Valkyrie Profile DS

[Genosync]

Yes!

that's all that needs to be said, if you loved VP1 and VP2 kinda pissed you off, you cannot go wrong here, at all

Seriously looking forward to the Seraphic Gate (even though it's gonna take like 40-50 hours of gameplay to get there, for 40-50 more lol)

[Julian]

I heard they removed a huge majority of the voice acting lulz

(I'm busy with Star Ocean 4 and pokemon platinum -- JUST CAME OUT FUCK YEAH, right now )

[Elcura]

What about VP2 pissed you off? Anyway, looking forward to VP DS, cause VP fucking owns.

[MisterBob]

This is mediocre so far, it's no VP1, not even close haha

[Charismatic]

I wasn't expecting much from it, in fact... so little that I'm probably going to finish up on Dissidia and download/play/100% comlpete Crisis Core before I even give this another look.

[Zilong]

I'd get to it as soon as I finish Suikoden DS...

[Genosync]

If you enjoyed VP1 for the battle system

this is why you will like this game.



If you're expecting any kind of decent story (besides very minor backstory), so far I've only finished one ending (of the 3 [4 if you're gonna count failure]), so from the one I've done, there's not really much story there.

It's just button mashing goodness with minor tactics... I hear the Seraphic Gate is hard though, and I mean, 190 battles per run of the area? Yeah, that's called content.

It takes a while for things to develop, but now with all the skills/tactics that I've learned on Wyl, I normally can setup 3 full-group attacks per turn and just massacre the shit out of everything.

Guess it's not for everyone, but it is still pretty decent for what it does do.

And Char: you will HATE crisis core, this is worth your time if you liked VP1.


VP2 opinion/why I don't like it: probably because I was playing ff11 at the time and I didn't really invest much time into it, but the battles just seemed so much different and out of whack, I like the way VP1 is setup in terms of battles and VP2 just fucked with everything.

[Kiarax]

Crisis Core was damn good. Wouldn't have liked to have played it on Normal mode though, Hard had a few moments that kicked your ass on a first runthrough, was good shit.

Downloaded this but there's a whole bunch of games that have just came out and I've been busy with KZ2 so I haven't go around to starting it. How long is the main story, minus Seraphic Gate?

[Elcura]

If you enjoyed VP1 for the battle system

this is why you will like this game.

If Freya and/or Hrist is in it, I think I'll like it regardless.

VP2 opinion/why I don't like it: probably because I was playing ff11 at the time and I didn't really invest much time into it, but the battles just seemed so much different and out of whack, I like the way VP1 is setup in terms of battles and VP2 just fucked with everything.

Battle system wasn't that different, the system was essentially the same once you picked a target, the only difference was that approaching the target actually mattered. Everything else was the same or better in VP2. You should give it another chance.

[Genosync]

If Freya and/or Hrist is in it, I think I'll like it regardless.



Battle system wasn't that different, the system was essentially the same once you picked a target, the only difference was that approaching the target actually mattered. Everything else was the same or better in VP2. You should give it another chance.

Was planning on it, I bought a bunch of the old PS2 RPGs I stopped bothering with due to FFXI/Maat's cap and recently been replaying FF12, and actually semi-enjoying it.

I hated Crisis Core though, really. And given the kind of games that I see Char likes, it's not really his style either. Guess we'll find out, he'll probably make a topic in spam about it when he plays it.



Freya and Hrist:

Spoiler: show

Freya is a minor story character, only seen iirc if you use the plume, I think that's the only time I've seen her pop up. Playable character in Seraphic Gate.

Hrist is in the Seraphic Gate and playable after you beat her.

Playthrough time:

My first playthrough (did mostly Path A, all side stages) took about ... 13 hours? I think. So given you've gotten play through 3 times total to see all endings/all story/get all characters, you're looking at 39. And seeing as you have to play through a lot more times than that to get all the Plume Tactics from sac'ing people, that's a lot of f'ing playthroughs.

Seraphic Gate is massive. 190 stages (19 floors x 10 stages per floor) per run, runs eventually increase in difficulty, etc. I'll probably be putting around 250-300 hours into this. lol

[Elcura]

Playable character in Seraphic Gate.

Was all I needed to know. Definitely looking forward to this, I don't expect grand things to happy in the story, but I love the battle system and good gameplay is all I really need to enjoy a game.

[Genosync]

The SRPG elements are actually very well thought out, once you actually learn the different tactics to use, and how to maximize the use of your AP.

Save 80 AP for Wyl when you think you're gonna want to use a Plume Tactic on a boss (the one he gets by default, no matter what, is extremely powerful), don't let people drop under 30-40AP at the end of a turn unless you're making a rush that you know won't get you in trouble, teach characters that are always around (aka Wyl/one of the two starters is a good choice, more specifically the archer bitch, I forgot her name [this is how much the character's names mattered to me, I don't even KNOW THEM, just what they do]) skills that do things like Transposition (exchange position with Enemy within ... 3 squares? or was it 2? idr right now, at work), or the Tactic that lets them instantly move to an enemy's back. Very good for setting up combos where you're able to use all four of your characters on more than one enemy per turn.

I think that's the biggest thing I've started to do, actually. Sieges (special positioning of characters for increased effects in battle, like +% to attack gauge, increasing attacks regained from red gems, increased drop rates, I forgot the other one) are actually only useful if you don't have 2-3 attacks per character, since you can normally do 3 specials, then only need an attack or two to knock the gauge back up to 100 to do the fourth... so the only decent use of it is if you're gonna try to attack spam something (one time I hit the gauge to 100 with that archer bitch ALONE because I stunned something with a back attack and repeatedly got red gems, but this has nothing to do with sieges, anyway) or if you're going after an item with a non-100% drop rate, since it makes most equipment 100% with at least a Trinity Fork (3 front attack).

Instead of going after these sieges, I've basically been positioning my fighters (I use 2 Fighter, 1 Archer, 1 Mage) so that they're next to multiple enemies (characters using Swords/Broadswords have a 1 square range in all directions, diagonal included) and making sure the archer/mage are in range of them both so I can crush everything and get max Sin for better drops from finishing the map.

Here's something you will always want to remember:

Mage Attack Range:

XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXMXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX

Yeah, for seriously.

Archer Attack Range:

XXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXNNNXXXX
XXXXNANXXXX
XXXXNNNXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXX

YEAAHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh massive.

[Lebzile]

Yea I bought this as well and I've never played any of the previous VP games and it's fun so far.

Guess I shouldn't have killed that archer chick because she annoyed me, eh?

[Genosync]

Yeah, I actually bought this one, since VP1 is like... I think #2 on my list of 'omg best gaems evar'.

I'll pay the SquareEnix DS tax, but only for certain games. This would be one.

Dragon Quest remakes? Fuck that.

I'm going to go crazy and probably do three more playthroughs before I bother with the Seraphic Gate; do a couple runs of that, and then go back to the main game again if it'll let me use the same save file. I feel like getting every single plume skill--and that's a massive undertaking, since you're limited extremely on Plume uses if you take C route from the start (killing two people in Chapter 2), and there's actually a bunch of different characters down that route... not to mention you've still gotta be able to win the last fight (and you can put yourself with less than 4 characters, I almost did it to test it out but chickened out).

Let's see... I did Route A from the choices for Chapter 2, did zero sacs until Chapter 4, killed two there to move to Route B (killing 3 would have been instant game over), and then I was going to do 3 sacs since that was the max you're able to do on Chapter 5 Route B, but I realized... that would have left me with two characters.

yeahhhhhhhhhhh fuck no.

Ushio's plume skill is pretty awesome, it turns all regular attacks into critical hits for 3 turns. Decent alternative to Vali's.

19 characters in total that you have a choice to sac, so um... we're looking at... um

like 6-7 playthroughs based on the pathing and plume uses available to get every plume skill.

yeahhhhhhhhhhhh I'ma do it anyway even though a bunch of them are fucking useless

[Lebzile]

Wait, you mean you have a choice to not kill Ancel at the start? Here I was thinking I had to do it, oh well. Wanted to restart anyways.

[Genosync]

Um... no, you don't have a choice. Pretty certain I never said that. lol

I tried it tonight too, btw. Only command it lets you input is move, until you use the Plume on him.

I leveled Wyl to 18 with two Expert's Experiences too =/

[Kiarax]

Just got to the Natalia battle, what the hell is with the Realmstalkers with thousands of health that go around one shotting half my party? Do they throw them fuckers in lots of the battles? Promptly got a Game Over when I stupidly tried to kill one (well, I killed one thanks to Vali's Awakening, but all but Wylfred died and he died on the next turn from comborape). Also, the game forcing you to use every single one of your attacks is really annoying when trying to get Sin. I seem to keep ending up dropping enemies down to 5% HP with one attack left on Wyl, game doesn't let me end it there for a massive Overkill next turn and instead I have to use that last attack to kill them and get a measly amount of Sin. Funnily enough I ended the last battle with 379/380 Sin. Will be far easier once I get more hits and finishing strikes on more than Wyl only though, just a minor annoyance at the start of the game.

Game is fun but extremely slow, turns take an annoying amount of time constantly going in and out of the battle screen.

[fantasticdan]

It throws realmstalkers at you if you didn't meet the sin requirement in the previous battle.

I tried to play through without sacrificing anyone, but I'm already stuck. I got a wyl realmstalker in the fight with all the poison mages in chapter 2 (before I knew they had anything to do with sin, I thought it was a boss). I barely managed to scrape by after several attempts by abusing vali's awakening, but I didn't meet the sin requirement. So now I have 2 realmstalkers in the fight against earnest, one of which looks like ancel and I can't even make a dent in. Seems completely impossible unless I sac someone, but I think I'll just stop playing this game, lol.

[Kiarax]

Ah, guess that explains it! Curse that 1 Sin I mised. I don't think I saved after I fucked up the requirements, but I can probably still win since all I have to do is defeat the leader to win and ignore them. But if I just rush her I won't hit the 200 Sin requirement again, which means I have to deal with more in the next fight. Ugh, damn harsh penalty for fucking up the Sin requirement in a fight, guessing there's no way to weaken them?

[fantasticdan]

I doubt it.

I've killed two of the wyl stalkers, and they both dropped chain of the avenger. I figured it was armor, but they're under valuables in inventory. Any idea what these are for?

Also, is there any any way to change the default spell for mages? Like I taught lockswell the ice spell, but he still casts firestorm automatically on attack/defend combos.