DelireMan7
Member
And last month, I stumble upon Valkyrie Profile 2 : Silmeria in a retro gaming shop. Been quite sometimes that I want to try it so I went for it.
I am only in Chapter 3 and I am now getting most of the mechanics and become quite addicted to it. And was happy to see that the tone of the story and writing remains in the same vibe than the first one.
Combat System :
For those not familiar with the combat system here's the basics :
The combat is essentially turn based with a mixed of real time when it comes to timed your attacks.
Each of your party member (4 max), is assigned to a face button (Square, Circle, Triangle, Cross). Each time your press a button, the assigned character will attack.
Then you can chain all these attacks to create combos.
Each character can do a max of 3 attacks per turn. This is determine by the weapons they wield. Some weapon will boost greatly your attack but have only 1 attack, while others less powerful will allow 2 or 3 attacks.
You can customize, pre battle, for each character which attack will be the first, second or third. This is important because some attack will launch ennemy into the air, topple them to the ground, some have charging time, some last longer...
So if you want to make efficient combos, you need to know which attacks they have and in which order they come. Then find the good timing to land them in succession.
Valkyrie Profile 1 :
Valkyrie Profile 2
As an example, you can see that on the Valkyrie Profile 2 gif the last attack of the archer doesn't hit because it has a charging time before shooting. The player should have press X earlier to get the full combo.
Combos fill a meter (and I think gives some extra damage) and if you fill it fully you can perform Soul Crush attack (if your weapon allow it !). A devastating cinematic attack. And you can chain them if you succeed to keep the combo meter full.
In addition, hitting enemy on the air or on the ground reward you with different resources. Also some enemies are lighter so easier to launch in the air than others. And some of your attack shoot only in the air so you have to first launch an opponent and the air and then time correctly your next attack...
Valkyrie Profile 2 is in 3D but 90% of the game play is still 2D side scrolling. The only 3D phase is in battle, before the combo. You can now maneuver between enemy, to avoid being attacked and get better positioning.
You can now destroyed part of enemy which will prevent some attacks and most importantly drops some equipment or materials.
Gear management :
In Valkyrie Profile 2, you'll do a lot of equipment management.
Each piece of equipment has a color (Green, Red or blue) and a symbol on it. If you link several time the same color, it can boost the effect of the those equipment.
In addition, if you find equip the correct combination of symbol, you "create" a skill that the character will learn through battle. Once learn you can equip it.
So basically you have to try different combination of equipment to unlock skills. Once you learned it, you change your equipment to learn another one... And what I do is that before a big battle, I equip very efficient gear for the battle.
Status effect, buff and debuff plays big role in the combat.
The equipment and materials you get from severed limbs of monsters are also useful for trade with merchant.
The more you buy, the more the merchants will unlocked new items for you... BUT they'll need material to craft them. So you have to sell some specific gear or materials to them, to get some powerful new gear.
Dungeon exploration and Sealstone :
Dungeon exploration is 2D side scrolling. There is several room on different level.
You can see the monster in ghost form. If you make contact with them, your enter in battle.
But you also have to ability to shoot ray of light. If it touch one of the enemy, it "freeze" them in a block of ice for few seconds. Shoot them again while frozen and you swap place with them. Now the fun begins !
You can (and have) to use these feature to create new "platform" to access high platform and get some juicy secret chest.
Note that when you defeat a enemy, his "soul" remains and you can still freeze it to create a platform.
Then you'll find Sealstone in the dungeons. Those items will have a effect like "Attacks can poison". But there is a catch : if you wear the item, you get the effect but if they are on one of the pedestal of the dungeon, the monster get the effect.
At the beginning you can only have one at a time. So you might need to carry around a "bad" one for a bit to reach a pedestal.
If you leave the dungeon, the position of these Sealstone resets. BUT you can "restore" them by bringing them to a "source" (so far at the beginning of the dungeon). It cost some crystal (earned during battle, you gain more when hitting enemies in the air), and allow you to get it back to another source (so in others dungeons). Of course the most powerful Sealstones cost a lot to restore.
So you can with this feature save good one for you to carry in other dungeon or bad one to put on pedestal on others dungeons (but the time you carry them, you'll get the negative effect).
Liberation :
One final key system of the game, that I just delved into yesterday is the "liberation".
In the game, some of your party members are "human" and some others are "Einherjar", basically "spirits". In battle they behave the same, but Einherjar are not "materialize" during cutscenes and story moment (which is a big difference from the first game where you could follow their story).
The big difference is that you can "liberate" those spirits. Making them, term of lore, "human" again I think. Gameplay wise it means you completely LOSE them. You can't use them anymore, they go back to their life in the world.
What's the point would you say ? Why "delete" a character I spend hours gearing up, leveling up and learning skills?
Well during the liberation you'll get some "gems" that allow permanent stats boost on your others characters. And the power and amount of these gems depends on the class, stats and gear the liberated has.
I am still a novice that, but yesterday I liberated my first character and got a gem that boost 2 stats by 20 and a bunch of other gems that boost each a stat by 5. This is pretty big already. And the game kind of imply that if the character had special gear equipped (which you lose during the liberation), you'll get some special reward in plus.
So now I am addicted to level up Einherjars just to liberate them to get my others characters really strong. And I start to choose which character I want to keep or not. But after training them sometimes I change my mind "I can't get rid of him now !".
The first game had this notion of "sacrificing" your character but with different and more important story reason.
So again you do lot of swapping in and out in your team.
Conclusion :
I am only at the beginning (Chapter 3 and around 8h I think) but the game seems to stay faithful to its glorious predecessor on its core features : atmosphere, combat, music.
The 3D phases of combat (the maneuvers around enemies) was a bit weird at first but I got use to it.
Combat is still so satisfying, rewarding and addicting for me. But I think you have to commit into it to appreciate it. Otherwise you can just see that with a stupid button mashing game.
In the end, there is a lot of menu management you have to do : swapping gear for skills, swapping party member for leveling up, swapping skills to fit the needs of the dungeon, swapping attacks order, manage the Sealstone, check ingredient at merchant, selling them, the whole liberation system....
I surprisingly really appreciate it and get really addicted to it but if you don't like spending time in menu, it might not be the best game.
But the whole gear looting, skills through gear combination, selling to merchant, Einherjar liberation (couple with the fantastic combat) makes me happy to grind/farm, a thing I never like to do.
So far I would completely recommend it to the lovers of the first one. Even if the big difference is the story. The first one was focus on Einherjars while this one is more focusing on Silmeria/Alicia (the Valkyrie which "inhabits" the body of an young princess) and Einherjar are mainly fighters.
