In Valkyrie Profile you will be controlling Lenneth Valkyrie sent on a mission to collect the souls of fallen warriors. Then you must send up those warriors to fight on Odin's side. The plot is based on betrayal, revenge, anger, and much more. As you collect souls you will see how each person dies. This makes the plot more tragic and sad, instead of a happy "hero saves the world" journey. Although I thought the game lacked in a plot overall, the little pieces of how people died, and the tie-ins with the other people who died were nicely done. The story, with some beautiful music I might add, had me hooked.

The control in the game was great. When you're walking around in dungeons you can jump, shoot ice crystals, swing your sword, or interact with people. Shooting ice crystals is a very unique feature. With this you can freeze enemies so you won't need to fight them or you can use the crystals to climb walls and reach new sections of the dungeon. The slashing feature is a nice touch. You begin a battle by either touching or slashing an enemy on the screen. If you slash the enemy you get the first attack, but if the enemy touches you it will be random. In battle the control is very nice. It's simple yet effective. I will describe how you use the control in battle a little later.

Now I will go to Music/Sound. First the music of the game: as I mentioned, the story is tragic so the music must fit that mood. Fortunately, in this game almost every track fits its scene. Whenever you're collecting souls and seeing that person's life come to end, there is beautiful music playing in the background. Overall, the music in this game was done very nicely, and is worthy as a great soundtrack.

Valkyrie Profile also makes great use of voice acting. I really enjoyed the voices, and I thought they fit the characters perfectly. The voices were very smoothly recorded. One thing voice acting was great for was bringing the story to life. With the beautiful music in the background and the story moving along, the voice acting just brings it to life. The voice acting was also used very nicely in battle, and it made the battles even more fun.

Valkyrie Profile is fully 2D. It's a side scroller, so fans of old-school style gameplay, with sprites and hand drawn backgrounds will fall in love with Valkyrie Profile. In battle the sprites are done VERY well, and the animations with the sprites look terrific. One thing I really enjoyed in Valkyrie Profile was how whenever a character talked there was a drawing of that character in the character speech bubble, and the picture changed depending on the character's response and mood. They are drawn very nicely and help the awesome translation. The anime scenes, though lacking in quantity, are great in quality. All the anime is very nicely drawn, the dubbing is great, and the voice acting is clear and concise.

Now my favorite part of the game, gameplay. Valkyrie Profile has the best battle system in any game. There can be up to four people in your party. Each party member attacks when you press its button (triangle, square, cross, circle). You need to attack simultaneously so the enemy can't block your attacks. Depending on what kind of weapon you have equipped on that party member, he/she can attack up three times per turn.

There are regular attackers and mages. I already described how the attackers fight, but with the mages it's a little different. When your party attacks you can have your mage cast a spell so that you will get more hits, and inflict more damage. However, casting a spell costs CT, and you can't cast a spell unless your CT is zero. Some spells use two CT while others use up to eight CT. Each turn the CT goes down one point, but by successfully attacking the enemy you can knock out crystals to lower your CT more, or give you more experience.

The most fun part of the battle system is being able to use each person's special skill or great magic. When you successfully attack enough in battles a little circle will fill, then a screen will come up which shows the four buttons (triangle, circle, cross, square) representing each character, and when you press the button of the character you wish to use a special skill you will see a beautiful attack. You can use great magic when the circle is filled. You can only cast great magic with special weapons found in dungeons. Does the gameplay sound complex? Well, it is, and I haven't even explained everything either. Valkyrie Profile has insanely fun battles with the right difficulty.

This game is defiantly worth the buy to anyone interested in RPGs. It's fun, original, and innovative (you can't say that about many RPGs). It'll be a great experience and a fun one also. One of my favorite RPGs.