"2D Platforming meets 3D graphics and an innovative battle system to create one of the best RPGs on the PS2."

Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria is an RPG developed by Tri-Ace, creators of Star Ocean and Radiata Stories, and published by Square-Enix, and is a prequel to Valkyrie Profile 1, which originally appeared on Playstation, and was later ported to the PSP. The game is based on Norse mythology and combines great gameplay with stellar visuals and sound.

Story – 9/10

The story of VP2 centers around a princess named Alicia, who has a valkyrie named Silmeria residing within her. In Norse mythology, valkyries collect souls who were very heroic in their time on the mortal plane and send them to Valhalla, where Odin uses them as an einherjar who fights for the gods. The Battle Maiden Silmeria was gathering souls for Odin when she begins to doubt the intentions of Odin. Silmeria disobeyed the gods and was to be punished by Odin, who attempted to reincarnate her as Alicia, princess of Dipan. However, the transmigration failed, and Silmeria merely awoke in Alicia's body, giving Alicia one body with two souls. Odin finds out that Silmeria is still alive and residing in a mortal's body, causing Silmeria to prepare Alicia for the chaos bound to happen.

Although a prequel to Valkyrie Profile, some background knowledge from the first game would be very helpful, not to mention that parts of VP2 spoil VP1. The story is very solid in itself, a tale of an epic war against the gods, but loses points for character development of einherjar. Only a few characters get character development, but the einherjar's development is shown only in their character profiles in the menu. However, the game is focused on Silmeria, as the title suggests, and not the einherjar, otherwise the game may as well be called “Einherjar Profile.”

The plot is somewhat vague and dull at the beginning of the game, but the pace picks up drastically later in the game. The story can be somewhat confusing for a person who has absolutely no idea about Norse mythology or the first game, but is overall solid aside from character development.

Gameplay – 10/10

The gameplay is arguably the best part about VP2, unless you're more focused on graphics. Dungeons and towns are played like a platforming game in a 2D plane, hence the name Valkyrie Profile. Battle occurs on 3D plane, with elements that separate it from many other RPGs. Levels, shops, and many other characteristics maintain the normal RPG standard, but difficulty, dungeon crawling, and battle is quite original.

Your battle party is composed of four characters, but you can obtain many einherjar to fight for you. In VP2, Silmeria already has the einherjar within her, and calls them out when Alicia/Silmeria find a weapon of that einherjar in dungeons. It is not guaranteed that you will get the einherjar you want, because some weapons may have 2 or 3 einherjar associated with it. This means you must play the game 3 times to get every character. Your einherjar have a certain “free level” which can be reached by leveling them up to that level. Once they reach that level, you can free them, and they will leave your party, and give you goodies later on if you come across them in a dungeon or a town. Freeing souls is key to getting certain good items or even quick money early in the game.

While in dungeons, Silmeria can shoot photons, which can freeze objects and enemies. By shooting the same object again with a photon, you can switch places with it. This leads to part of the dungeon crawling adventure: The puzzles. To obtain all items in a particular dungeon, Silmeria has to use her photons to switch places with, freeze, and do much more to get to the desired item. Early in the game this is not much of a problem, but this becomes a pain later when Tri-Ace developers decided to have a laugh by making you figure out how in the world to get to that seemingly unreachable chest. Although the game doesn't really force you to do any of the complicated photon usage, it is highly recommended if you want to get better items, or sealstones.

Sealstones are orbs in dungeons that can alter the stats of you or the enemies. For example, if you find the Sword Blessing Sealstone, you can carry it around with you to increase your attack by 20%. However, if you leave this sealstone on the Altar, the sealstone will affect the enemies instead, making times very tough for you. Some bosses will be nearly impossible if you don't have a certain sealstone with you. Sealstones can also leave their respective dungeon by being placed in springs. Springs allow you to store sealstones and regain them from anywhere in the world. To store a sealstone you must pay in magic crystals, which you receive after each battle. Upon leaving a dungeon, all sealstones are returned back to their respective altars or bases, unless you stored it in a spring.

While roaming around in dungeons, you will come across enemy souls wandering around. Battles are not random, as you can see them in the dungeon walking/flying around. Enemies can be frozen by photons that Silmeria shoots out of her hands, making it easy to avoid battles if you're in a pinch for time.

The battle system of the game is very well implemented. The battle is somewhat similar to that of the first game, where each of your four main party characters are designated a button (Circle, X, Square, or Triangle). Depending on how the battle is activated, your characters start out with a certain amount of AP (action points.) You can slash at the enemy when you see it in the dungeon, giving you 100 AP at the start of battle, or you can be run into an enemy from behind, starting you with 0 AP. Action points are used to carry out actions. After the battle is initiated, you are in a 3D environment, with each enemy and their attack ranges visible. Note that enemies can only move while you move, allowing you to plan out your strategy according to their attack ranges. Each monster mob has its own “leader,” who can be killed first for an instant victory. To actually attack or get attacked, you have to get in range of one of the enemies. While in range, you can press the buttons assigned to each character to perform their attacks.

Weapons can have 1-3 attacks, and can allow your character to perform their “Soul Crush,” which in other words can be called a “super move.” Every time a character's button is pressed, their attacks are carried out in order, which you can arrange. It is possible to button mash, but in order to defeat harder enemies, strategy and timing is very crucial for your victory. Each attack that your character has costs a certain amount of AP. After spending AP, you can regain it by charging, running around on the battle field, getting attacked by the enemy, or killing the enemy. After attacking the enemy, your Special Attack Gauge fills up. If you attack the enemy enough, your Special Attack Gauge may reach 100, in which case you can perform the characters' Soul Crushes.

When enemies get attacked, their body parts are damaged, and if you hit the same part enough, you can break that body part off, occasionally netting you a body-part-specific item. This is another aspect that requires strategy and patience. Knowing your character(s) attacks is vital in breaking off the desired body part, which may cause you to alter the attack order of your characters. Sometimes you can enter “Break Mode” after breaking off an enemy's body part, which allows you to unleash a barrage of attacks on the enemy at no AP cost. You can access the menu by pressing select, where you can choose to change your characters' weapons, use items, or use magic, all of which cost AP.

After battle, your experience is tallied up. Every enemy has its own set experience, but you can also get more experience if you gain more magic crystals in battle and/or finish the battle in a certain time, measured by a gauge on the right side of the screen. Levels are awarded after getting certain amounts of experience, nothing out of the ordinary. You are also rewarded with OTH, the currency of the game, after battle, which is used to buy weapons, armor, accessories, items, and more.

Stores in VP2 have customer ratings, and the higher rank you are, the better items you can get. However, these special items don't just appear when you get the needed rank, you also have to sell the store needed materials, which is why body-part attacking is so important. You can increase your customer rating by buying a lot from that particular store.

All equippable items have runes on them. Runes come in 3 colors, red, blue, and green. Runes can also be colorless, which will not help you learn skills. Each rune also has a design on it, whether it is “slashing” for a sword or “fire” for a fire-elemental item. By combining runes of the same color and certain types, you can begin learning skills. After forming the skill with your runes, you have to fight battles until your character actually learns the skill. Once the skill is learned, you can equip it in the menu at the cost of CP (Capacity Points).

The difficulty of VP2 changes drastically in Chapter 3. Not only do enemies become harder, but getting chests and sealstones requires some deal of thinking and planning. This can be slightly frustrating, but is not a problem if you are skilled enough to handle the difficulty.

From controls to battle to dungeon crawling, the gameplay of VP2 is very well implemented, although it may take a while to learn.

Graphics – 10/10

The graphics of this game push the PS2 to its farthest limits. FMVs are breathtaking, and in game graphics are amazing as well. Dubbing in the game is somewhat odd, for they don't look like they're speaking Japanese, sometimes they don't look like they're talking at all. Aside from that, character designs are great, and dungeons give you the feeling of a Norse setting. The monsters are brilliantly designed, and you won't see too many repeats of the same monster designs with different colors. Of course, some designs are recycled, but the plethora of designs is much better than many RPGs to date in my opinion.

The camera isn't much of a problem, because you have a map to see what platforms you might have to reach for chests and such. Camera in battle is also decent, because you can put it on “free mode” which allows you to control the camera yourself.

Animations are just plain eye candy, and you'll be amazed to see what the PS2 is capable of. Great Magic and Soul Crushes look phenomenal, as does just about any other portion of this game.

Once again, the game is rendered in 3D, but played in a 2D plane with doors that can lead farther right and left, or doors that lead up or down. Although it sounds confusing, you'll quickly grow used to it.

Sound – 8.5/10

Orchestrated tracks in the game are good and all, but nothing totally memorable like “Liberty Fatali” or “One-Winged Angel” in the Final Fantasy series. Battle music never tires me, and some themes are great to listen to in long, tedious battles. Sound effects are good, and the voice acting is for the most part great. I mentioned above that there is little to no dubbing in this game. As in any game with voices in battle, you can get annoyed by the repeating of the same phrase over and over again, but it's nothing too important.

Challenge/Duration/Replay Value – 10/10

This game gets hard in a hurry, and will keep you occupied for a long time. You can easily spend a hundred hours on the game and not be completely done, not to mention extra playthroughs and the Seraphic Gate. The Seraphic Gate is unlocked after you get to the final save point, and is a very hard bonus dungeon that gets harder every time you reenter it. By replaying the Serpaphic Gate over and over, you can get the most powerful weapons. The game also increases in difficulty every time you beat the game and start a new one. You can play up to 51 times, each time with increased difficulty.

Conclusion – 10/10

Valkyrie Profile 2 is an amazing game that deserves consideration from any RPG fan. Although this game may not be for everyone due to its difficulty and unorthodox battle system, it's a great game to experience and play.

If you want to know whether to buy or rent, I would say rent it first if you haven't played a Tri-Ace game before. You may not like the platforming aspect or some other part, but I find the game very gripping and hard to turn off.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/03/06