Valkyrie Profile - Covenant of the Plume

jro · Mar 16, 2009

Out this week. Supposed to be hard as John Holmes unless you use the Plume and thereby sacrifice your characters to Hel.

Getting solid reviews, despite the difficulty.

You only get four characters per battle, sounds pretty unique for an SRPG.

At first the comments on the difficulty were putting me off, but I think I'll just accept that fact that I most likely won't be getting a perfect playthrough (can't sacrifice any of your chars for that) and pick it up on Friday.

Anyone else have this on the radar?

SNKiller · Mar 16, 2009

Heh, cool on the Johnny wad ref.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this tomorrow... looks pretty cool. I groove it when there's a bit of a challenge & I also like the 4 chars. per battle setup. Shit load of cool portable titles in the last month so it's a bitch to play catch-up... but I'm trying to make some extra time to finish off the backlog. Hope you enjoy it.

mainman · Mar 16, 2009

Nice, so what's the back story to this one. Let me guess does it involve Lezard trying to rape Lenneth again maybe in the future since he already tried the present and the past. When are they going to give Hrist her own game, she's more interesting than her sisters anyway.

jro · Mar 19, 2009

Got this (and GTA Chinatown) yesterday. Played first three battles or so, which took about an hour, since story sequences are relatively lengthy.

So far, it's fantastic. Story is incredibly good, very dark (want to avenge your father and your sister? Sure, you'll have to sacrifice all of your closest friends in order to gain enough power to do it). Gameplay is unique enough for an SRPG, you have to surround enemies with your chars and then combat works just like original VP.

Graphics are pretty weak, but that's easy to overlook.

Impressed so far, eager to play more tonight and this weekend.

Gameoz · Mar 19, 2009

jro said:
Got this (and GTA Chinatown) yesterday. Played first three battles or so, which took about an hour, since story sequences are relatively lengthy.

So far, it's fantastic. Story is incredibly good, very dark (want to avenge your father and your sister? Sure, you'll have to sacrifice all of your closest friends in order to gain enough power to do it). Gameplay is unique enough for an SRPG, you have to surround enemies with your chars and then combat works just like original VP.

Graphics are pretty weak, but that's easy to overlook.

Impressed so far, eager to play more tonight and this weekend.

How is the saving? Can you quick save or is it just after a battle? Also, have you played the PSP game, how does the DS version compare quality wise. (I know they are different games/styles.

jro · Mar 19, 2009

Gameoz said:
How is the saving? Can you quick save or is it just after a battle? Also, have you played the PSP game, how does the DS version compare quality wise. (I know they are different games/styles.

Hmm, I can't remember for certain if there are quick saves or not. Don't really think so, almost certain that there wasn't an option for that. I'll check for sure tonight and post a definitive answer tomorrow, but I don't believe there is.

It's quite a bit different, sort of hard to compare quality-wise, but I would say it compares pretty favorably, overall. Script obviously had a ton of work put into it, lots of spoken dialogue, nice effects on the overkills and specials, tons of depth to the combat, something like 6 (maybe more?) endings- quality is pretty high IMO.

Really, the only thing I'm not impressed with is the graphics.

edit: and yes, I have played the PSP one.

astrodan88 · Mar 19, 2009

I was thinking about waiting for the price to drop but seeing everyone talking about it made me break down and pick it up today. I loved the PSX game (and PSP remake) but the PS2 outting left a bad taste in my mouth. I couldn't keep interested in the idiotic JRPG characters that populated it (and their horrible dialogue didn't help).
This game seems solid though (I'm also about 4 battles in). Story is interesting and dialogue is well written. Leans very heavily on the influence of the original.

I agree about the graphics; they could be much better. I like that they kept the art style of the original (down to the character portraits) but couldn't they have tidied up those sprites? A bit bigger and a little cleaner would have been nice; when the camera zooms in after winning a battle your guys look a mess.

And it does seem balls to the wall tough, but I'm not the best at grid-based strategy.

BTW: there is a quick save but I haven't tried it yet.

Jedah Doma · Mar 19, 2009

astrodan88 said:
I was thinking about waiting for the price to drop but seeing everyone talking about it made me break down and pick it up today. I loved the PSX game (and PSP remake) but the PS2 outting left a bad taste in my mouth. I couldn't keep interested in the idiotic JRPG characters that populated it (and their horrible dialogue didn't help).
This game seems solid though (I'm also about 4 battles in). Story is interesting and dialogue is well written. Leans very heavily on the influence of the original.

I agree about the graphics; they could be much better. I like that they kept the art style of the original (down to the character portraits) but couldn't they have tidied up those sprites? A bit bigger and a little cleaner would have been nice; when the camera zooms in after winning a battle your guys look a mess.

And it does seem balls to the wall tough, but I'm not the best as grid-based strategy.

BTW: there is a quick save but I haven't tried it yet.

Are you kidding me? VP2 had gameplay even better then the first, and I loved the first. The dialogue wasn't bad at all. VP2 FTW.

astrodan88 · Mar 19, 2009

Jedah Doma said:
Are you kidding me? VP2 had gameplay even better then the first, and I loved the first. The dialogue wasn't bad at all. VP2 FTW.

I kid you not. Different strokes, I guess.
Believe me when I say I wanted to like the game. Valkyrie Profile is one of the few RPGs I've replayed multiple times. I found the combat in VP2 unnecessarily awkward. The original wasn't perfect, I'll grant you that. And I think if I had put more time into it I could have gotten into the swing but I still found it clunky. Positioning your characters was just frustrating; didn't add much to the experience for me. The added "strategy" was nixed by the added annoyance. The game tried to put the feel of the original into three dimensions and it wasn't the same. But I can see how someone could like the combat over the first.

No one can say anything to change my mind about the dialogue though. Too many awkward and cringe-inducing lines. But I'll admit I have a low tolerance for that stuff; I haven't been able to play a Final Fantasy game in about a decade.

What do you think of the latest installment?

Jedah Doma · Mar 20, 2009

astrodan88 said:
I kid you not. Different strokes, I guess.
Believe me when I say I wanted to like the game. Valkyrie Profile is one of the few RPGs I've replayed multiple times. I found the combat in VP2 unnecessarily awkward. The original wasn't perfect, I'll grant you that. And I think if I had put more time into it I could have gotten into the swing but I still found it clunky. Positioning your characters was just frustrating; didn't add much to the experience for me. The added "strategy" was nixed by the added annoyance. The game tried to put the feel of the original into three dimensions and it wasn't the same. But I can see how someone could like the combat over the first.

No one can say anything to change my mind about the dialogue though. Too many awkward and cringe-inducing lines. But I'll admit I have a low tolerance for that stuff; I haven't been able to play a Final Fantasy game in about a decade.

What do you think of the latest installment?

The battle system was wonderful. A mix of real time and turn based. The moving in time and dashing system made it great. Being able to position yourself behind an enemy or on the sides added strategy. Then you went right into the mode from VP1. I'm not sure how the positioning was frustrating. Sure, if you over used your dash or didn't plan your moves, you were screwed. I hope they use this battle system in another RPG as it worked well. Nothing awkward about it IMO.

I haven't got the chance to play the newest VP, though I would like to.

mainman · Mar 20, 2009

Jedah Doma said:
Are you kidding me? VP2 had gameplay even better then the first, and I loved the first. The dialogue wasn't bad at all. VP2 FTW.

It shall be engrave upon your very soul

Jedah Doma · Mar 20, 2009

mainman said:
It shall be engrave upon your very soul

LOL, yes you shall! :buttrock:

jro · Mar 20, 2009

Yeah, I found the quicksave, too, but I've been afraid to use it since I've realized just how fast things can go to hell- you lose one character in a fight and don't resurrect right away, you're fucked. Best just to start over.

Game is all about keeping your characters together so that you can continually use the combat system to get combos off. Fifth battle or so, I had two characters and I was facing about 8 including a boss, thought I would get murdered. But I managed to draw them to me one or two at a time and use combos constantly, and I had no problems.

Also important to set up the whole combo before attacking, not worth going one-on-one and drawing counterattacks before you can deal bigger damage.

Sin system is interesting, nice sense of brutality there.

Storyline only has gotten better. Really liking it so far.

astrodan88 · Mar 20, 2009

jro said:
Sin system is interesting, nice sense of brutality there.

I love this aspect too. One thing that got on my nerves about the original was that 90% of the time your special attacks would be spent overkilling scrub enemies with no reward. This gives you a reason to pound the enemies.

I noticed something too. I failed to get the sin quota on one stage and the next (the last of act II) had extra enemies, these shadow clones of the Wyl (I can't remember the enemies name). They destroyed me but I didn't think anything about it until went back and replayed the stage before it. I got the sin quota that time and now these super hard enemies were gone from the following stage.

Anyone else noticed any other penalties for not getting the required sin?

Edit: I just played the crap out of this tonight and am up to chapter IV. I was going to try and go through without sacrificing anyone but I missed my sin quota again in chapter III and the following battle had those "?planewalker?" enemies. I think they are near impossible to kill without sac'ing a character.

How's everybody else coming along? How far are you and how many characters have you sac'ed?

astrodan88 · Mar 28, 2009

Damn, my fanboy raving killed this thread.

Anyone still playing this. I know there's a lot of good ds stuff lately, but... anybody?

astrodan88 · Apr 1, 2009

Alright... just beat it. Got the worst ending. Only sac'ed 3 characters but I think that was one too many for a better ending. Anyone else finished?

OK, time to quit conversing with myself. :make_fac:

may this thread rest in peace.

Jedah Doma · Apr 1, 2009

astrodan88 said:
Alright... just beat it. Got the worst ending. Only sac'ed 3 characters but I think that was one too many for a better ending. Anyone else finished?

OK, time to quit conversing with myself. may this thread rest in peace.

I'm still here.

So question, is it still worth it?

astrodan88 · Apr 5, 2009

It was definitely worth it. Most enjoyable grid-based strategy game I've ever played. I'm going to wait a bit before playing through again, but I will be playing through again eventually. The different characters you can get makes replaying much more appealing than just the different endings.
I think my only complaint about the game was the strange difficulty curve: harder towards the middle; easier at the very end. Admittedly you can tweak the difficulty by choosing when to sac a character (which almost guarntees a win) but there was 1 map in particular that were just unfairly difficult due to an automatic loss if a certain NPC dies. The catch is that this NPC is alone on the opposite end of the map from you and the first time you play that map you have no idea how long this character will be able to survive. If you just charge across you will get slaughtered yourself. Nothing wrong with a little trial and error, right? Well, this scenario happened twice in the game but once it came in the second battle of a two battle series (where you can only save before the first). So if you loose the second, you have to replay the first to try the second again. And did I mention the first battle will take you at least 30 minutes? :hammer:

But I digress... A minor blemish on an otherwise fantastic experience.

If you enjoyed the first and have even a slight interest in grid-based strategy you should grab it.

Jedah Doma · Apr 24, 2009

astrodan88 said:
It was definitely worth it. Most enjoyable grid-based strategy game I've ever played. I'm going to wait a bit before playing through again, but I will be playing through again eventually. The different characters you can get makes replaying much more appealing than just the different endings.
I think my only complaint about the game was the strange difficulty curve: harder towards the middle; easier at the very end. Admittedly you can tweak the difficulty by choosing when to sac a character (which almost guarntees a win) but there was 1 map in particular that were just unfairly difficult due to an automatic loss if a certain NPC dies. The catch is that this NPC is alone on the opposite end of the map from you and the first time you play that map you have no idea how long this character will be able to survive. If you just charge across you will get slaughtered yourself. Nothing wrong with a little trial and error, right? Well, this scenario happened twice in the game but once it came in the second battle of a two battle series (where you can only save before the first). So if you loose the second, you have to replay the first to try the second again. And did I mention the first battle will take you at least 30 minutes? But I digress... A minor blemish on an otherwise fantastic experience.

If you enjoyed the first and have even a slight interest in grid-based strategy you should grab it.

Then I shall do that.

Valkyrie Profile - Covenant of the Plume

jro

Gonna take a lot

SNKiller

n00b

mainman

CPS2 Person.,

jro

Gonna take a lot

Gameoz

Crossed Swords Knight

jro

Gonna take a lot

astrodan88

King's Dry Cleaner

Jedah Doma

Chroma Ma' Doma!,

astrodan88

King's Dry Cleaner

Jedah Doma

Chroma Ma' Doma!,

mainman

CPS2 Person.,

Jedah Doma

Chroma Ma' Doma!,

jro

Gonna take a lot

astrodan88

King's Dry Cleaner

astrodan88

King's Dry Cleaner

astrodan88

King's Dry Cleaner

Jedah Doma

Chroma Ma' Doma!,

astrodan88

King's Dry Cleaner

Jedah Doma

Chroma Ma' Doma!,