This might have fit better in RPGs because (even though its not an RPG) but gen gaming gets more activity.

Anyone else try out this game yet? As a fangirl of tri-Ace/enix and particularly of the series, I "picked it up" right away :erm:

The game can be summed up pretty easily so far:

Storyline: Fascinating, original, makes you want to play more.

Gameplay: ajsdgiohdflk

It's a tactics game, which I'm not a huge fan of to begin with, and when I first started having issues, I figured it was just my own fault for sucking at those types of games and not taking my time. Eventually, battles got really freaking frustrating, so I looked up some reviews, and apparently others agreed.

There's not opportunity to revisit areas to level, so when you're stuck in a battle with your best dudes, at their highest conceivable level, and the best gear available, and you're STILL getting your ass kicked, it kinda blows. Even if you do great

The gameplay is really conservative. It really is a strategy game in every sense of the word, but some of the mechanics outside of battle itself make combat unbearable. Not being able to level up, "Sin" requirements, etc. Tactics gained from the Plume certainly help, but I don't like the fact that I have to

literally sacrifice a character so early on in order to get a skill as infinitely useful as freezing EVERY ENEMY on the screen besides the leader.

Going through 3/4 of a battle, doing well, and then getting your characters creamed because of one wrong move, and having to start all over again is such a :headdesk: thing. How do you take down a dude with 4-5x as much HP as any of your characters, who can take them down in one attack even if you are well-prepared/equipped in a game like this? Even with your whole team attacking at once, he counter-attacks and takes one out each turn beacuse his attack range is enormous and all you have are close-range (1space) fighters and a shitty mage. I like a challenge as much as the next person, but it should be rewarding, not frustratingly retarded.

Art, music, characters, etc. are all what you'd expect from a VP game, particularly the first. The great storyline is the only thing that makes me want to keep playing this game and after the last couple battles, I'm worried it might not be enough. guess I'll keep on trucking /rant

I love the Valkyrie Profile series, and even though this game was more of a sidestory or spin-off, I think it was well done. I missed the exploration elements though, it's Valkyrie Profile after all.

The rescue missions really made no sense at all - characters stand there while getting bitchslapped, without trying to hide, and attack enemies only to be counter-attacked (and messing up your Sin requirements in the process if they manage to kill one!) thus reducing your time to save them from inevitable death. It's even more funny when you save them only for the storyline to actually kill them as soon as you win the battle! I believe the game is pseudo-hard, as more often than not, the difficulty comes from those absurd behaviours.

If you get double the Sin required in every battle, you start getting some overpowered weapons and equipment from Hel. For example, the Elemental Edge is the strongest two-handed weapon in the main game... And you can get it in Chapter 2! Even though it only has one attack, there are ways around it, the easiest one would be using Darius' Ascender and Descender attacks while Gwendal, equipped with the sword, gets shiny gems from "dizzy" enemies which replenish his attacks.

Having a branching story was really good. You can play it three times expecting to see the storyline from different perspectives, and all being as simple as using the plume more or less times.

And then, after seeing the three endings, there is the Seraphic Gate. It eliminates the plume and Sin requirements, focusing more on actual strategy, and you start with ALL storyline characters and get about 8 secret ones along the way, not to mention all the crude humour (A senile Roienbourg asking for his dinner constantly, Ailyth using a lot of sexual innuendo...). The SG alone is the other half of the game, as it can last for a lot of hours. You can do it several times expecting it to increase in difficulty each time, up until the 10th lap, where you'd receive the strongest sword in the game... And if you want, you can keep playing.

I'm not a big fan of tactical RPGs either, but a few have worked for me, and this one does.