A classic PS1-era RPG game that still holds up to this day | Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth - Review

Valkyrie Profile has come a long way from its PS1 origins, its PSP re-release the Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, the recent mobile ports, to now its modern PS4 and PS5 release.

🟩Pros

+A very gripping and satisfying story

+fun platforming and exploration elements

+highly engaging and surprisingly kinetic combat

🟥Cons

-voice acting hasn’t aged well

-pixel art is a bit too pixelated

While there are multiple playable characters in Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, you primarily control Lenneth, the primary protagonist and a lady warrior serving Odin, tasked with recruiting the Einherjar — fallen heroes who have died in battle — to fight in the impending Ragnarok. Concepts in which we all are too familiar with recent Norse mythology games like God of War, Assassin’s Creed, and even Valheim, coming out recently.

An emotional and depressing collection of narrative experiences.

Greeting us with a masterpiece of an introduction sequence, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth has a very gripping and emotional story, one that heavily deals with loss and despair, as well as hope and redemption.

While Lenneth’s quest is the overarching main storyline, most of Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth will feel like an anthology of depressing melodramatic stories thanks to its various collection of characters.

Since you are recruiting the Einherjar, all the characters you are trying to recruit need to have died in battle. Before they are recruited, the game shows you a short glimpse of the character’s life leading to their death. Failed heroes, betrayal, suicide, bad luck, and whole lot of other rather depressing topics are tackled in the story, if this still isn’t obvious, this game is not for the faint hearted.

Gameplay Analysis

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth is divided into three core gameplay elements. The 3D world-map where Lenneth flies over to choose where to go. The 2D dungeon platforming exploration, and the unique turn-based combat where both sides attack simultaneously during their turns.

Lenneth flies over the 3D open world map to travel to different locations. Using a technique called Spiritual Concentration; she can find towns and dungeons to recruit potential Einherjar and perform good deeds. There is a bit of twist in this setup as it is time limited. Every action such as the using spiritual concentration or visiting towns will use up your available periods. It basically functions like “Turn” in strategy games, and you only have so many of these before a chapter ends.

There's nothing to worry though as there’s more than enough time to do everything in the chapter, but it provides a sense of time to the gameplay and encourages thorough exploration of dungeons, finding all the potential useful items, as to not waste a period visiting it.

The 2D platforming aspect on the other hand is your typical Castlevania or Megaman style but without real-time combat. Instead, colliding with enemies will direct you to the turn-based combat system, where hitting them first will allow you to attack as the first turn.

The combat is highly engaging and surprisingly kinetic despite the turn based system. The simultaneous attack per party turn system works really well. It encourages synergistic combos between the different characters and reduces dull “strategic” moments in between attacks or turns.

Each turn, there is a special meter that fills with each attack, and if filled in one turn — thanks to a great combo — it culminates in a special attack for anyone that participated in building it.

The various Einherjar that you recruit will slowly build your roster of party members such as warriors, samurais, lancers, archers, and mages with their own distinct weapons types such as swords and staffs. And Lenneth can bring in or “summon” three active party members at a time to combat. If Lenneth dies, the whole party loses if she is not revived within three combat turns.

Too Pixelated

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth looks about the same as the PS1 or the PSP version; The heavily pixelated art style is still retained, just updated to support modern resolutions. However, with today’s standards, even considering pixel art into the equation, it still doesn’t quite hold up.

The graphics are too pixelated especially when shown on a Big 4K resolution screen and it hasn’t aged well visually. On the other hand, The CGI cutscenes added with the PSP version have been slightly upscaled and have aged nicely, all things considered.

Conclusion:

Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth for the Playstation 4 and 5 is basically the same PS1 game that fans know and love. For newcomers, this is one of the best PS1 RPG games of all time. And It largely holds up thanks to its impressive storytelling and unique gameplay still relevant to this day thanks to the continued use of turn-based combat mechanics by the gaming industry.

Most of the voice acting plus the heavily pixelated graphics hasn’t aged well by today’s standards, but it's not a big deal if you can get past these issues considering the amazing story and highly engaging gameplay you are offered.