Oh god, it's like watching a particularly lame anime dub. Honestly Squeenix, you can get Christopher Lee for KH2 but can't spring for some decent voice actors here? Oh well. This is quite made up for by the fact that you can chop off the legs of your foes.
The Story - Now before you think "Well I play RPGs for the plot" and close the thread, hear me out. The story isn't bad per se - but it's likely to be confusing for those who have not played the first (and also most excellent) Valkyrie Profile game. I actually haven't gotten too far into the game yet, but apparently it relies heavily on your knowledge of the first game's events later in the game. From what I've seen so far, though, you could probably still enjoy it... though if you haven't played the first game you're really missing out on another excellent title! If anyone else wants to chime in on how well they explain things for new players, though, speak up!
tl;dr: This is an RPG for people who like to have fun. All of you people who bought FFXII instead of this probably just hate fun, puppies, and ice-cream.
So go on... appreciate!
Okay kids, I've dusted off my launch copy of Valkyrie Profile 2 and am giving it another go. I got to about chapter 3 the first time I played, but stopped for reasons I won't bore you with (none of which have anything to do with the game's quality.) I intend to finish it this time, and figured I may as well make an appreciation thread for it... in a thinly-veiled plea for tips and tricks.
The PS2 is bursting with top quality JRPGs. Between the Shin Megami games, the Shadow Hearts series, various Final Fantasies, most things by Nippon Ichi, and others, you might have trouble believing that there is yet another RPG worth your time and money. So what makes Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria so special?
Because even against all those top-notch games, it's still one of the best goddamn RPGs on the system. With that in mind, let's take a look at what truly sets this game apart.
The Battle System:
The main reason VP:S is so, so good (and it IS so good) is the battle system. Silmeria features one of the finest and deepest turn-based battle systems ever devised by mankind - indeed, it is so succulent it may lead you to believe that it was created by god himself (or herself. :winky:)
It's hard to describe without seeing it in action, but here's the gist, shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia:
Wikipedia wrote:Combat takes place in a real-time 3D battlefield, utilizing the Advanced Tactical Combination (ATC) battle system. Combat incorporates the use of Attack Points (AP), which are needed to act in battle. Points are consumed by attacking and dashing and are replenished by defeating enemies, being attacked, or moving around as time passes. Time only flows when the player is moving, giving them time to stop and plan out where he or she will move next and where enemy units may attack. Once an attack occurs, the screen zooms in on the party, allowing the player to coordinate their attack or defense. The party can also conduct a Leader Assault, in which destroying the enemy leader will cause the others to retreat, ending the battle quickly and earning bonus experience.
Characters have multiple attacks and can be assigned up to three for use in battle. Stringing together attacks adds to the Heat Gauge. When the Heat Gauge reaches 100% in one turn, characters can perform their Soul Crush special attack, which causes great damage and refills the Heat Gauge, possibly allowing another character to use their Soul Crush. Charge Time is absent, allowing characters to use their Soul Crush every turn so long as they charge the Heat Gauge up to 100% each time.
New to the game is the concept of breaking off enemy parts. Different attacks can hit different parts of enemies and thus affect the amount of damage afflicted on the enemy. Once part of an enemy has taken sufficient damage, it can break off. When an enemy part breaks off, the player may enter break mode, in which the characters have unlimited AP for attacking for a short amount of time. Monster parts can be equipped as accessories or raw materials that can be sold or used to craft weapons, armor, or other items.
tl;dr version: You run around a 3D battlefield, where every action you do consumes a certain mount of AP. Enemies only move and act when you do. Your characters are each assigned one of the face buttons, and when an enemy unit is in range you simply tap the corresponding button to attack with that character. Time this well and you can rack up massive combos resulting in a devastating special attack. There are also special sealstones you can gather which have varying battle effects. Oh you can break off bits of enemies - how many other RPGs let you do that?. In addition, the system actually REWARDS you for playing smarter, with item & exp. bonuses depending on how quickly you beat the encounter and how you attack.
But as I said before, mere words cannot do this system justice. BEHOLD - A boss battle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EehS4SnbQ6Y
Don't know how to embed videos, sorry.
The Out-of-Battle Gameplay:
The other main kickassery of VP:S comes from its dungeons. Normally gameplay in RPG dungeons is pretty dull. Move from point A to point B, get in random encounters. But Silmeria is something different. Like it's predecessor, the dungeons and towns take place entirely on a 2D playing field, with the gameplay being more akin to a sidescrolling platformer than a standard JRPG. There are no random encounters in Silmeria - see a foe on screen and hit it with your sword to start combat with a bonus, but if they land the first strike you may experience a negative effect.
Also of note: the main character has a ring that fires magic photons. Hit an enemy with a photon and they become entombed in ice. Hit them again with a photon and you'll swap places with the enemy. This can be used to perform some tricky jumps to reach out-of-reach chests, and even some minor puzzle solving.
To top it all off, this game looks fucking gorgeous. Oh hell yes, it is. It came toward the end of the PS2's life cycle and as such sports some of the best graphics you're likely to find on the system. Take a look at this shit:
More spoiler'd for size:
What's NOT to like about it?
The Voice Acting: Oh god, it's like watching a particularly lame anime dub. Honestly Squeenix, you can get Christopher Lee for KH2 but can't spring for some decent voice actors here? Oh well. This is quite made up for by the fact that you can chop off the legs of your foes.
The Story - Now before you think "Well I play RPGs for the plot" and close the thread, hear me out. The story isn't bad per se - but it's likely to be confusing for those who have not played the first (and also most excellent) Valkyrie Profile game. I actually haven't gotten too far into the game yet, but apparently it relies heavily on your knowledge of the first game's events later in the game. From what I've seen so far, though, you could probably still enjoy it... though if you haven't played the first game you're really missing out on another excellent title! If anyone else wants to chime in on how well they explain things for new players, though, speak up!
tl;dr: This is an RPG for people who like to have fun. All of you people who bought FFXII instead of this probably just hate fun, puppies, and ice-cream.
So go on... appreciate!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Cheesechick on
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Well, until I actually play it maybe. I didn't buy it when it came out because I didn't like the first very much. I have it now though so I'll get around to it eventually, it does look pretty snazzy.
I still own it and it's awesome. Oh yeah, I'm still dating her too. Coincidence?
For an RPG.
Suck on that, you shitty other RPGs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzseGfGQH7Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtsxlcHdopU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2CIKMGlpws
The only really major complaint I had with Silmeria was the sort of grindy nature at times while you were adapting and learning what is and isn't important (hint, HP Regen, FUCKING USE IT), and when you needed some specific piece of garbage to get X. Only the Solomon's key stuff was really irritating though, because you had to do that before reaching a certain point, so didn't have full access to all the harvesting skills and equipment. Optimizing a party to break skeleton legs, which in turn had like, a 5% drop rate of the item you needed, and only one or two would appear in a battle... sometimes was pretty fucking irritating though.
Oh, and the ending makes no fucking sense unless you played the first... at which point it only sort of makes sense... but not really.
I still haven't cranked up my 2nd cycle of this yet nor have I touched seraphic gate. I'm a shame to my household aren't I?
You haven't really played until you've spent a good deal of time fucking around with Freya. All of her basic attacks are fucking nuts. 2nd cycle+ is just painful though. It's just a boost to enemy stats, though the Leaders get like, a 2x HP boost and the bosses a 5x. It turns Direct Assaults from easy ways to finish battles to downright dangerous.
Sounds about right. I wonder if anybody (or an organized group of people) has done that 50 playthroughs to max out all the enemy stat boosts.
I liked the Water Temple dungeon. The walkways were narrow, but there were a ton of good enemies and no irritating sealed stones.
You're going to hate chapter 4/the start of 5 then. Chapter 4 is basically just a retread of the Underground Path and then a series of about 5 boss fights. They change the enemies, but it's still bleh. The start of 5 makes you go through the Underground Path... AGAIN, through a dungeon, out of that dungeon, back through the Underground Path, through Dipan's Dungeon again, back through the Underground Path for a fourth time and back through the new dungeon.
Of course, then it drops you into about four absolutely massive dungeons about four times the size of those, but *shrug*
I don't mind large dungeons, as long as there's lots of slaying to be done!
Any nice sealstones I should be on the lookout for early in the game? I'm running around with one that ups my attack nicely.
It's just that the cutscenes... are... so... terrible. God the voices....
The double healing stone plus HP Regen on your party will get you through pretty much all of the main game. Or if you're lazy, just put HP Regen on Alicia (or whoever) and split them off from the party to take the hits and then reform the group afterward. Doesn't work so well against bosses though. I think you get that in the volcano.
The elemental ones are all pretty useless aside from the one that nulls all resistances. The Dragon Temple has the "give some exp to people not in the party" which is always useful. You get the "Items, but no Gems/Crystals" in one of the last couple dungeons. The 2x Exp is in an optional dungeon, so make sure you go there. I don't think it's unlocked until the Dragon Temple is though. Make sure to restore the 'floating, but no items' Stone when you can (Dragon Temple IIRC) since you need it for an item in a later dungeon. There's one nutso Stone in an early dungeon that quarters damage (the forest I think? Where you fight the Griffon and later, Kobold bosses), but it's absurdly expensive. Worth it if you can ever buy it, but don't count on it.
And you probably already know, but there are some inanely good weapons that you can get for having characters at high levels at certain parts of the story. It takes quite a bit of grinding, but you get some swords that'll take you a few levels deep into the Seraphic dungeon, that's how crazy strong they are.
I'll admit this. I very nearly never got past the opening cutscene of Valkyrie Profile 1. Some of the voice work was an atrocity. I thought VP2 was a considerable improvement, such as it was.
Well, she was drunk on poison and dying. I don't know what that sounds like. The voice acting for VP1 was just confusing. Some of it (crazy motherfucker Lezard), was fucking amazing, and most of the battle samples were awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUEpFfM2Zg0
And then they all went on to voice Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh.
So much of an improvement over the Japanese VAs. They basically switched the casting for Lezard and Brahms, so Lezard was crazy deep while Brahms was a nasally half crazed squeal.
I haven't found the HP Regen one yet... how far into the game is it? I was thinking of investing in one that halves defense for the enemy.
I'll probably get 2 once I finish it.
I really hate that some dungeons and bosses of 1 are borderline impossible to survive.
VP1 was also pretty good, but had a lot of flaws that I felt brought it down from being a "classic", although VP2 fixed a lot of those.
I'm looking forward to seeing how the DS Valkyrie Profile game goes.
Those skills are also why the hard difficulty is easiest to finish - if you know the transmutes, you can get them quite early.
Hmmm... let me think.
Ruins -> forest -> water temple -> mine -> volcano -> swamp -> haunted house -> dragon temple.
I think that's how chapter 3 goes, with the forest, mine, and haunted house all optional. Not missable though, just go back to the towns and talk to people and someone will mention them and make them appear. The forest and mine have part 2s with new bosses in chapter 4 or 5. Volcano has HP regen, and a Sealed Stone which quarters gravity... the most irritating fucking thing ever. The haunted house has the 2x exp, and the dragon temple has the shared exp and all sorts of wacky ones double edged ones.
Nah, Normal's still easier. You still get the insanely strong weapons that'll last you the rest of the game at the same time, and the enemies are weaker. You don't even need Guts because you can one-shot almost all of the bosses with a completely optimized setup (mostly by abusing the shit out of Celestial Star). There are a shitload of little things that make the game lots and lots easier that aren't immediately visible. Abusing the shit out of the transmutations using the rock in Lezard's tower is just the start. Other things... like that Lenneth does double damage with bows... not so easily recognizable. ^^
And apparently Infinite Undiscovery continues their tradition of not allowing you to actually play the whole game unless you play on hard
Well, once you know what you're supposed to do, it's easy to remember.
Stick to the Einherjar and the dungeons until chapter 4, transfer someone immediately, then do fuckall the story things and transfer Lucian. That'll put you on the A path.
Alternately, just say "fuck you" to Freya and transfer only enough Einherjar to keep your Eval above like, 30. Which is to say... transfer like... Lucian and nobody else.
I played through four or five times trying to figure out the A ending. Twice on my own, twice with a goddamn guide, and I still screwed up because the guide I used neglected a minor scene you have to do before you recruit Lucian. It's easy when you know it, but you're a god among men if you find it yourself on the first play through.
Story wise, you don't really lose that much from hard down to normal - it's side story, most of it's just with the various Artolian knights, and even with all of it, it's only a loosley connected thread with some holes left when you're done. The battle system's abusable enough that it's worth playing hard, though - guts+autoitem, and you can take three naked level 1 einherjar who couldn't fill a meter with combo gems all around, and still have a reasonable shot at killing Gabriel or Iseria before you run out of union plumes (only an exaggeration since they won't be doing damage without weapons - it'll take a very long time to lose though).
I honestly would have gotten the A ending on my first playthough if I knew about the seal rating. Don't see why it would be so impossible.
I guess I missed that part. I remember seeing Llewellyn but I thought that it was just a reused sprite or something.
Nah, it's never really well explained (unless the PSP Lenneth did). Just some oblique references to "the wheel of time spins" or something similar. I think the manga is the only one that actually directly addresses it, saying things are cyclical like that and it's generally held to be pretty cannonical, if for no other reason than it fills shit in like Lawfer's death and Arngrim's past with him.
Spoiler for manga scan
Fairly large story spoilers for the endgame on some of the videos so beware
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0HkUlgWT4s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vovXa9e52f4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBhksfGFiQ8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z50feD9SPi0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z50feD9SPi0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trsw2cFQsAY
As far as I know, the PSP version only added some revamped cutscenes. But, yeah, it's very easy to miss - there's maybe two lines between Brahms, Hrist, and Arngrim just before and after the fight. A bit like the manga scan - Arntrim says, "That has nothing to do with who I am now."
Then when Lenneth arrives at Asgard Hill, Frei says, "Mortals live and die, and are reborn," or something to that effect.
Another dungeon is Brahms' Castle, where he's sitting on his throne, guarding Silmeria's body frozen in a giant ice crystal. Lenneth refuses to fight him though and you just peacefully leave (you can fight him, but he'll kick your ass and nothing really happens either way anyway).
You run across Lezard while recruiting an Einherjar and he provides all the "this is how gods take forms" exposition. He saw Lenneth at one point and also found the Philosopher's Stone, so started kidnapping elves and making half human, half elf homunculi in Lenneth's image in order to woo her. She doesn't take kindly to the slaughter and chases him off.
Lenneth regains her memory of her mortal life later and is killed by Freya to allow Hrist to take over. Everybody (Arngrim, Lezard, and a female mage not appearing in VP2) bands together and destroys Hrist (who beelines right for Brahms, who helps you take down Hrist) and transfers Lenneth into one of Lezard's half-elf homunculi (making her the same 'core' as Odin). Meanwhile, Loki gets his hands on the Dragon Orb and uses it to destroy Vanaheim and Asgard. Since he tricked and then killed mortal Lenneth's boyfriend to get it, she's off to stop him while delivering pithy "humans deserve love too" speeches to Freya (apparently the only living god left) along the way.
During the fight, Loki loses his mind and torches all of Midgard too. Since Lenneth has the half-elf core now, she ascends to Odin's former role as god of all creation and kills Loki, remaking the world, though Lezard survives and vows again that Lenneth will be his.
Fast forward to where you are, and what you might have missed... Lezard went back in time using the machine at Dipan and changed fate by blocking Silmeria from protecting Brahms from Freya at Dipan. He then used his knowledge and Silmeria's power to assassinate Odin and take Gungnir and is off being crazy/making a new world while waiting for Lenneth to come to him.
I heard they actually tamed down some of the harder boss fights (Barbarossa, etc.) in Lenneth. Has anyone actually played both to confirm this?
But you should play VP1! It, too, is good stuff.
On the subject of the A ending requirements for VP1, though, I agree it's lame and you're unlikely to find it without a walkthrough. Nowhere near as bad as FFX-2, however.
They're doing a third game. On the DS. With some male human protagonist who's pissed at the Valkyrie/gods or something. Not a lot of details yet. But it looks to be isometric, which makes me sad.
Pretty, though.