The Video Game Revue

Valkyrie Profile 2

I played a whole bunch of Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria yesterday. You could correctly say that I am, in fact, quite addicted to it at the moment. Right now I've played just over eight hours of the game, and have cleared the Serdberg Mountain Ruins area. I'm going to do a sort of informal review of the game, which is subject to change of course, since I'm only about 25%-30% finished the game.

The graphics, storyline, and battle system in VP2 all share a common theme: they are all very good, but significantly flawed. The artwork for this game is spectacular, and the models and environments obviously push the PS2 to its limits, but the prevalence of nasty jaggies certainly reminds you that you are playing a PS2 game. As for the storyline, it's very good--perhaps even the best RPG storyline that I've experienced since Final Fantasy X (or maybe Disgaea). It is, however, riddled with RPG cliches. And finally, the battle system is somewhat novel and fairly well put together, but it has a tendancy to degenerate into wild button mashing over the long haul, and certain aspects of it (like how the passage of time is modelled when you split your party into two groups) are frustrating and nonsensical.

There is another common theme that all of these elements of VP2 possess: if you're able to suspend your disbelief and simply become lost in the RPG experience, none of the faults that I've listed above matters much. Yes, the jaggies are ugly, but the game on par is still gorgeous. Yes, the storyline isn't terribly original, but it's still fun and exciting. And yes, the battle system has annoying quirks and can be repetitive, but overall it's still better than what most RPGs have to offer. Generally speaking, these are all aspects of the game that I've really enjoyed in spite of their faults.

What I'm trying to say is that Valkyrie Profile 2 is one of the better PS2 RPGs that I've played. It is not a shining beacon of perfect RPG design (Final Fantasy X and Dragon Quest VIII come much closer to that ideal), but nevertheless it has come together as a strong enough whole to keep me engaged. It's possible that any one of the game's faults would really grate on another player, and that would tip the balance from fun and addicting over to awkward and frustrating. Personally, however, I am having a great time with it.

Exploration in VP2 is fun and fast-paced. The game has a platformer style action RPG dungeon interface that harkens somewhat to Castlevania. The control scheme is a little clumsy, but overall this part of the game is really fun. The battle system is such that things are paused whenever action isn't being taken, but movement unfolds in real-time otherwise. Attacks play out such that AP is spent for your characters to hammer away on enemies, and a full AP bar goes a long way. Whenever an enemy is killed it grants a massive AP bonus, so when fighting weak opponents, your party plows through them without allowing so much as a word in edge-wise. As for actually issuing the orders, basically each of four characters is assigned to a button and performs their attack when prompted. Both the order in which the attacks are issued as well as the timing of attacks matters--an attack can actually miss if the enemy is lying on the ground or being juggled too high in the air when you hit the button. In this respect, the combat system almost resembles a fighting game, except that the enemies only hit back when it's their turn.

It helps a lot that VP2 is short enough to assure me that I'll be able to finish it. At roughly 30 hours in length, I would even have time to finish it before FF XII is released if I neglected WoW entirely (which I did this weekend but am not planning to continue doing.) Because the immediate appeal of VP2 is so great, Okami has been pre-empted for the time being, although I will play some Okami on the side when I burn out on VP2.

As for a quick look at where other RPGs are sitting, I'm still actively interested in Suikoden V, Disgaea 2, and Digital Devil Saga, although none of them has seen any attention in a long while. I'm close to the end of DDS and it's been months since I've played. It hasn't been nearly that long since I last played Disgaea 2 or Suikoden V, but these games are having a hard time competing with WoW, and in many respects Valkyrie Profile 2 just ate their lunch--especially when it comes to Suikoden V. If Final Fantasy XII scoops up my attention when it comes out, well, Suikoden V may be permanently stalled, which is tragic because it hasn't even gotten very good yet.

As an aside, I also picked up Dawn of War: Dark Crusade and played a bit of that on Thursday/Friday. The new races--Tau and Necrons--are pretty cool, aesthetically at least. I haven't played them a whole lot, but the Necron economy is really different in that they've done away with the commission resource entirley, and capturing control points simply increases the Necron population and shortens their respawn time (since they never permanently die, supposedly), or something like that. Kudoes to Relic for not requiring the DVD to be in the drive in order to start the game, and it's also nice that even if you don't have Dawn of War or Winter Assault, you can play as any one of the races in the single player campaign. It turns out that in order to play multiplayer as Space Marines, Orcs, Eldar, and Chaos, you need to have Dawn of War (and your CD key), and in order to play Imperial Guard you need to have Winter Assault (and your CD key). Still, Dark Crusade is really worthwhile.

posted by Parappa @ 11:02 AM