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Episode 4: Valkyrie Profile 2
85 Plays2 years ago
Poly and Kj cover the sequel to the PS1 Enix classic Valkyrie Profile. Find out if they think as highly about this game as they did Valkyrie Profile!
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Transcript
Introduction and Motivation
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome, everybody, to a... Oh, I could put this on my other monitor. Okay, there we go. I'm not playing a game, so I have my other monitor as a use. Yeah, welcome, everybody, to another episode of Turn Based Tangents. I am hosting today, Palimine, with my wonderful co-host, KJ2294.
00:00:22
Speaker
Uh, we, we started this podcast, uh, to basically go through RPG games and stuff like that on our backlog off stream and have a motivation on why we need to complete them, uh, and get them done instead of just like, uh, I know for myself, I always like would pick up an RPG game and then go, Ooh, shiny and play something new rather than beating it. So this is to help us beat games on our backlog. We don't have super intentions of.
00:00:51
Speaker
necessarily streaming and help us go through, but also lets us to bring our viewpoints and stuff like that on these games and stuff like that to you guys.
Podcast Origins and Evolution
00:01:06
Speaker
And we effectually call it turn-based tangents because we're both JRPG fans and that's mostly what we're going to be playing and reviewing, but also tangents because both of KJ and I are very known on our channels going off on wild tangents.
00:01:19
Speaker
And I'm about to take this off track immediately because you said something and I really, I'm like itching to talk about it. Just because I find it so interesting that, cause La Gaia said that in the chat that I'm the same way. So when a game, when I'm playing a game,
00:01:38
Speaker
For me, it's like if I see something new and shiny come out, I'll buy it, and then it will be completely untouched. I will continue to play the thing that I'm playing, but what ends up happening is I'll buy the new game, and then by the time I finish that game, something else new comes out. And then I'm like, oh, let me go play that other new thing. And then what happens is eventually the games that are in between just kind of get left.
00:02:04
Speaker
Like there have been times where I've had some games that are just sealed sitting on my shelf and I'm like, oh, I should probably go like that happened to me. And I mean, digital is even worse because I can't see the games regularly. Like I'll I'll buy something and I'll be super excited to play. It happened with. What did it happen with? I can't remember the most recent thing it happened with. But one example I remember, and this is this is not even an RPG, but I remember
00:02:33
Speaker
I was excited about one of the Halo games coming out. I think it was actually Halo 5. It was either 4 or 5. Halo 4 or 5 was coming out and I hadn't finished one of the Gears of War story modes. So I was like, I'm not playing Halo 5 until I beat the Gears of War story mode.
00:02:57
Speaker
I didn't play Halo 5 for like a couple of weeks before I finished that Gears of War story mode. And so yeah, I'm just, I am very stubborn when it comes to sticking with something. So like, I'll stick with the game, but then other games that I was interested in kind of just end up getting lost.
00:03:15
Speaker
Yeah, and for me, I'm like, sometimes like I will stick with things, but a lot of the times it's like there are specific games, specific genres and stuff like that that I really enjoy when a new game comes out. Like, for example, a new Final Fantasy game comes out. Sometimes I'll literally drop everything. And I did. I did that with Kingdom Hearts 3. I was playing Kingdom Hearts 3 really late.
00:03:36
Speaker
and then Final Fantasy 7 Remake came out and I dropped it immediately to play Remake and then I kept going and so like I have some of these like partly unfinished games in my backlog that I've never finished but then there's also like I have the same problem as KJ being like I'll buy the game like I have Tales of Arise funny fun fact I have it
00:03:58
Speaker
Um, I have uncharted four I have and these games are still sealed right now Because I got distracted with or I was playing other things or I moved on to other things and they just have just stayed sealed and not played and And yeah, see like even our introductory we're already going on a tangent about why
00:04:18
Speaker
We started this, so this is a perfect name that Peach and Elise, Jangchix, underscore x Elise, were like brainstorming to try to help us pick a name. And I think we had settled on turd base, but we just couldn't figure out like
00:04:35
Speaker
what to add to it. And I feel like it's very on point with KJ and I, as you all just witnessed, oh, yeah, that we do go up on these tangents. And, and you guys seem to find it enjoyable. So that's our whole podcast channel has been tied to that. And KJ and I ever since we met, a few months after we started to become friends and everything on this platform and just off
00:05:01
Speaker
Twitch and talking and stuff. We're like, we should do something like we should do something co-op-y together. And, you know, like a lot of people like do like the co-op stuff for the games and everything, you know, but like the two of us, we really just like talking.
00:05:16
Speaker
talking. Big surprise. And especially to each other. And so that's when the podcast started being thrown around being like, we should start a podcast. And then we know we kept going with our channels and everything. And then we're like, it just kept coming up as something we wanted to do. And so that's when we realized it was serious and that we actually really, really wanted to do this. And yeah, we started four months ago because this is episode four.
00:05:44
Speaker
It's kind of wild. It's kind of wild that we have four episodes, which means we have four months into this so far. And we're really enjoying it so far. We're really happy to have everybody here with us. And we for the most part finished the games.
00:06:01
Speaker
Okay, okay, okay. This one here before stream is like, are you worried about anybody calling you out? And I was like, oh, I have an incredibly big defense. And I will explain it when we get to the spoiler section because I don't want to explain it out because it is a big spoiler. So I will explain why Polly put the game down and watched the ending.
00:06:28
Speaker
And it was merely so that I would not be angry and have that influence my opinion of things. That is, you made the right call because I am a little annoyed by what happened. We ran into very similar problems.
Game Discussions and Spoiler Alerts
00:06:46
Speaker
So like, exactly. So, so we'll talk about that in the spoiler section. And as we go with this podcast, we always do something where we are talking about the game. We're going to be talking about the story and stuff like that. So there are going to be spoilery things if you don't want to know the story and stuff throughout, but we also make a very big warning clear that we're about to talk about like the end game stuff.
00:07:07
Speaker
I find personally when a lot of like these channels and stuff like that where they do cover games like this they do avoid a lot of the spoilery topics they'll avoid like some of the main like plot sequence they'll avoid end bosses they'll avoid endings discussion and stuff and KJ and I both agreed we didn't want to cut that out because it's still very valuable conversation to talk about
00:07:32
Speaker
But we'll very much make it obvious when we are in that category. So if you want to turn the volume down at that point so that you're not getting super spoiled if you haven't played this yet, or if you've played this game and you're super ready to talk about that, that's partly why we want to discuss the game in its entirety and then give our feelings on the game like what we write it out of and stuff.
00:07:56
Speaker
it's like sometimes sometimes the ending or sometimes like ending sequences and stuff like that make the decision on whether it should be like an eight game or a nine game or a seven game like you know sometimes the grind is not worth what you get at the end sometimes it's very worth what you get in the end um so i feel like it's a very important segment of of the game and talking about the game is to talk about
00:08:22
Speaker
the end spoilery stuff. But KJ and I will make it very, very obvious when we're going into that territory. And it's usually towards the end of the podcast is when we talk about it. So. True. Very, very true. And as Nogor says, sometimes you have that Xenogears final boss. Exactly. Sometimes you really got to talk about what you just went through. And very, very true.
00:08:49
Speaker
Um, but yeah, so, so yeah, this is, this is what, uh, this is what our podcast is designed around. And so for, uh, those who caught last, uh, last months, we were talking about live alive. And so, uh, we did Valkyrie profile too. Um, if, uh, KJ, if you want to start us off with, uh, talking a little bit about the game, if nobody's ever heard of it and, uh, yeah. Yeah.
Valkyrie Profile 2: Story and Art Critique
00:09:14
Speaker
Of course. So this is a direct sequel to the Enix or NX game Docker profile. I say it's a direct sequel, but it's technically a prequel because it's set like 200 or 300 years before the events of the first game. We'll kind of talk about some spoilery stuff later on that's going to
00:09:39
Speaker
explain why I'm very hand-wavy about how I'm explaining it. But yeah, and so the first game, the main character is Leneth. They're all Valkyries, or both Leneth and the main character of the second game, Silmaria, who's also technically Alicia. They're both
00:10:06
Speaker
Valkyries, but the way it works is like, and this is explained in Valkyrie profile one, but in the second game, it's much more kind of obvious that it's more known that, um, which, which is actually weird. Cause it's, I didn't think about, this is actually making me think about this. Hold on timeout. In the first game, it seemed like a lot of people were confused about the fact that like, there's a Valkyrie inside of a person.
00:10:37
Speaker
Um, like the soul of a Valkyrie is inside of a person. However, in the second game, it was very clear that people were like aware that Sumeria's soul was inside of Alicia. So I'm like, that, that's actually something that consistency wise is a little confusing, but yeah. So it starts off very early on where you're kind of introduced to this character, you're introduced to Sumeria, which is the younger sister of Leneth. Um,
00:11:06
Speaker
And yeah, it's super interesting. They do throw you right in. And that's something that's what I found common along both the Falcon profile games that I've played is that they throw you right into the story, right into the gameplay and everything. And that is really exciting. Right away, the game is very different from the first one. The first one is very much, it was a
00:11:32
Speaker
PS1 game that was very pixel graphic heavy, pixel sprites and stuff like that. And then this game had the PS2 feel. And I say that, what I've started to realize with PS2 games is you have two types of graphical styles. You have the much more PS2 realistic style that Final Fantasy X had. And then you have this other style that kind of feels
00:12:03
Speaker
very...
00:12:05
Speaker
forced and not real at all, but still trying to be kind of realistic. And this game definitely falls into that. So aesthetically, this game was not my favorite. It grew on me. It did grow on me. And I think it's also because I've been playing a lot of PlayStation 1 games and even some SNES games and stuff like that. So it definitely, it was definitely a little bit of a struggle, but it definitely grew on me. And for me,
00:12:35
Speaker
So the art style and like the backgrounds were nice. The backgrounds were definitely nice. The art style. I wasn't, like I said, not a huge fan. Like, but the, the, the background and it set up very similar to Dr. Profile one where it's like.
00:12:48
Speaker
kind of platformery and it's like on that just like flat plane and you're just basically running through and doing stuff. There's actually more platforming in this game than there is in the first one because of some of the different like gameplay features that they added which we'll touch on a little bit later. But overall the art style was pretty solid.
00:13:13
Speaker
Going into the music, it's actually really funny. Polly's gonna be able to talk on the music a lot more than I am because halfway through the game, I've started playing without sound just because I switched from where I was playing the game.
00:13:29
Speaker
I didn't get to experience the OST in its entirety. And then the voice acting is bad. The voice acting is real bad. I want to give it the benefit of the doubt, but I've heard some PS1 games that have better voice acting.
00:13:48
Speaker
It's pretty bad. It was pretty rough. Go for it. PS2 is like the era of voice acting where they are starting to try to flesh things out. And you could tell that this is where the voice acting guild and stuff like that started to be formed and where companies were starting to go to those specifically to pick voices.
00:14:10
Speaker
And a lot of these voice actors and actresses that started playing these PS2 games either had never voice acted before or they were like their debut into it. So there are some really powerful voices in here.
00:14:26
Speaker
that are iconic characters and other things where they do phenomenally. One of them being Alisha's voice actress is the same one as Rukia's from the anime Bleach, where that voice, the English version, that voice actress did a really, really great job capturing Rukia and everything. It is one of like, I like a lot of the stuff she plays in, but
00:14:53
Speaker
either the direction or this was like kind of their debut into that world and stuff like that was not as fleshed out and uh valkyr profile 2 is no exception with that rule like there's very few ps2 games where i go with the voice acting going hey you know what that's like really really solid really good and it is aged well
00:15:14
Speaker
But if you actually look through like for this particular game if you actually go through the different voices of the game. They are very famous voice actors and actresses in the in the world like they do a lot of anime they do other video games they do other things.
00:15:32
Speaker
I learned yesterday that Arngrim's VA in Valkyr Profile 2 is Cell in DBZ. Yeah. So legit learned that yesterday. Legit that. Lazard's is a very common voice that always tricks me up in this game. Lazard's voice in this game is very iconic person and now it's...
00:15:55
Speaker
But if I look it up really quickly, I will have it. But you get a lot of the very, yeah, Liam O'Brien, thank you. So Liam O'Brien is a very, very talented, very famous voice actor. And so that's Lazard in this game. So there are a lot of very iconic names in this, but it's definitely either one, their direction that they were given for the game,
00:16:20
Speaker
didn't really like like kj already touched up a little bit it has that like i'm trying to be realistic but i'm not quite there yet so like the the the mouth movement is off entirely the facial expressions and stuff are very rigid and not very animated
00:16:35
Speaker
So when you have these voice actors like doing these like powerful comments and stuff like that, the voice, the model is not matching their voice. Like, I feel like that hit a lot harder in this game. And a lot of PS2 games have that problem is because they're like, they're starting to get into that graphical like,
00:16:53
Speaker
advancement of facial expressions and stuff being more animated and everything, but it's still not quite there yet. The PS2 has a very strong era of having very rigid facial expressions and being like, this dramatic thing just happened. And they're like, oh no.
00:17:11
Speaker
They know they actually sounded but their faces like oh, no, that is so sad and it's like this very like straight face But it's very emotioned Characters so then you're just like this is a weird disconnect. So it was like I don't entirely felt like the voice actors and actresses of it because I like again a lot of these people are like super famous now and
00:17:32
Speaker
or like super, like you see them in other things and you're like, okay, you did phenomenal in there. Like Cell was great. Alicia B. Rukia was awesome. So Marya is also a very famous voice actress as well that I've heard in a lot of things. Like I heard when I was hearing a lot of the voices and stuff like that from this game, I'm like, oh, that's from this anime or that's from this game.
00:17:54
Speaker
And that's, that's really funny because also in vampire profile one, a lot of the original like Pokemon cat is actually like the person that does, I think, um, the person that does, uh, Officer Jenny and nurse joy is Leneth. And I know, um, the original VA for Veronica Taylor, she does, um,
00:18:17
Speaker
Preya and one of the other characters in Valkyr Profile 1. So it's like, they still did. They got, I guess, pretty high profile people to do the VA. At least they would be high profile because they're in high profile anime and stuff like that now. Maybe not at the time, but yeah, they were good at at least picking people out that were eventually able to break through.
00:18:44
Speaker
Yeah, and like, and like, like, let us voice actress is very, very iconic in the first one. And they like carry that through and stuff. So it's really interesting that they like, they definitely went out and like these voices and stuff like that are talented. It's just, it slips a little bit in this game. And I think it's also partly just to do with the
00:19:06
Speaker
The style it's going with is that like, I'm trying to be realistic, but I'm not quite there yet, but I'm still kind of anime. And then, but there's no like expressions happening. Like, I think, I think Alicia had like three expressions, one where her eyes went a little bit more wider, one where you could clearly tell it was Silmaria, where it's like her eyes go narrow and then like, and then closed.
00:19:33
Speaker
So it's that era of game development where they just didn't have the technology quite yet to do that. But I will say other PS2 games had I think a little bit more of a budget in that direction. And so they did feel a little bit more animated because as much as things were a little bit rigid in Final Fantasy X as well,
00:19:56
Speaker
uh like Yuna's expressions and when like there's scenes where she cries and you actually feel like she's crying like they did do like and that's a PS2 game as well so I think it's just also like maybe a little bit like Falcon Profile 2 didn't quite have the budget put into it well so like it it it had that little bit of like and that's how it kind of starts off and you're just like okay okay so
00:20:21
Speaker
the game. The soundtrack though, Matoy did another phenomenal draw. Like the soundtrack of Valkyrie Profile 2 is very, very good. There's a lot of tracks in it that I really liked. It was very attached to Valkyrie Profile 1, so you're going to hear a lot of like tones and music bits that they're definitely pulling from one and making it into two, which I thought was a great connection making the two blended.
00:20:49
Speaker
Like, if you play a Star Ocean game and you play a Valkyrie profile game, the songs, even though it's by the same composer, sound a little different.
00:20:56
Speaker
I would say more than that. I'd say very different. Yeah, they've got a whole different tone to them, right? Whereas with Valkyrie Profile 2, they tried to keep the same tone as 1, which I thought was really great, kind of leading it. Because Valkyrie Profile 1 has such a phenomenal soundtrack that Valkyrie Profile 2, I really, really like, I feel like it connected really well. And there's a lot of really banger tracks of it.
00:21:22
Speaker
especially when they throw in those like little Vow group profile one tracks remastered into two for a certain sequence. I will put you on the spot which soundtrack is better. Oh no don't do that to me.
00:21:42
Speaker
Oh, I think, I think Valkyrie Profile 1 is still slightly better than 2. Just because I found 2, there was a lot of points where the songs didn't hit as hard. So when you went into dungeons and stuff like that in Valkyrie Profile 1, every dungeon you did hit.
00:22:02
Speaker
It hit the tone of the dungeon, it hit the mood, and it was just this powerful epic song. Whereas Valkyrie Profile II, I found they toned that down in some of the dungeons. So like some of the dungeons are quite quiet, like you don't really hear the music as well, or they're very like kind of more
00:22:22
Speaker
tone down and not in your face. There are still a few like really powerful flapping tracks that you're just like, oh my God. And KJ I'm sure is going to talk about it a little later when we start talking about like dungeons and stuff like that. He's definitely going to bring up his favorite one, which had a really powerful track. But again, that was also like pulling from the original game. And so I'm going to, I'm going to go on record and say that bunker profile one soundtrack is better than two.
00:22:49
Speaker
But 2 still has a lot of like really good tracks that tie in and I don't think it's like a super step below. It's just Valkyrie Profile 1 had some really like, you were just grooving while you were in the dungeon kind of thing. Whereas I think this one they were trying to set the mood a little bit more serious and so they toned the, they toned that down a little bit more.
00:23:13
Speaker
And so, so yeah, I think, I think, but like art style, this, this one's hard for me because I see what they're trying to do and they do it also with Valkyrie profile, Leneth, which is the remastered version of the original game. And then they changed all the cut scenes from anime to this style that they started to push towards into.
00:23:41
Speaker
Um, so they do it a little bit more of that realistic look and more of the bland color palettes where everything is neutralized. And when I say that, I mean like, de-saturated, think de-saturated. So like, think bright, luscious grass, and then in Valkyrie Profile 2, it's like somebody took the saturation and dropped it down. Yeah, it was definitely a very, that's a good point. It was definitely a very like, I don't want to say dark, but
00:24:11
Speaker
the colors weren't super vibrant. First, I thought it was because I played it on three different things because I tried to emulate it on the Steam Deck. That was where I think the color palettes were
00:24:30
Speaker
really pushed out. I was like, okay, cool, this looks a little bit better. And then I played it on a PS3 on my normal living room TV, and that I was like, eh. And then I played it on a monitor on my PS2, and that's when I was like, oh, okay, this is just how this game is. Yeah.
00:24:54
Speaker
kind of poking around some of like the Reddit forums, there are like remastered version like fan made remastered versions of the game, where people have like tuned it so that it's really looks a lot better. And those actually did look like they could be like the best way to play the game, but
00:25:12
Speaker
Yeah, we didn't find those until like after and you briefly batched it to me private and then like I was I was looking at KJ's playthrough of odds thinking about how I was going to write this out for Valkyrie Profile 2's like segment and I was like
00:25:31
Speaker
Valkyrie Profile 1 had a very, not only because it was pixelated, which is very iconic style for the time, but it had bright, vibrant colors. Like, Linus was very bright and vibrant. Like, the colors of the sequence and stuff, even the anime cutscenes were, like, very, like, very vibratey and very, like, pull you into the universe, where Valkyrie Profile 2, they, like, desaturated everything.
00:25:54
Speaker
And now I see why, and this was my comment when I saw the trailer for the new one, the Valkyrie Elysium, I see why it looks de-saturated. And when I saw the trailer, I was like, this looks really like...
00:26:10
Speaker
desaturated, no color, everything is like that bland sort of variations of gray. And I'm like, what? And I was very thick, but now that I replayed Valkyrie profile too, I see that they were starting it here. They started changing it here and they just continued on with that, which I feel like they should have gone back the other way. I feel like after this one,
00:26:34
Speaker
Um, it was very obvious that I liked Valkyrie Profile 1's art style better. Uh, even if we would have gotten out of the pixelated, uh, even with the Valkyrie Profile Lenitz cut scene, uh, where they do it 3D animated. I know KJ hasn't seen them yet, but I've seen them so I can talk about them a little bit. They're still a little bit more vibrant than this was. Um, even though that they were realistic and not anime.
00:26:59
Speaker
So it was just one of those things where it's like I felt like they should have gone back to why Valkyrie Profiles art style really captured people in the newest one rather than continuing on with what they did with Valkyrie Profile 2. So art style wise it just it slipped for me with this one. I just the colors were just so muted and like
00:27:22
Speaker
I don't know, like, like the backgrounds were still really great.
Gameplay Mechanics and Strategy
00:27:26
Speaker
This is the thing is they still kept that side scrolly aspect of Valkyrie profile one where you're kind of running and you see these beautiful like things. And as you turned, it turned with you because it was done in 3d, right? Which I thought that was really cool. And I'm like, yeah.
00:27:41
Speaker
there's a lot of these places that had potential like the forest of the spirits for example to be these very like super vibranty like areas but they no they muted and they really desaturated it and kj playing it on three different versions it literally was just what it's just what they they went with rather than going with the more like vibrancy because i mean
00:28:05
Speaker
Final Fantasy X is a good example of vibrancy. It's a very vibrant game, and X2 was very vibrant. So they continued on, and it makes you feel like the characters have life.
00:28:18
Speaker
You know what I mean? I think that was kind of in them. Now that we talk about it, it makes sense though. It kind of makes sense. Oh yeah, like story wise it makes sense, but like. Yeah, there was never like a positive and I think that's like comparing it to Final Fantasy X kind of shed some light on that because even though there was such a dark undertone in Final Fantasy X and you knew it was going to happen, there was always that sort of like Titus Yuna like
00:28:45
Speaker
more so tight is where like there's kind of hope and stuff like that and so having some more of those like vibrant colors with this game it was always like dark like it was this game from start to finish was just like
00:29:01
Speaker
But to be fair, boundary profile one was also because you saw all the, all the people and how they, they quote unquote died more or less. So it's still had that, but you're right. It could be that they were trying to make it a more grim, darker, because the storyline did not match the vibrancy of things.
00:29:23
Speaker
Um, as we progress through the story, you start developing hope and hope for a couple of the main characters. At least I did. Um, when you, when you start kind of availing some things, but, um, at the same time, it's just like, you kind of also knew in the back of your head, you're like, this, this is, this is not going to, this is going to be like a more like.
00:29:44
Speaker
bad story. And definitely right away, I'm going to tell you there are some triggers in this game. Oh, yeah, I bet are are for somebody like myself, who one of my triggers is actually parental death, that there are some sequence in the game where I'm just like,
00:30:09
Speaker
Oh, okay. Okay. When I go with games, I try to always remember that like, I need to separate myself a little bit from that. So I know there's going to be games with stuff like that. There's going to be games that touch on really sensitive topics and stuff in it. And it's just kind of like, like, but, and I feel like round group profile too is not very like,
00:30:33
Speaker
I think because of the little bit of the bland emotional state of things and stuff that we were talking about, like the facial expressions and stuff, people just kind of like, okay, this thing happened. But when you really try to pull yourself into the universe, which I do with these games, that thing actually hit harder than I expected because I figured from forums and stuff, people were not really talking about. No.
00:31:02
Speaker
Yeah, but Valkyrie Profile 1, I already went into it. Valkyrie Profile 1 has a very dark storyline. So I'm like, I kind of expected it from already of playing the first one. And I'm going to very much repeat in this, play Valkyrie Profile 1 first. It's very crucial you play 1 first. We will touch later on in the spoiler territory on why it's also incredibly crucial you play 1 first. But also just
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of people say it's a prequel. So you can play this one before you play the first one. Don't do that. To be fair, before I beat Valkyrie Profile 2, I was one of those people. I do remember having a conversation with KJ that it's a thing, but I really wanted to play Valkyrie Profile because it was such a powerful game. And it was one that I beat. And I knew that if he would experience it, he'd probably really, really love it.
00:31:57
Speaker
And so I kind of left Valkyrie Profile 2 because I never beat this game. I played about 20 hours into it. I found out I stopped playing this game at the part that KJ liked the most, which is kind of ironic. And then put it down. And so I constant was like, oh yeah, it's a prequel. So like it's a prequel story. It's set before Valkyrie Profile 1. You could play it before. But now after beating it, no, no, no, no. I changed my opinion entirely.
00:32:21
Speaker
I think it's really funny too because I, so my, I think you're, if you would have played a little longer, then if you would have played like an extra 10, 12 hours.
00:32:34
Speaker
I don't think you would have said that. Cause I think like the game split up into chapters and like chapter there, there's big plot twist things that happen at the end of chapter three, at the end of chapter
Character Dynamics and Storytelling
00:32:46
Speaker
four. And at the end of chapter four, that's when it's immediately, that was when it immediately hit me. There's no way that you can play this, um, as a like prequel to Valkyrie profile one.
00:33:01
Speaker
After chapter four, I was like, oh, because the thing is, this game, it does answer a lot of questions that the first game leave you with. Yeah, exactly. And I left off towards the end of chapter three, the first time I played this game. So I was in chapter three still, but I hadn't hit that sequence of events. And literally, if I would have just got through that dungeon, which going through it again, I was like, oh my goodness, this dungeon is a pain.
00:33:29
Speaker
but and I see why I stopped but yeah the music was great but like it's like download the sand track and boob on but for me anyway so yeah if I would have just pushed myself I would have had a very different opinion of telling people hey do not this has to come after the first one there's a lot of things that get answered there's a lot of like things we'll talk about in the spoiler section of this podcast that
00:33:56
Speaker
make it that you have to play it after. There's just no way that you can do this before and like be super connected with everything. You're going to, you're going to be lost even just at the start of this game, because this isn't spoiler, this is literally at the start of this game. They don't tell you a whole lot. They're just like, okay, so Mario's soul is stuck in Alicia's and you're like, try to evade being captured sort of idea.
00:34:21
Speaker
But it doesn't entirely dive into that. Like, start giving you that later on, you get more bits and pieces of why they were running and stuff like that. But in Valkyrie Profile 1, they actually talk about that. And that's why they didn't do that at the very start of this. Because they assumed you had played the first one. Not to mention, there's like four characters that end up being
00:34:51
Speaker
that play pretty important roles and at least a canon playthrough of Valkyrie Profile 1 that end up being important players.
00:35:08
Speaker
in this game. Yeah. And so like, it's just one of those things like Lazard, for example, is a character that comes from, or as is mentioned in one, there's an arm crib and stuff, although KJ explained to me a little bit more with that.
00:35:23
Speaker
I'm glad they did because they don't really explain it in the game because again, this is set two to 300 years before Valkyrie Profile 1. So it's like, okay, all right, let's dive a little bit into the story. I think this is a great segue to go into the storyline slash gameplay. I think we'll talk about the gameplay after. You started dropping character names. I was ready to hear your Lazard rant.
00:35:49
Speaker
I'm okay. Yeah, yeah. Lazar Grant is coming. KJ knows I have I've been building this up that I have I have a strong opinion of the person.
00:35:59
Speaker
But yeah, so you start off the game as you start off as Alicia, she's got the soul of Silmaria in her. So which is a Valkyrie soil. And it's kind of contradictory because no two Valkyrie souls are supposed to be awakened at the same time. So you're kind of alluded into that mystery of like why Silmaria was active when
00:36:20
Speaker
another Valkyrie was active. So like right now, Rist is active and in the world of doing her duty and then Silmeria is also activated. So it's just like, like, basically, when I say activated, I mean, like, kind of like,
00:36:37
Speaker
Awakened like they're they wake up like they're kind of put like this like sleeping sort of state, right? So they wake up and so here's Taz is currently involved in everything and you get bits and pieces of that in Valkyrie profile one when you get a little bit of the lore of What sets up this game? but so she's like so then you have some area and then you kind of
00:37:00
Speaker
You're playing as Alicia, trying to like, kind of get away, get away and stuff like that. So you're kind of, you start off as Solo, but Silmaria also starts to talk about how she has some of her Valkyrie powers, even though she's been awakened
00:37:17
Speaker
not necessarily post have been awakened kind of idea. So she has some of her powers which gives you some of your gameplay elements like like shooting and freezing the enemies with crystals they bring that back into this game because that is part of Someria's powers but also Someria is has on Harrier that she had
00:37:39
Speaker
before. So she has an Harrier, which is the Valkyrie collecting the souls of the dead and stuff like that and making and bringing them as warriors for Valhalla, which is actually part of like Norse story, like, like Norse history and everything. So sorry, sorry to jump, jump in. They do explain the Silmeria thing.
00:38:00
Speaker
Um, I thought they did. And I, yeah, they did very, very briefly in the beginning because they do an intro sequence. Like they do it. If you don't watch the opening cut scene, you might be a little bit confused because the opening country is literally explaining a little bit why. So Mary is there, why she's been kind of like pulled into it and then why they're fleeing. Um, I didn't watch that right away. Oh, okay. Yeah. That actually tells, that tells a ton because
00:38:30
Speaker
Yeah. Cause I figured it was just like one of those intros. You know how sometimes games have intros like Chrono cross does that shadow hearts do it there where they have an intro or sorry, not shadow hearts, shadow hearts covenant where they have an intro where they're showing off the game at different points. And, but they're not like giving you, this has literally their intro sequence before you hit start is literally giving you plot.
00:38:55
Speaker
I don't think we can talk about plot without spoilers for this game. Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't think it's gonna be possible. To explain that part of things, you kind of have to know some of the other things. Anybody that's playing that has played Valkyrie Profile 1 will immediately be like, wait a second, why are there two Valkyries active at the same time? And the reason why, it happens in the beginning,
00:39:25
Speaker
It's still kind of a spoiler because of then another thing that happens, which they didn't clearly tell us about. So how about we leave the storyline then and characters and stuff like that for the spoiler area and we'll talk about the spoiler area there. And so how about we talk about gameplay right now then?
00:39:50
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So your, your, your first opinions of gameplay are great because you also admitted that if this was not a podcast game, you wouldn't have stuck with it. So yeah, if this was not a podcast game, I would not have stuck with it. This, the things, okay. This game is a, um, at least the first couple of hours that you play it. It's definitely the case where PS2 games, like trying really hard to be different.
00:40:20
Speaker
which is cool and all, and I like that they take chances, but they had such a good formula with Valkyrie Profile 1, and it kinda hurt. The barrier of entry is really, really difficult to begin with. However, I did come around on the gameplay. There's a couple of different things. One of the things that I really loved was the fact that they, for anybody that's played Valkyrie Profile, you know that they can freeze the enemies and stuff like that.
00:40:50
Speaker
Well, in this game, not only can you freeze them, but you can teleport if you shoot the enemy with the freeze thing twice. And so it was really cool to be able to teleport into different areas to get different treasure checks and stuff like that. That said, because of that feature, it also made it so that there was a lot more platforming, which I don't necessarily care for. And part of that platforming is, so after the first dungeon,
00:41:20
Speaker
going forward. After the first dungeon going forward, they have what they call seal stones. And with the seal stones, they all have some kind of effect. And when the seal stones are active, they can be active for
00:41:43
Speaker
they can be active for enemies. And so it'll be, there'll be some cases where it's like, there's a seal stone that says, um, up ice damage by 150% reduced fire damage by 120%. And so it's like,
00:42:03
Speaker
you end up in it, or half, but by half, sorry, not 120, but by half. And so by 50%. And so if that's set in the field, that'll be applied to the enemies. And if you're holding it, that'll be set to you. And there's like a currency system where you can actually basically buy the different seal stones. So that way you can use them in other dungeons, which is,
00:42:26
Speaker
ends up being super useful and I think that's a cool way to do things but like in the beginning especially when you're not used to the game that's really painful and it's really difficult to kind of adjust with that and so that was a struggle and it wasn't until I did like I ended up grinding a tongue because that's the thing at first it makes you feel like oh you have to grind a bit and then it was just like no it's not that I have to grind it's just that the seal stones and equipment
00:42:56
Speaker
really matter. And with the equipment, I think they, I can't help but compare this to Valkyrie Profile 1. With the equipment in this game, you can get decent equipment, kind of going through the story. But the best equipment is locked behind crafting. And like, the way that the battle and the combat works is
00:43:22
Speaker
you attack enemies, it's set up for Fokker profile one, but you're on an open field and you have a stamina bar. You go forward and you attack enemies and you basically attack different parts, you can attack different parts of their body depending on what type of attack you're using. And that contributes to what items that you'll get. Like there's like, so you could be, there was one situation where like you're fighting a Hydra and there's like a 40% chance if you break its tail
00:43:51
Speaker
that you'll get a certain item. So like it promotes a lot of farming and like grinding like that. So that I didn't really care for and because a lot of the best stuff is locked behind
00:44:04
Speaker
those sort of crafting systems, it made it really difficult to get some of the best stuff. So I definitely found myself kind of grinding. Um, and y'all know me for knowing those. I hate grinding games. Like I should be able to, I should be able to go through the game. As long as I'm not like just running away from battles, I should be able to go through the game without having to do an excessive amount of extra grinding. Personally, that's my feeling.
00:44:28
Speaker
Yeah, and because of all the items were like very like stat based, like building up like your skills and stuff like that. It was also kind of crucial to like go around grinding and breaking parts off. And you had mentioned the battle system being civil that about group profiles and it was except for they tried to make it 3d in the battle system.
00:44:47
Speaker
So this is where they started trying to add 3D elements to it rather than just it always being like a side scroller. And so aspects were in the town where if you ran, it started to kind of turn the camera with you. So you could see that it was a 3D town that you were in.
00:45:03
Speaker
but you never kind of like you never had the ability to go into like this like it was not like a top down view or anything you were still the side scroller view and another aspect of that is the battle system so they changed it where while you still fought kind of on that
00:45:19
Speaker
plane it's like when you enter a battle it is 3d you were top down with a camera you could see the different enemies you could see which one's the leader and which one are the lackeys so if the leader gets beat um it ends the battle but sometimes it was best to kill the lackeys and then the leader because again what kjo was mentioning when you could break off different limbs and get different items and it was actually very crucial at the beginning to
00:45:43
Speaker
especially for most of the game to do that because you needed certain skills to survive certain battles as you went along like you needed the survival skill which was something that if if an enemy hits you with an insta kill you revive
00:45:59
Speaker
which was so important for some of the battles because some of the enemies would hit you for more than your health in one hit. So it's like these skills became crucial and to get them, you had to get certain items to put together in your equipment to unlock them. But when you're on this 3D plane, you can actually split up your party. So you could split it up as you're all separate people. You could split it up as two and two. You can attack on different sides.
00:46:27
Speaker
I get what they were trying to do. They were trying to make the battle system more like...
00:46:33
Speaker
tactical like you could you had strategy to it wasn't just you ran in you'd spam some buttons and did it they were trying to make that but they fell a little short because it was very clunky control wise to do that the split up your party was kind of annoying you had to like switch through where you had like two red and two blue if you wanted to split it up that way and then move the red and then go and move the blue
00:47:00
Speaker
Like it was very, but you were doing all of this in real time when the enemy could be hitting you as you're trying to set this up. So it's my party sometimes. So that was actually, it was, so in the beginning I tried to split my party a ton and then I realized like, Oh, this is a bad idea. But there were some fights where I split my party. So that way I could still kind of like,
00:47:26
Speaker
have somebody healing, especially as I got like the healing items that were, they heal the whole party, the whole party. That was something that I found super, super useful. And there were also like, there were there were some things that kind of like,
00:47:42
Speaker
were a little broken, right? So the healing of the entire party was really good. And then there was a seal stone that doubled the amount of healing that they're double the amount of HP that you got from any healing. So that in combination with splitting your party and like having somebody with if you were fighting like a magic based
00:48:03
Speaker
enemy or a physical-based enemy than having somebody that is good in whatever defense and just split off, they can kind of hold some aggro and really hold that enemy over there and still be healing while your other party members are able to attack. And there was also a skill, and Polly, I don't know if you got this skill, but there's a skill that doubles your HP.
00:48:28
Speaker
No, I don't think I got it. What was it called? Oh, I need to look it up. Yeah. I don't think I got that. I also didn't get the seal stone that made healing items stronger. And this is one of the aspects of the game that frustrated me is that you never got enough magic crystals. I found like you.
00:48:45
Speaker
You had to really really grind magic crystals like each battle like you got more magical crystals if you broke off more limbs and more battles and you fought all the individuals and not just the leader but I still found there wasn't enough magic crystals gained in just like even just with extra grinding that there were certain seal stones that I ended up passing up on entirely because they cost so much more money
00:49:10
Speaker
And I ended up with at the end, the only big seal stone that I forked out money. One was the double experience. No money. You'll start, which really helped me in the end. And KJ kept laughing at me. He's like, what? That I was like all, all of a sudden when I got that seal stone, I started using that in every dungeon that all of a sudden I was level 55 by the end without any grinding at all. Which is so funny because so.
00:49:40
Speaker
For what it's worth, the double healing sealstone is only 2,000 crystals, so it's not terrible. Okay, I must have just maybe missed it in a dungeon. Yeah, it's in an early dungeon. I think it's in the volcano. But what was really interesting was, so yes, you actually are a higher level than I was when I finished the game. But all of my characters had over 10,000 HP.
00:50:08
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that was crucial. And you also, because of the grinding you did, you had a higher attack power as well, I think. I was like, my attack power was like the highest character for me was like 800 attack.
00:50:24
Speaker
Oh yeah and I realized that there's a few aspects of this that I was like oh shit because I and I'll talk about it when we talk about the spoiler and then I talk about the reason why I didn't actually like beat it um and that was one of the part of the things is that you going through the grinding going back through the game going through different things finding certain steel stones and then also breaking off limbs and piecing things together
00:50:49
Speaker
Made your you made you get items that made you way stronger and there are certain skills I didn't get because I didn't do that even though I literally fought every and this is this is something that I was kind of proud about because I like the battle system it was so satisfying breaking pieces off like it felt great.
00:51:07
Speaker
Like I don't know it was it was like my dead space instinct came back where I had to break all the limbs and break all the pieces and to make sure that they stayed dead and so it was it was really satisfying for me but so I would go around and I'd kill all the enemies then the leader kill all the enemies then the leader
00:51:24
Speaker
So I still have the same amount of place time as KJ, but KJ got all the way to the end needed to level up. So he went back and did all the grindy aspects. The game kind of pushes you to do where I didn't have to do it because I was already super high level by the time, but I didn't have like the super strong kills or or weapons. And even though without those, it was literally like one tiny thing I still would have won, even though it was a longer grind for me at the end.
00:51:54
Speaker
So it's funny, I didn't actually, so my grind was not for levels. My grind was just for, like I said, I grinded out crystals. And the other thing was getting seal stones that you needed.
00:52:10
Speaker
It was just that one sealstone. The only sealstone I got was that one, that doubled healing. Um, everything else, it was just, I went through my skills because this game has a lot of situations where they take party members from you and I had to replace two of my party members. So I had to get them the skills that my other party members had. So that was the biggest thing. But so I had to fight the boss, the final boss twice.
00:52:40
Speaker
On the second time I beat the final boss, it's a it's a two-part fight. I got to the second part on the first try. It was just that I was doing so little damage that I was like, eventually I was going to run into the exact same situation that you did. So I just let the boss kill me. Because I was just like, I'm not going to waste my time just sitting here and like, but then I was like, you know what? I'm going to go get like I started looking and I was like, you know what? Only the main character
00:53:09
Speaker
is doing damage so like i'm just gonna go get the skills i'm gonna go get a skill that um
00:53:18
Speaker
basically allows me to kill that type of enemy faster, because that's another thing that, like this game is really good with its skills. Having like, oh, you want to fight a dragon? Well, here's the dragon slayer skill, like you can use that. So I specifically searched out for that skill, got that skill, equip that, and I equip every power increase percentage thing that, or strength increase percentage thing that I had. So I ended up having like,
00:53:47
Speaker
1500 attack or maybe like 1300 attack or something like that. Yeah. So you had way higher attack power of that. And this game did great with those skills because it's like you also could replay bosses, which I thought was really interesting because bosses had a particular drop rate of really rare items. So you had to like, if you wanted to get these really rare items, which I lucked out on getting one from a boss where it was a, it was called the healing ring.
00:54:15
Speaker
where it would heal me yeah yeah see see the drop rate i'm not kidding was like five percent. What is that if you went behind them and like broke off a piece or something like their tail or whatever and i think it was one of the dragons so i got this healing ring like really early like like like.
00:54:34
Speaker
first try which apparently looking on forums is a grind by the way but it's like if I would have gone back and got a certain steel stone I would have been invincible because with the healing ring where I do damage and heal myself so every time you attack you heal yourself healing ring you're constantly passively healing yourself constantly and then there is a steel stone where it does that for your whole party
00:55:04
Speaker
Oh yes. So you could literally never run out of HP. And I was like, what?
00:55:11
Speaker
Yeah. So the thing, the good seal stones are like 30,000 crystals. Again, that's where the grinding comes in of grinding those crystals. And I never felt there was enough. So I never went to get that healing thing. And I had the healing ring really early on. So I'm just like, okay. So I had it for like the end boss sequence and everything, but it was so funny to look it up and go, Oh my God, that was like a 5% chance at this boss that I thought that I would have got that.
00:55:36
Speaker
And that's why you could replay a lot of the bosses and break different parts off to try for a chance to get really, really rare items, which I thought was really interesting that you could replay any boss that you fought.
00:55:48
Speaker
Yeah, no, but I didn't realize that until I was like, I was looking for a specific item and I was like, okay, I'm going to look up where this item is because I need, I need more of these to craft. And then it was like, you can go back and fight the Hydra. And I was like, wait a second. That was a boss. I can go back and fight that. And of course I had to do the dungeon things again, but I went back and I fought that Hydra like eight times, got what I needed and left.
00:56:10
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. It's crazy that you could do that in this game and I like that it gives you in gameplay that ability. My only gripe is that some of the seal stones cost so much crystals that you would have to grind and that's where it gets its
00:56:27
Speaker
timestamp of a really high timestamp. If you A, want 100% this game, it's very time consuming, very time consuming. I think like the record is like 120 hours or something like that to like 100%. And then which, which is ridiculous. And it's all based because you don't get very many magic crystals per enemy you kill. And so, but magic crystals all costs a lot of money. So like, you'll get maybe like 20 a battle.
00:56:55
Speaker
And then it costs you, you know, 2000 for a really good seal stone, or it'll cost you 3000 for a really good seal stone. So then it's, it's trying to teach you to hoard all of it and only pick and choose certain things, which I didn't do in the very beginning. I was getting like, Ooh, attack up 120%. Let's spend 500 crystals to get that. It was worth it.
00:57:17
Speaker
I used that teal stone through the entire game, the attack up one. But there's other attack up ones that are better that you can get that are only slightly more expensive. There's an attack up one where it's attack up if you have max HP, which with the heal rate, you're constantly max HP. Okay, well, you had the broken like 5% drop going in there and I was like, yo,
00:57:40
Speaker
120% attack up? Let's do it. Run that. We are good. Whereas I got that one that was healing full health. I was like, I am never at full health. There is no shot that I'm ever going to be at full health.
00:57:55
Speaker
After a turn, so I was like, I'm just gonna, I'm not even gonna use this. And there was another one. There was another one that was like, it was like, I did use it. It was like 300% HP or attack, but your weapon could break. That was actually in the palace of the venerated dragon. And I was like, oh dope, like I'll go here and this should be good. And then my weapons broke and I was like, well, I'm in a bad spot because most of my weapons are broken. And I actually had to switch my team up
00:58:24
Speaker
in the in the thing because of the fact that.
00:58:30
Speaker
I didn't have weapons for like half the people that I was using. Oh no. Yeah. There was that seal stone that like, you had like a one, you got like crazy damage, but you had a one in five chance of breaking it. And it was like, oof, oof. Yeah. So there, there was a lot of strategies to this game that you could play too, which they were trying to give you with seal stones with skills and with, um, the gameplay aspects itself. So it was trying to be very advanced.
00:58:57
Speaker
And I can respect that it was like, I feel like it missed the mark on a few things, but I can respect that it was trying to be different. And it was, and it, it was different. Like it ended up being a very different game than I've played in terms of like JRPGs and stuff like that. This is a very different mechanic.
00:59:14
Speaker
which so Valkyr profile started it and started to like the side scrolling kind of mechanic and having like, yes, the characters being assigned to buttons has been done in other tailscapes, for example, like Tales of Destiny has that.
00:59:29
Speaker
But with the shooting the crystals of being able to avoid enemies that way, and using those aspects to get items, Valkyrie Profile 2 took things from Valkyrie Profile and expanded it to be more in-depth. So like KJ was saying earlier, where you had the crystals and you could teleport.
00:59:48
Speaker
So it made for, like, you had a lot more platforming elements into it, which means, like, there were points where, like, Cage is like, nah, I'm not going back. Because I was like, oh, I got this character. Because you would find characters. So the whole aspect of getting extra party members in this game, except for the ones that are given to you, was that you would find in different dungeons, depending on where you went and if you got to certain aspects of the dungeon, where it was like a staff in the ground.
01:00:16
Speaker
And you'd interact with it and you got the soul of the person who had that staff who died there, which I thought was very interesting. But it also made it that the platforming sequence was so important because you had to do tricks to get to some of them. And I remember KJ getting to this point where he like, I was ahead of him at this time.
01:00:35
Speaker
And I was talking about these characters I got he's like what where did you get them and I'm like in the dungeon You're in he's like no and I was like yeah it was through like oh you had to like hit him at a certain angle and teleport and jump and and cage is like No, I'm not doing But what I will say is
01:00:54
Speaker
some of the characters that you had, it's a percentage. Yeah, so Ruku just mentioned that the Unharriers are actually gotcha. There is a certain percentage that you get certain characters. So like, we could go, we could get the same area in, we could get to the same area in the same dungeon, find the Unharrier that we're trying to recruit,
01:01:19
Speaker
And like, there's a 90% chance that you'll get person A and a 10% that you'll get person B. And like, I think in some of those cases, you got person B and I got person A.
01:01:30
Speaker
Yeah. And so that made it for that, even though we were playing the game at the same time and going through it, that we had different experiences. Cause a lot of the times it did that, it would give you a, like sometimes it's split it between three. Like you got a 30% chance of 40% chance and then a 30% chance for this other thing. So like it was always dividing. And in the end, I think KJ and I only had one or two on the higher
01:01:56
Speaker
that match that weren't automatically what we were getting. You automatically get Mithra. And there's a couple in Harriar that you automatically get, but then after that, it's like a percentage base on which one you actually get. And certain ones talk to each other, which I didn't realize. So certain storylines, certain characters link up, and then they have voice dialogue that changes if you have them in the party.
01:02:23
Speaker
So I got Eren and Celeste, I think her name was, and those two were in war together and died together, basically. So they talk to each other where he'll be like, are you willing to go into battle with me again? And she's like, I will live and die with you again anytime. And like, they talk to each other. I'm like, wait, what the fuck? So like,
01:02:49
Speaker
But it's so rare to get certain ones so you can have those dialogue choices because like I got Jessica, but I never got her son. So I never got the dialogue that went with her. So it's just like, okay, Jessica's out. I don't even know who that is. Like, that's the thing. I got to the point where I just started. So you get like, so this is different than, um, than about your profile one, because about your profile one, you're trying to send the Unharrier up to, uh,
01:03:20
Speaker
you're trying to send the Unharrier up to, oh my goodness, to Odin so that you can prep for Asgard, that's what I'm thinking of. Send them to Asgard so then you can prep them, or Valhalla, I can't remember which one, but that's Valhalla, yeah. You're sending them to Valhalla to then get ready to prep for Ragnarok, whereas in this game, you're just freeing the people.
01:03:47
Speaker
Yeah. So like you materialize them and then you free them. You literally gave their lives back, which I thought was really interesting. Yeah. And like it was really cool. Cause it's like, Oh, I'm just going to free all these people. You get a bunch of free stuff for it. And then it's stuff you can just apply to your characters. And that was another thing. I don't know how many of your characters you freed, but by the end I freed all but two characters that I got.
01:04:12
Speaker
So at the end of the game, I basically just buffed the hell out of my party and was like, all right, let's go. Yeah, you got like, and the higher level they were and different equipment they had dictated what they would give you when you freed them.
01:04:27
Speaker
And if you found them in the world again, and I gave KJ a tip really early on because he was frustrated with the battle system and stuff. And then so it's like, oh, I realized this entirely by accident, by the way. I did not look this up. I just kind of stumbled across it.
01:04:45
Speaker
that I had built up crad which is again one of the characters you are guaranteed so just like Mithra you are guaranteed this character when you find them in one of the dungeons there's no like 10% chance of getting somebody else and so I had crad and if you free him
01:05:04
Speaker
really early on. Like he's a very easy free. It's like level nine or something like that. If you free him, he gives you a sword that is so freaking OP for your heavy hitters that you can basically go through the game without changing out that sword for half of the game.
01:05:27
Speaker
It helps you through. You only start getting better equipment towards the end of chapter three, which is about a little over halfway there. Even then, I think I used that sword until probably chapter four. Actually, no, I used that sword. Yeah, I think I used that sword until chapter four. Oh, is Cradd not guaranteed? I think he has a high percentage then. I think he's got like a really high percentage. I think he's like
01:05:53
Speaker
50. Oh, he's 50 50. Interesting. So being KJ ended up with the same character. Okay. Okay. But thank you. Thank you. This is why we do this on stream too. It's just like point out because I'm like, I thought he was guaranteed that you automatically got him, but no, he was 50 50 with another character with Roland. So that means we could have missed out on this crazy powerful sword.
01:06:19
Speaker
It's also really interesting because I'm looking up now Roland probably has some. Some. Dialogue with.
01:06:30
Speaker
Canon or whatever his name is. Cause he's the one that killed him. Oh, shoot. Okay. All right. There's a lot of cool lore about, there's a lot of cool lore regarding the, uh, side characters you get. And it looks like, um, if I'm not mistaken, that, um, Roland is voice acted by Johnny young Bosch.
01:07:00
Speaker
Oh my God, really? That's actually really funny. Like I said, there's so many voice actors and actresses in this game that you're like, what? And this is also another game that would benefit from you getting a strategy guide with it because it will tell you the different percentages of those characters. And it also helps people who like want a specific character, um, like where they need to like restart and stuff. There are people that I know who play those games specifically because they want to get certain characters in it.
01:07:29
Speaker
And it's kind of like, Ruku had mentioned this earlier, that it's kind of like the gacha of the fog profile too. It's because you don't have a guarantee on a lot of the characters, right? So you might get other ones that, and they enter certain ones that interact with each other. Certain ones have really special abilities. Like in the end, it's not like super life-changing if you got character A over character B. But for example, in this case, Krad,
01:07:54
Speaker
gives you if you free him he gives you a really powerful sword that can help carry you through half of the game without to like super super difficulty but if you don't free him or you don't actually get him and you got rolling you wouldn't have gotten that sword you wouldn't have had that that
01:08:11
Speaker
um that powerful weapon to get you through so it's like it's crazy how like it's very and there's only a few characters if you free them you get groundbreaking stuff like that like they still all still give you something they still give you something but it's not like like oh my god this could have changed my game if i didn't get it that's true yeah i think crads crads weapon is probably the best
01:08:36
Speaker
Yeah, an example of that, which I stumbled across that by accident. He was one of the first characters I freed, which was painful because his voice actor was the voice actor for Ichigo from Bleach, the English voice. Because that's Johnny Anabosh.
01:08:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think he's also I think he's also both Roland and yes, he is. Yeah. So I recognized it right away. And I was like, OK, so that that's the the the actual voice actor. OK, so he plays both voices.
01:09:09
Speaker
And I was like, no, I don't want to lose Ichigo. But I was like, it's fine. I will I will send him. We'll see. And I wanted him to be like, OK, I want to see if there's a point for this. And it was so funny because I got that powerful weapon. I sent all the other party members I had instantly there and then ran around trying to find them. And I got shit.
01:09:26
Speaker
So I was like, I said Mithra and I couldn't find them, which KJ later told me that it's at a later town that I hadn't walked yet. I said, Jessica, I sent somebody like some of them are on the path. There's like two different people on the path headed back to in Chapter four after you're leaving.
01:09:54
Speaker
And you're going back to Dippon? Yeah. They're on that path.
01:10:01
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, so with like certain locations, sometimes they would appear to dungeon. Uh, I unlocked a couple, uh, extra dungeons that when I freed them and went to, I was like, Oh, there they are. They were at like the start of the optional dungeon, which, uh, I thought was very interesting. I think as sex on or whatever the heck his name is. Yeah. He was in front of the, um,
01:10:26
Speaker
one I unlocked that was like a old like prison thing where it was like what the heck where I unlocked it and you're like oh I didn't unlock that I was like and that's another thing is you would unlock areas depending on who you talk to in town
01:10:41
Speaker
Oh, and certain things happened where I didn't realize it until the end of the game that if you did certain things in certain sequences, you would get things at the end. And I surprised KJ was something that I also got at the end of the game because I was just interacting with the town and not realizing it.
01:10:58
Speaker
and then I went back at the end being like I wonder if there's ever a point to this because it felt like there would be a point but it's never revealed and it was never used for anything that I did so and it was like taught like reading these poems and they would highlight certain letters.
01:11:15
Speaker
And then I was like, what the heck is this for? And I thought it was going to be for like an optional dungeon as a code to get an item. So like I wrote it down. I'm not kidding. I wrote down the highlighted letters thinking that was going to be a point at some point. And it really was that if you hit them at certain, like a certain sequence and got them all at the end of the game, if you went back to where you first did it.
01:11:38
Speaker
you got a really special item. So it's like, things like that throughout the game, they put little bits like that that made it so that it was important to explore the towns, which most JRPGs don't.
01:11:51
Speaker
They don't give you reasons for exploring. A lot of the early ones did. Nowadays though, you have like these built massive towns where you could go into these different buildings and there's no one, except for maybe a little bit of dialogue from random NPCs. Whereas Valkyrie Profile 2 did a great job at, if you talk to certain people, they were like, oh, did you hear about these abandoned mine? And KJ unlocked a forest I never unlocked because I didn't talk to the right people right at the beginning.
01:12:20
Speaker
And then I unlocked one of the prison areas because I talked to people that he didn't know. Once you started telling me about this, I went back and talked to everybody because I was at the point where I was like, I need to grind and the areas that I'm in are too strong for me. So I need to go to these side dungeons. So I actually did end up grinding all of the side dungeons.
01:12:41
Speaker
because they were it was just too hard for me to like keep going at it was in chapter three chapter three as long as fuck it is so long comparison to the other chapters that i was like what what because when i loaded up my old save file i'm in chapter three and i'm like but i have 28 hours into the game i was like wait what but yeah chapter three is really long like really yeah
01:13:11
Speaker
No, listen, I misspelled anyway. Um, yeah. So like it gave you reasons to talk to people. It gave you, there was also, okay. Did you do this? I have to ask. I have to ask you. Did you talk to a little boy who said all he needed was money? Did you talk to what it was in like the desert town? I talked to everybody in the desert town. Did you then have to give him any? Yes. You had to give him money.
01:13:40
Speaker
I think I did. Did you? Because if you would have gone back and talked to him, he gave you a really rare weapon in the game that did OP damage. For who though? I think it was for... Oh, what did he give me? He gave me something I think was for bow characters?
01:14:01
Speaker
Well, that's why I use. So here's the thing. I didn't use for like 300 oath. That's it. And you can give him less. And he gives you, apparently I looked this up after, but he can give you other items depending on how much you give them. But I just gave him the full amount. Cause I was like, whatever. I remember that, but I don't think that I went back and talked to him.
01:14:24
Speaker
No, I remember, wait, so I give him the money and then have to go back and talk to him? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Cause it's a time thing. Like when you first run into him, it's like chapter three and giving him the money, but I don't think I went back. Yeah. When I got to the end and I knew it, I was at the end sequence because, uh, uh, you told me that after I had beaten that one boss.
01:14:45
Speaker
that I was at the end portion of the game. I went back and I started going through to see if there was anything secret that was unrevealed. I went and talked to certain characters, which funny enough, a couple of the Unharrier that I freed gave me items then, but I did talk to them and like,
01:15:02
Speaker
chapter three and they didn't give me shit. So like, I was like, okay. So I went back and I was trying to remember places. So I literally just went back to every town to see if there was something different. And that's how I found the item because of the poetry that you read. And then I talked to that little boy and he's just like, thank you for investing in my future. And he like gives you a really rare item. I was like, what? And I think it was like a really powerful weapon for Rupus. I was just like,
01:15:31
Speaker
What the heck? And I'm like, this game has so much of this in there that makes it so expansive that it makes sense now why the strategy guide was so thick. So I always wondered, going through this, like it has a strategy guide. I never got to buy the strategy guide, unfortunately, which now it's stupid expensive, but
01:15:51
Speaker
Um, that why it was like a thicker strategy guide because they talk about all that stuff, all the different items you can get and through these sequences, which I thought was really cool for gameplay. It gave you reasons to explore every town. Talk to, it gave you reasons to talk to people.
01:16:08
Speaker
And then it also gave you reasons to like do certain interactive things because you might get things like freeing the unharrier and stuff like that. Gave you certain items, gave you certain things and stuff. And like really decide who was going to be in your party and who wasn't. And at the beginning of the game, KJ knows I was leveling everybody up and try to keep them all matched. And then suddenly I was just like, you know what? I'm just going to level up the unharrier to when they are freed and then move on to a different character. If I don't like, I'm not super driving with them.
01:16:38
Speaker
So like there was a certain characters like Alm. I got Alm who was like a mage. I really liked him. I don't know why. I love how you have these attachments to these like random side characters. I did! Because I was like, oh he's cute. I like him. I'm gonna keep him on my card. There was not like a defined story for them. So like they were literally
01:17:01
Speaker
puzzle pieces for me. Like KJ stuck with like the main characters who have main storylines and then he's like have you used art grim yet? I'm like no I keep using but he's like what? Because I kept getting attached to the unharrier. I was like no I like them my girl is pretty. I'm keeping her she's pretty.
01:17:20
Speaker
As soon as Arngrim was introduced, Arngrim was in my party. Like, it was instant. I was like, yo, Arngrim's in this game? Let's go. Yo, I was so hyped. And like, so I did some reading and found out that Arngrim is actually similar to Cid in Final Fantasy games. Except Arngrim is actually the same person, sort of. It's a reincarnation, apparently, of Arngrim. Yeah.
01:17:49
Speaker
over the course of everything. Because I was wondering, I was like, we're 200 years in the past, how is there an arngrim? But yeah, apparently arngrim is a reincarnation. So there's different arngrims.
01:18:00
Speaker
Um, which will be interesting if they include that in the new Valkyrie profile. Honestly, I'm, I'm that game and we won't talk about it too much on here. Cause we, we haven't decided yet if we're going to do a segment on it or if we're ever going to play it and then do a segment on it. We're, we're kind of seeing how it releases stuff, but we're like, we're kind of curious about it. And after playing Valkyrie profile one and now playing two.
01:18:26
Speaker
Like I hope that it's still in this universe. It's still the thing, but it's got me a little bit worried that it isn't. So we're, we're kind of like not that we're purposely not talking about it too, too much. But yeah, KJ looked this up about our group and I was like, Oh my, cause it's not explained, right? It's just, you just saw him and he's got the iconic sword that he uses in the first game. So I was like, but.
01:18:50
Speaker
what and when you get more plot revealing later on I would have guessed that but then that was never revealed so honestly KJ telling me that I'm like that's kind of cool it's like having that reoccurring character in games like Final Fantasy does where they have the Cid character but actually having it where it makes sense and it's connected
01:19:11
Speaker
where it is it is the same it's just the thing and that ties in with the Norse like pull of everything and like like being like reggae incarnated warriors and stuff like that that actually kind of ties into like the the the lore and everything it this game these games are based off of which is really interesting
01:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, I think about that like that. So which is which is really kind of cool, which I like, I like after you told me that I was like, that is super, that's super great. So, yeah, I had to I had to poke around, especially because I found out some stuff and I was like, Oh, no. Um,
01:19:56
Speaker
Oh yeah, Ruku's correcting me. It's a very powerful two-handed sword that you get from the kid. And it gives you the... Because a lot of the really powerful two-handed swords would not let you do the soul crush, which I realized. And Krad's powerful one that you get right at the beginning does not let you. So you like go through without having that. But yeah. So I think we've talked about like all the stuff that we could say that isn't spoilery.
01:20:26
Speaker
I hear about characters. That's the only other thing I talked about. So for me, Arngrim was my guy. Arngrim was my guy. He was in my party the entire time. Rufus, I didn't really start using until I had to. And then because I had Arngrim, I didn't really use Dylan either. I just had Arngrim.
01:20:50
Speaker
But once I had to start using Rufus, I did. And then my other spot was like a rotating mage. The rotating mage spot, I was like, at first I was using Lazard and then I was like, I don't trust this dude.
01:21:10
Speaker
And all of them trusted him a lot earlier than I did. There was a point in chapter three where I was like, I really don't trust this dude. And me instantly Lazar comes on the screen. I'm like, no, he's not. I don't trust him. He's not. I never used him. He was never in my party unless he was forced to be. And I was like, no, I don't, I don't like him. I don't like what he does in Valkyrie profile. I don't even care if it's cause, cause KJ had already told me the arngrum lore.
01:21:38
Speaker
So I was like, okay, it's just the same reason why Lazard is here or whatever, right? And it's revealed later why that is. But I immediately was, no. And the funny thing is, KJ's like, oh, Rufus is sus. And I'm like, Rufus is best boy. And we've argued so much. I don't know. He gave me such vibes where I was like, I don't know, I don't know. But the only person I trusted was Andrim.
01:22:05
Speaker
Arngrim, from the perspective of Samaria and Alicia, I was like, Arngrim seems like he's legit. With Lazard, I was like, so my thinking with Lazard was that something was going to happen in this game that then triggered him to
01:22:32
Speaker
the way he did in Valkyrie Profile 1. So yes, for anybody that's not familiar, yes. Lazard is in Valkyrie Profile 1. He plays a part in the canon ending and he's a freaking nut job. I think you can go through the game without encountering him.
01:23:01
Speaker
Yeah, you can. He is skippable. But then you don't get the good ending. Yeah, you won't get the canon ending. And his power is a dungeon. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, this dude.
Antagonists and Character Analysis
01:23:15
Speaker
Yo, Lazard. He was such a scumbag.
01:23:18
Speaker
Yeah. So I came off of watching, so I hadn't played Valkyrie profile in a while. So I, I watched KJ play all the way through it and it was such a treat because him instantly being like, nah, I hate this guy. And I'm like, thank you. This is why we're besties. I hated Lazard the second he came in and his motives are so twisted and messed up and he's just a messed up wacko at everything.
01:23:42
Speaker
And, and you know, a character is done really well when you're just like, nah, I hate them. So they were done with it. But as soon as he came into Valkyrie profile too, KJ went under the understanding being like, Oh, he's going to develop into this. I went into with it going like a snake is always a snake. I don't trust him. I am like, not dealing with this at all.
01:24:04
Speaker
No, he's not going in my party. He's not going near Ali. He kept giving me weird looks. Okay. Okay. And every cut scene that has Lazard in it, like I, I, I challenge you KJ to go back in and watch these cut scenes. He looks at you weird.
01:24:20
Speaker
he looks at you weird the whole time and i'm like i don't know i don't like it i don't like the way he looks at me i don't like and and he was being nice and gentle and stuff like that thing but it's no no i don't like how he looked at me i'm like now this guy's sus so i never used it ever i agree i agree with that though like both st. Andrew said he's a great
01:24:42
Speaker
Like, he is a very well, very good antagonist. He is. And that's one thing that really... I've talked to a few people about this today, where it's like, a very good game has characters that you love and characters that you hate. And Lazard,
01:25:08
Speaker
The turkey that I'm like, yo, I fucking hate this, dude. Yeah. I, I appreciated the amount of effort that developers put into Lazard and just making you like, he is a great antagonist. And if we ever did like a, we should do a top 10 antagonist list. Cause he would make money for the, uh, for YouTube.
01:25:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think we should do that for YouTube now that it just dawns in my head. But like, honestly, he would make the list because he's done so well. And I know a lot of people like like antagonists that are done. I'm no exception. Like I really like Kuja for Final Fantasy IX, even though he's an antagonist and stuff like I could say, but like it was so funny with me going into this because I was like, no. And I could appreciate that he was a really bad dude and they did a really good job with that. Like he's a great character for development. 10 out of 10 for Lazard.
01:25:59
Speaker
But like just the way he like looks at you in the very first cut scene, he comes into play about group profile too. I was like, nah, he's the same. He is the same snake. He's got that look and is that creepy like at like outlook is still in his brain. He's just coming out nicer in the second game. I was like, nah.
01:26:20
Speaker
But it was funny because then when Rufus was in and you start getting more plot with Rufus, I was like, no, he's best boy. I love him. And KJ's like, no, no, he's sus. I'm like, but no, he's best boy. And we had such opposites of characters. And it was like, he used Arngrim instantly because I played and used Arngrim to death in Vowgrew Profile 1 and in Leonath because I played both of them.
01:26:46
Speaker
Okay, I played I was like I was like I want to do somebody different so I had Dylan I left different Dylan in my party and I was like today one always a day one our grim I was I was a little worried our dream was gonna be evil in and I mean don't get me wrong I didn't know the premise about your profile So like I started I was like oh this dude might be a villain and then as soon as I realized he was gonna be in my party our group never left the party in about your profile one and like I
01:27:14
Speaker
It was the same thing in this game. Arngrim only left my party when he was forced out of my party. Like, that was the case. I was like, yo, Arngrim's the man. And when they took him out of my party, I was upset. And it was funny because Polly was sus of another character that I actually wasn't sus of. Polly, like, I knew, okay.
01:27:35
Speaker
So I think we can probably start getting into some of the twists and spoiler things. Yeah, so big alert to everybody. We are going to be talking about spoiler topic stuff even because it does connect to like some characters and stuff like that in our opinions on them. If you need to turn down the volume because you don't want us spoiling anything for you, feel free to do so. I think from now until I do this,
01:27:58
Speaker
So this is the hand motion I will do when we are we are rapping, like when we're doing our overall and we're not talking about spoiler stuff anymore, I will make a very like blinky hand gesture so that you if you're kind of watching and you're not listening, you can see when you could turn the volume back up and listening if you want. But yes, go keep going, KJ. OK, yes. So when you get Arngrim, you also get a character, Leon or Leone. I
01:28:28
Speaker
We both knew pretty quickly who that character was, like in, in, uh, like in disguise, right? We all, we both knew that it was, uh, Hrist in, in disguise. And so we were like, Oh, okay. Well, this is, when is this going to happen? Yeah.
01:28:53
Speaker
She finally comes through and then she takes Arngrim with her. And it was just like, are you kidding me? And I used both of them. I used Leona and Arngrim. I didn't use either of them, so I was like, okay, bye. They were staples in my party. Luckily, whenever they take a main party member out of, and this is something I love about this game.
01:29:17
Speaker
whenever they take a main party member out, you get items to level up other people for free. And it's also the case where, if I look this up afterwards, if you get characters to a certain level, so I think it's in level, in chapter three, if Leona and Arngrim are level 35, you get
01:29:40
Speaker
other broken weapons and stuff. You get a bunch of stuff if they're level 35 and then in chapter four you lose um and we can go into this after I'll let Polly take this one because she was more tied to Dylan and uh and hates Lazard a bit probably a little bit more than I do but Lazard you lose in chapter four you lose Lazard and you lose um
01:30:04
Speaker
and you lose Dylan. And if you get them to level 45 by that point, then you get extra stuff as well. And so for me, I was just like, eh, like this sucks, but I'm just gonna use these items now and level up some other people. So then I had like a random heavy on Harrier and I added Rufus into my party. And so yeah, that was how I kind of handled that. But yeah, for me, like I wasn't sus, I was sus of Lazard.
01:30:33
Speaker
after I saw some cutscenes. And I was sus of Rufus for a little bit because I was just like, it's just weird because he's like supposed to be sort of like a vessel for Odin.
01:30:50
Speaker
And it's like, this just doesn't feel right. And like his ring is the only thing that's sort of like keeping him in existence. Like it was really, the way that they painted that got me. Cause I was like, Oh, he's going to turn on us. He has ulterior motives. And like.
01:31:05
Speaker
He didn't. So he had a while. Yeah. Like this whole time, like KJ was like, nah, he sucks. And I was like, no, he good boy. And it was kind of funny because I got the same plot points and I made a theory to KJ and he like, I'm keeping my mouth shut because he had already beaten the game at this point.
01:31:22
Speaker
But I made a theory because I was like, I could, I still sussed him a little bit where it was like, I think I was like, I would not be surprised with the events of Valkyrie Profile 2 that he is Loki. Like I kept making this connection because Loki is half and half and Loki in Valkyrie Profile 1, you know, like it seems like he starts out okay, but then he literally is doing this like in behind plot line of like overgrowing things and stuff because Loki is Loki.
01:31:52
Speaker
Loki is literally that in Norse, Norse history. He's literally that in like the Marvel universe, like, like Loki's iconic behavior is branched out in all these different variations of Loki.
01:32:06
Speaker
But, so I actually thought Rufus was going to turn it out to Pete Loki, but something traumatic was going to happen to lead him down that direction. Um, and so like I kept, I still kept him in my party. He was one of the most consistent people in my party. Him, I would switch Dylan out before I switched Rufus out. It was Alicia and Rufus. They were my ride and die team. Uh, I thought they were adorable. And as you would work for you, because those are the two therapists that stay in the party.
01:32:35
Speaker
But like, so I, I was shipping them really early on and Cajun kept laughing at me. Cause I was like, I was just kept screaming. I'm like, they better, they better hook up. And as you develop further along into the storyline, they Rufus is like being more protective of horror.
01:32:54
Speaker
and she's leaning on him more and they're like really like they're in this together and it's just really sweet and adorable that they're how their story progresses in the game and then shit happens and you're like, what the fuck? But like, yeah. So like for me, it was like Rufus was always at my party. Dylan was there. I swapped him out sometimes for like crad and stuff like that. But Dylan was generally there. He was generally the more leveled heavy hitter I had.
01:33:23
Speaker
And then I was like majority of the game not using mages, which was very different than KJ was alluding to and stuff. Yeah, I had a round party. Yeah, I had Alicia, which I sometimes switched her out for other normal sort of people. Yeah, I switched Alicia out. You switched out to Polly.
01:33:46
Speaker
This hurts. You switched out the main character. I did a few times, but I wanted to level up when she got too high of a level and everybody else was much lower. I was like, okay, I'll swap her out briefly and I will use a different like, uh, weaker, like the same sword type character to level them up a bit. And then I'd switch her back in. So yes. And it's funny because you're running around the map and shooting things and stuff like that. You go into battle. Alicia's not there. It's like, what?
01:34:13
Speaker
You can literally do that in the end of the game as well and bork it. Fun fact. Yeah, you can actually. You could switch out. Yeah. So I thought that was kind of interesting early on. I figured that out. And so, and then my party was two archers, a heavy hitter and Alicia. Yeah.
01:34:36
Speaker
So I used two archers for a lot because they could also do magic, but I found their power and they could hit more. So I was constantly activating soul crust. Yeah. So like Rufus would gain like sap guards, sap power. You're right. I do remember that. Yes. And then some of the, some of the archers even were able to do like.
01:34:59
Speaker
like magic attack kind of thing. There was one archer that I kept in my party for a long time. Oh, what's her name? I think it was Shaykha. No, it wasn't Shaykha. It was one of the archers where they could buff your attack.
01:35:15
Speaker
They could buff your attack and buff your defense. And I use that for so many boss fights. And so I had two archers rather than a mage. The problem with that strategy though, is when you went up to the enemies that were magic only. Yep. That's what I was going to say.
01:35:31
Speaker
That was a struggle. I had to run from those battles because I just wasn't using Mage. I didn't trust Lazard. And then after Alm, I used Alm for a while. And then I was like, no, none of the higher level mages on Hariards were like jiving with me like story or appearance or anything. So I'm like, I actually use Kanon for a while.
01:35:55
Speaker
Really? I did not use it at all. They leveled up to being able to be freed because of the Arngrim and Leona leaving the party thing. Oh, okay. Yep. And that's what happened. Yeah. As soon as when Arngrim and Leona left and they leveled up some of my characters, I was like, it's time to free some people. Time to get some free items. Like we chilling. And yeah, that definitely
01:36:20
Speaker
Yeah, so like I do it with like in Valkyrie Profile 1, I had a mage all the time because they were stupid strong. Stupid strong. And they like, some of them had like heal all moves, some of them had like OP damage, like I always had a mage in my party. And at the beginning, I did go with that strategy until I realized the magic, like doing one attack was only doing one thing.
01:36:43
Speaker
So I was like, okay. And I was trying to initiate soul crush all the time, even early on. So I realized mages didn't really help with that until I started getting mages with like the lightning.
01:36:54
Speaker
where yeah, where they hit more. But again, it was only a straight line. So like if the enemy like was too little, it didn't really hit them. And if the enemy was flying in the air, it didn't hit them. Like, so I was like, you know what? I'm not jiving with this. So then I switched to having two archers and I had them both set up where they could hit no matter
01:37:15
Speaker
what the characters like, if they're on the ground, if they're in the air and they're in the middle, my archers were hitting them constantly. So I was constantly activating soul crush and just throwing everything. So, um, but like VP one, I will swear and die on the hill that you need a mage in your party. You always need them. I think I honestly think having a mage in both is nice. Cause even, so what I found was the timing was off for me and VP and VP two, like with VP one,
01:37:45
Speaker
You could just, you could just kind of spam the magic and it was fine.
01:37:52
Speaker
VP2 you really could miss with the magic so you had to time it so a lot of times it was the case where my heavy character I would use as a I would use an attack that was like hit and then knock up in the air and as I'm hitting them and knocking up in the air I'm also attacking with Alicia and then she goes she has aerial attack
01:38:15
Speaker
So then she would be attacking in the air, and then as soon as they hit the ground, I triggered the archers, I triggered Rufus, and the magic. And that's how I would get the Soul Crush every time.
01:38:28
Speaker
Okay. Awesome. So you, you, you had switched up your strategy with it where I was like, I didn't want to really have to think about it. I just wanted to break limbs and break things apart. So like I threw in two archers because you could just set them up so that they can hit them no matter where they were. So it was less dependent on your attacks. Like if they set them in the air, it didn't matter. Your archers were going to hit them. If they were on the ground, your archers were going to hit them. And then the archers always did like multi attacks. Like all of their moves had like multi attacks. So they were constantly just maxing it out.
01:38:58
Speaker
I didn't have to like overly worry about like doing things in specific orders until I got towards the end where I just kept running into enemies with magic only that I started using a mage again up until the like last dungeon more or less. I was using one of the the last mages you get
01:39:19
Speaker
Um, and Harry are wise. Um, and I was using him and then, um, yeah, it was kind of crazy to think about, but like, I don't know if you noticed this or if you got any other and Harry are to do it, but Rufus was the only male Archer. For me anyway, none of the other artists I got. I wasn't interested in any archers. Yeah. None of the other archers I got were male. They were all female.
01:39:48
Speaker
which I thought was interesting. And then that made me think there was going to be a plot, another different direction plot twist of like, I don't know. Like he had more secrets. I don't know. I never got anything. I don't know if there is, I think there, I think there might be another male Archer, but like only getting the female Archers was also like, why is Rufus the only male one? Like, why is he the only like,
01:40:15
Speaker
male like leading like character. All the other ones are females. I always thought that was going to be a plot twist revealed, but no, it's not going to end up being anything. Yeah, that's wild. That is super wild.
01:40:28
Speaker
Yeah. So like, so, so with characters and stuff like, yeah, I was, and then by the end, my party was what you suggested it to be, because I got to a point where like, I was way behind KJ and I was trying to catch up, uh, and get this beat before the podcast. So it was just like, I need to just beat the end boss and beat the end sequence. Uh, so yeah, give me a tip if you have a tip. So he gave me a tip of who to use.
01:40:53
Speaker
Specific, and you know why now. You know why. Now I know why. I was always so upset because my party, so yeah, I mean, we're going to get into spoilers anyway. My party, when I rolled up into the fight against Silmeria and Lazard, like the homunculus Silmeria and Lazard, my party was Glennith.
01:41:22
Speaker
Chris, Alicia, and Arngrim. I was just like, I rolled up. I ran through the final dungeon with all Valkyries. It was fucking dope. I was so hyped. I'm like, yo, I'm in here. We got all three Valkyries. We're about to go fuck this dude up. And then they just take everyone away from you. And I was so upset.
01:41:51
Speaker
I was so upset. Oh my goodness. And that homunculus fight, I accidentally broke it.
01:42:00
Speaker
So, you know, yeah, you know how so Marya can just auto heal every turn and you have to beat her in one turn. That was the whole strategy. You had to kill her a one turn and do enough damage. There was no way I was going to be able to do that. And so I didn't realize I had this equipped, but it made it so that there was a 40% chance I made the enemy frail, which means they can't heal. Yep.
01:42:25
Speaker
and I did it my first attack on her so she kept trying to heal and it didn't work it was zero so I ended up being able to kill her at like three or four turns and I was like I think I broke this yes at that point at that point my weapons and like
01:42:42
Speaker
art and stuff was so broken that like, I didn't have any trouble. So it's funny because I struggled in the beginning of the game. After like chapter four, I was cruising. Like I didn't have any problems. After chapter four, chapter four, uh, wait, chapter, the end, the end, the final fight of chapter four was the last place that I even remotely struggled in terms of like fighting things until the second phase of the final boss. Yeah.
01:43:13
Speaker
I'm going to try and go back to my notes to make sure. Yeah, for me, it was kind of the same thing. Like I, I, I kind of broke, like I beat Lazard, no problem. Then I beat like the homoculus versions of them. No problem. Cause I literally glitched some malaria, which is hilarious. And then like, I had no problems. And even the last two phases of the end boss sequence,
01:43:39
Speaker
While they were longer for me because I was doing way less damage, I didn't have a struggle at all. It was the only reason I didn't end up beating the end boss and this ticks me off and it's a game mechanic that I didn't like.
01:43:55
Speaker
but thinking about it if i would have done what cage i did is when he got through he's he was like he he got through he gave up knowing he wasn't gonna beat the second form went back and like went and got the crew that he needed to get got the equipment stuff went back out and did it if i had time to do that.
01:44:13
Speaker
It would have been fine if I still had like a few more days until the podcast. I would have done it and like, yeah, okay, we're going to do it. But because I was literally Friday night at one 30 in the morning, I had spent two and a half hours on the end boss sequences because of my lower damage, but I was still able to do it. I did not beat
01:44:36
Speaker
I did not beat the end boss. He had this much health, which is infuriating. He had like, I only had to hit him two more times with Valkyrie, two more times with Valkyrie, and he would have been destroyed, but I ran out of items to heal.
01:44:54
Speaker
And in the end sequence, they take away your main character's ability to heal. If they would have left it, I would have won because I could have used her to heal, run away from his area effects or his area attacks. You didn't have a mage, that's why. I didn't have the mage in the party. I had, because you had told me to go with- Yeah, I had items, that's why.
01:45:21
Speaker
Argym, Rufus, and Brahms. Brahms, or whatever. Brahms. And then like, yeah, so like my end sequence, I would have beaten the end bot, and that's why I just said, you know what, I'm gonna watch the ending. Because it was literally a technicality at that point. I would have, I was doing enough damage to do it. I was avoiding his attacks strategically. I would have beaten him in the first thing if I did, if I had somebody in my party who could heal.
01:45:49
Speaker
because I ran out of items and I had like 60 of an item and I should have had like 80 of that item or something like that. It was so infuriating that it was the first JRPG for me where I needed the items. I would have needed them, which is like classic JRPG. You hoard all the really powerful healing items to the very end and then never use them.
01:46:10
Speaker
That is a very classic JRPG trope. And for me, I needed them to win. And I did not have, I was just slightly too short and he was down to like 4,000 HP. I only needed to hit him two more times with Valkyrie. Cause when I hit her, she was doing 1500 each hit. So I would have only needed to hit him twice. Yeah. Okay.
01:46:31
Speaker
You're doing 1500 or just regular hits or. Yeah. Yeah. With her like regular hits. I had my whole, my whole party was dead. She was the only one being alive. I kept on finding a character because he did the insta-kill move and you don't revive after with your survival with that. So survival doesn't revive you, which was also paid in the ass. So I always had to keep at least one other character, but they were like my scapegoat. I took survival off and I was, I had toughness on.
01:47:01
Speaker
and I had toughness and a couple of things. I also with Valkyrie. I didn't have toughness unlocked. Yeah, that's tough. I don't know how, I don't think I would have been able to beat that boss without toughness because it made my, it made it so that he could, with his regular attacks, he couldn't kill me. And I could basically, basically what I did was I outpaced his ability to do damage. So it was like, I was able to heal
01:47:31
Speaker
do a bunch of damage, kind of leave the area and like run on the outskirts of where his AOE attacks hit.
01:47:40
Speaker
and then heal myself for like 6,000 each because I had that steel stone and then like straight up bombard him again with a bunch of attacks. He could either kill somebody, he killed somebody, I would just revive them and then I had the same thing. I played it very much like people play like souls like games where it's like go in and attack
01:48:03
Speaker
And then immediately part of that. Yeah. And I did the same thing. Like even with my healing, not healing as much, I was still only having to use one heal a turn. Like he wasn't like wiping me out as hard as I thought he was going to be. And so like I was like, I would attack him and then I'd run out of his like things, heal everybody up, go back. One thing I will say with this game, which made it, I think it was because it made it more difficult, but there was never a revival.
01:48:31
Speaker
at least i never found an item or i was all yeah no it was only ever individual there were heels and there were heels which were super useful but revivals there was never so it was like you always wasted a turn like reviving a character running around reviving so by halfway through that and
01:48:52
Speaker
And phase two, I only had to keep one party a member alive just in case he did his insta-kill. If he did his insta-kill, I was able to revive because he always seemed to hit Valkyrie. He's always focused on her. Oh, that's annoying. He didn't do that for me. He attacked, he attacked everybody. Yeah. So he has a ability that instant kills you and nothing can save you. Survival on you doesn't, nothing. And he always hit Valkyrie.
01:49:17
Speaker
Always for annoying which is actually the only one that can do Valkyrie is the only one that can actually do damage Yeah, yeah, nobody else everybody else was just scapegoats for items for me. Oh, and then I was using Rufus to like reduce his his his like His power so that it wasn't called. Oh, yeah Did you get the skill that allows you to Use items without EP
01:49:47
Speaker
Uh, yes, yes, I had the free item skill. Yeah. So I had like everybody with the free item skill just in case, because it was like, it turned out that Valkyrie just kept getting it's to killed. So I always needed to switch to like Rufus or, or, uh, bronze or Arngrim to like resurrect people. So I made sure everybody had free item, which was dope. And then I even had items where AP costs less.
01:50:11
Speaker
so I used those in the final sequence so that when Valkyrie attacked she got more attacks off so like I could have beat him if I wasn't softlocked because of literally I literally only needed like a couple resurrection items and a couple more heals and that was it and I would have won and that's why I was so angry because it was almost two in the morning
01:50:32
Speaker
that I turned and looked at Enno and I was like I am counting this as a win for me and sometime in the future I will do what Paige I did go all the way back out max out all my items so I have them all and then go and grab a couple little things to make my damage do a little bit hit a little harder and then I'll go back and I know I'll beat it I was this close to beating it so I know I have it so I'm like you know what I'm gonna watch the ending
01:50:59
Speaker
um but yeah for me with Dylan oh my god I got really attached to Dylan so when Dylan revealed that he was uh Brahms and then that was it was a whole sequence that neither one of us knew like we went in like we we suspected Leone which we saw that coming uh I suspected Lazard yep so
01:51:25
Speaker
we'll talk a little bit about what that whole storyline ended up being. Um, so I, I was always obsessed with him. Um, and then, yeah, with, with fricking Dylan, neither one of us, neither one of us suspected at all. And I was like, what? And so it's really interesting because the game actually starts off. So this is what they, this is what happens. So Marya, they don't really say why, but so Marya,
01:51:54
Speaker
ends up aligning herself with Brahms, right? And then, and I'm reading this right, I don't get it wrong. He ends up fighting Odin, Brahms fights Odin, gets seriously injured, and then Silmeria puts him in Dylan's body, as in on Harrier. And then,
01:52:23
Speaker
to punish her, Odin does the sovereign right, but it goes wrong, and instead of stealing her away, and stealing her and Harry are away, it just ends up in a spot that Silmeria's still conscious in Alesia.
01:52:47
Speaker
So Alicia is supposed to, like, it's supposed to be the case, like, in Valkyrie Profile 1, except the other way around. So Alicia is supposed to be fine, but not know Silmaria's soul is inside of her, but instead it goes wrong, and Silmaria is active inside of her. Yeah. So that's the, that's kind of the whole thing. So that's how Dylan is really Brahms and
01:53:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So it's got that sequence, but neither one of us knew. And they don't like, because Silmeria didn't like, didn't even like, well, she remembered, but she didn't say anything. That's the thing. She didn't say anything about it and stuff. And that whole sequence where he changes and saves is right where the point in the story that matches all the way up to the alluded, uh, prequel story of Val group profile one and
01:53:43
Speaker
This is the point where the game shifts to being a sequel, which blew my mind entirely because it is a different timeline. Yeah, because the end of because the way the way that Valkyrie Profile won the true ending ends, you have Brahms because Brahms is also his castle is also a optional thing in Valkyrie Profile.
01:54:11
Speaker
in Valkyrie Profile 1. But at the end, what ends up happening is you see Silmaria in a crystal in his throne room. And at the end of the canon ending, the A ending in Valkyrie Profile 1, Brahms is talking to Silmaria's crystal.
01:54:34
Speaker
And so like, it ends up being the case where you're like, okay, that's how that ends. But then, so Mary is inside of Alicia in Doctor Profile 2. So you're like, where does it come through? Exactly. But she ends up getting turned into the crystal.
01:54:48
Speaker
And then you end up realizing that it's kind of like, like Polly said, it's like this alternate thing where, and so we brought up Leneth and everything. We brought up Lazard. It ends up being like this alternate universe that they end up, or this like alternate timeline that they traveled to because Lazard is trying to fulfill his fantasy of like having Valkyrie
01:55:15
Speaker
And like, in this case, he's trying to merge the three of them into one. And it's just, it is messed up, but it's like your a ending, your cannon, not perfect ending in file group profile. One is.
01:55:30
Speaker
in Valkyrie Profile 2 so that's why it's incredibly important and that's why I stressed at the beginning you have to play this one second because it spoils literally the first game and the first canon ending because in the end of and we're gonna this is all spoiler territories still talking spoilers here at the end of Valkyrie Profile 1 the true ending
01:55:52
Speaker
uh lenith assumes the all the creator position because you beat you beat loki beat all the things and she assumes responsibility for the world
01:56:03
Speaker
Lazard in this sequence is the only human to have survived. So and this is because of shit he does like with the philosopher stone and stuff like that. So he's the only one who lives. And so at the end of Valkyrie profile one and then but he still has his sick fantasy desires of her. But now she is the all crater and he knows he can't do anything in that timeline. He knows there's nothing he can do to fulfill his fantasy. So he goes back in time.
01:56:33
Speaker
And so the Lazard you see right at the freaking start is literally the Lazard from the end of Valkyrie profile one, which is like, I didn't know any of that. So me being instantly sus and the way he was looking at Solmeria, AKA Alicia and everything, it was all canon into his, what he's doing. And so he's playing the nice guy and everything.
01:57:01
Speaker
until he gets to that sequence where Bronze saves Silmeria by sealing her in a crystal and they like warp out. That's why in the end of Valker Profile 1, she's in a crystal and he's talking to her and stuff like that. But that sequence has changed because Lazard steals her instead.
01:57:18
Speaker
And, and so, and, and he just, and bronze disappears and stuff like that. So bronze, I think, yeah, he gets sealed too. Um, and so like Freya takes bronze away. Lazard took Silmeria away. And so the timeline has now changed.
01:57:35
Speaker
What is alluded to the original timeline is that Alicia and Rufus go through everything after that happens and everything. They go through, they go to the top of Yggdrasil, they fight Odin and they die. That's what it's alluded to.
01:57:50
Speaker
But that's where like the original timeline because you're like, okay, but now you go through this. So now you're going through this prod and it's it's Rufus and Alicia again. That's Friday die team. These two, um, and they get to the sequence and Lazard intervenes.
01:58:07
Speaker
So he intervenes, he takes Odin's soul, he becomes fused with that. He sticks like Odin into Rufus's body. So Rufus gets yeeted.
Plot Twists and Timeline Speculation
01:58:21
Speaker
And then so like he fucks with the timeline again because they weren't supposed to survive that sequence of events because you don't hear about Rufus or Alicia, like in Valkyrie profile one really at all at that point.
01:58:36
Speaker
So it is, it's got an eluded thing that I figured out. Oh my God, if Lazard didn't intervene, Odin would have toasted us. We would have been done. Like he would have beat us and that would have been it. And then we would have progressed into where Leneth is the one that.
01:58:51
Speaker
takes over like, so I'm like, holy shit. So lizard fucks that up. So then you're with like you and Rufus and stuff like that. And during the sequence before you get to Yggdrasil and I am canonly saying this is it, but it never revealed an elf helps you. A female elf helps you.
01:59:12
Speaker
and sacrifices herself so that you have enough time to get through the the the gate and stuff like that so like alicia's human she can't go through to ask her cuz she's human so they had to do like some crazy like almost killer but not quite with rufus's ring and there's this whole sequence.
01:59:31
Speaker
This elf lady is like touching Rufus's arm and is like looking at him very like, you know, kind of like, I, I really care about what's going to go happen to you. Sacrifices herself dies for, for him and Alicia. I'm like, that's his fucking mom. That's his mom. And it was, and he was raised by his human, human dad. That means his dad was human because he's half and half. Right. So I'm like,
02:00:00
Speaker
It doesn't say it though. It never reveals, but like his body, her body behavior with Rufus, uh, the way she sacrifices, she doesn't know these people. She doesn't have to be involved, but she really wants him to succeed. It just seems like she's so attached to Rufus and literally Rufus has gone his entire life where elves don't want him and humans don't want him.
02:00:23
Speaker
because he's half and half. So literally why is this random elf helping? I think it was his mom. I'm calling it. I don't know if it's ever canonly said. I don't remember it being said. It wasn't said. It wasn't said. The way that she looks at him and like
02:00:41
Speaker
The interactions, it definitely feels that way. Sorry, I was trying to see if there's any other Elysium like tie ins or anything like that. They are completely keeping that a secret because I think they want it to be revealed if you play the game, if you know it's connected or not. So like, I think they're being a little crafty with that to try to get the Valkyrie profile fans to buy and play the game by not directly revealing if it is a sequel, prequel, if it's even in the same universe.
02:01:08
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think they, I don't think they're going to allude to that. But yeah, so like, so with Rufus is saying he, so yeah, I, me and KJ are on the same side here. We think that was his mother and because she sacrifices herself to give them a chance at doing what they were trying to do. It's very like, to me, I'm like, it's, it's not said, but that also means that.
02:01:28
Speaker
Rufus's like if that's true Rufus's dad was human and he was raised like he was raised in Midgard right so he's in the raised in the human world and so and that's why he was like always shunned because he he keeps the bandana over his ears because he's got pointy ears fun fact like that's what I think anyway it doesn't actually say and he never like reveals the bandana but his bandana goes directly like his bandana's like this
02:01:55
Speaker
It's directly over his ears. And I think he did that so that people would stop judging him as a half elf so he could try to blend in with humans. But literally, you know, it's actually really funny, KJ. And I looked this up after beating the game. I was like, wait, only elves have green hair.
02:02:14
Speaker
No human character we've ever encountered in Valkyrie Profile 1 or in 2 have green hair. Now, Mestina is the only one where it kind of goes back and forth between whether her hair is green, but it actually turns out that her hair is actually supposed to be brown. It's just in the cover art that they...
02:02:37
Speaker
I could not find anybody with green hair except for elves. And I'm like, well, that's a dead giveaway for Rufus and he's like covering his ear. Cause it's like, it's your hair color, bro. I didn't think about that. You're right. I'm like trying to rack my brain, trying to think of any other. Yeah. Can you think, no, I can't think of any character in your entire play through about group profile one. There's no, now there's concept art of Melina having green hair.
02:03:03
Speaker
Um, but she's, she's got brown hair in the sprites and in her like little things, she's brown hair. So I'm like, nobody else that is not an elf elves. Yes. Elves had green hair. So I think that is actually a plot device, but also it's just like, man, you try to hide your ears and your damn hair is the problem.
02:03:24
Speaker
So, so yeah, so he he it makes sense why Rufus is like really suspicious why he doesn't trust Alicia entirely right at the beginning and like demands to be explained to because it's like yo, I think because he's been betrayed and like, he's got a deal with humans his whole life. So and elves didn't want anything to do with him because he was a half breed. So like, it's really, really interesting now that I'm looking at it. And I looked it up because I was like,
02:03:49
Speaker
elves have green hair and I saw this mother and stuff like with the green hair and I'm like, okay, this is a common thing. All elves have green hair. I'm like, wait, wait, is this an actual like trope of like, this is how you tell if they're an elf? I still didn't notice that. I would have never thought about that.
02:04:06
Speaker
But yeah, that's where like my artistic brain and character design portion comes from where I'm just thinking of like, is this actually a thing? Like, is this green hair like iconic to this like elf side? Or is it just like, you know, like, some like all elves had green hair, but maybe some humans did too. No, none of them had green hair that I could find. And I was like, it's wild. Okay.
02:04:29
Speaker
So I thought that was kind of interesting when I was like, you know, and I'm thinking about it after I beat the game, you know, like I was looking up all the different characters from Valkyrie Profile 1. I couldn't find a green haired character at all unless they were an elf. And Valkyrie Profile 2, yeah, none of your party members, none of them have green hair. So that's why I thought Rufus being the only archer I got was going to be some sort of thing too. And I was like looking into that, but I don't think that ended up being a thing.
02:04:58
Speaker
Um, there was nothing like really talked about or anything. So I'm like, okay. Uh, but I don't know if he ended up being the only male Archer. There might've been, I don't remember. I'm going to be honest with you. I don't remember any Archers. That's fair. And because it's like a 20% chance between a few of them and some aspects, there might've been a male there and I was just not, I kept getting the females. I only used Rufus because I was like, Oh, well he's, he's there. And like,
02:05:27
Speaker
He's going to be important because he's important in the story. They're not going to take all the characters away from me. So I started using Rufus. Yeah.
02:05:36
Speaker
Yeah, so I don't know if there is or anything. Jack is saying there was a male archer. OK, so I just never got. No, you're OK, Jack. We're actually talking about spoilers, so you're totally fine. But like so Jack just mentioned saying that there is a male archer. So that destroyed my theory. But like for me, Rufus was the only one my whole game. And I was like, is this going to be another green hair? Because I felt like big brain when I thought about the green hair stuff.
02:06:02
Speaker
I thought about it and I was like, I wonder if elves, and I looked it up and all the elves have green hair. And I'm like, okay, that's a trait. I'm like, wait, does any humans have green air? Was this like a dead giveaway? He's an elf this entire time. Yeah, I guess so. Because Rufus has, you know, bright green air. So I was like, you know, this is interesting. So I love that aspect. But yeah, Lazard. So yeah, this is why you have to play Valkyrie Profile 2 afterwards.
02:06:29
Speaker
So Lazard goes back in time and messes with the timeline stuff because he's trying to be a god. But the thing is, this is like he's not trying to be a god. He's just trying to be one with.
02:06:38
Speaker
lenith and his weird sick desires so when you start trying to be a god he's definitely like he just wants to be merged with lenith in any way possible of being some supreme ruler of it and shape the world is his twisted way and when you go into his twisted world it's very reminiscent of like oh man this guy's brain is just not not wired correctly
02:07:04
Speaker
No, he was fucked up. He was a good character to hate. He was a good character to hate for sure. And like, I don't know. So one thing I will say is I wish you got more time with some of the other characters. Like, I wish you got more time with
02:07:26
Speaker
Chris, I wish you got more time with Leneth in the game. I wish you got more time. You get them at the end sequence, which honestly, when you, I was going to swap them into my party just to use the Valkyries and I did for like a couple rounds of just regular enemies. So I'm like, I had Silberia, I had Hrist, I had Leneth, which also what the phrase, she comes back in time too. You're like, geez. So you get like the Leneth of the future that you have made in Valkyrie profile one, which is really cool.
02:07:55
Speaker
and so and it's the same voice actress from the game which i thought was great and from from the original valkyrie profile one and so i had them in my party because i'm like i'm having team valkyrie and i had team valkyrie and the only other character was rufus
02:08:15
Speaker
I quoted this as my party. I was like Rufus in his bitches. Yeah, no, see I was yo. Arngrim was my guy. And Arngrim, because Arngrim gets reincarnated when I play the DS game, Arngrim will be in the party. That is my guy.
02:08:33
Speaker
So you would have had Arngrim in your three Valkyries. So it's the same thing. That is how my party was set up until they ripped the Valkyries from me. That I was like, well, it looks like I have, it looks like I have, um, I got to use Brahms and Rufus now.
02:08:56
Speaker
It was a struggle. Yeah. Oh my goodness. So, and he warned me about that. So I used the, for a couple rounds and he's like, no use this thing. And so, cause I was trying really hard to beat the game and I, and I was like only a couple of days, like yesterday I had to prep for the spooky stream that I had with slam and DC and stuff. So like, I knew I wasn't going to get to play very much yesterday. So I had to beat it on Friday night. And so I was like, okay. So he, I let him give me a couple of tips so that I could.
02:09:25
Speaker
try to beat it. So I had them at my party and I had Rufus who was just like pew pew and these Valkyries just like destroying the enemies and it was really funny. And then I took them out because I knew like I was like okay this isn't the party he suggested so I went back to my original party, beat all the different forms. His form where you have to like
02:09:49
Speaker
attack him and then the crystal becomes available to attack? Yes. That was a pain in the butt and that's where most like half of my items went to. Really? Because for me I wasn't doing the damage and for some reason it didn't always like I would attack him it didn't activate so I could attack the crystal. You have to do like x number and it's funny actually because I'm playing a different game off stream
02:10:15
Speaker
And then outside of the podcast I ran into a boss fight in the game that I'm playing that's very similar But you had to do X number of damage like X amount of damage to him to then like really hit
02:10:33
Speaker
a certain amount so it was like do a certain amount of damage then he gets stunned and like puts his head down or whatever and then you can attack the crystal so a lot of times what i was doing was i tried to draw him to the crystal so that i could just do a lot of quick um quick damage and then i would just do like go completely ham on
02:11:00
Speaker
the crystal and then go for it. I glitched Lazard, fun fact. I glitched him outside the map. What? So yeah, this is where, like, the sequence where I'm like, I kind of want to start recording this shit because I keep having weird, weird stuff happen. And I'm like, how in the heck did I do this? So Lazard went to, like, you know how he goes to the edge of the map to do one of his moves? So he does his big, like, glaive move, right?
02:11:25
Speaker
So I left him back there and I was just attacking the crystal because he didn't like stop it. And I was still doing damage to it. So I'm like, whatever, I'm going to go there. I guess with one of his moves, he pushed himself.
02:11:39
Speaker
out in the hallway, like the hallway that you, you walked through the long ass hallway. You walk. I don't know what happened, but he was in a way where I couldn't hit him anymore. So when I went to actually attack him, cause I'm like, well, screw this. This crystal is going to take me forever. So I went to actually attack him. I wasn't hitting him. I could not actually get it where I could press any of the buttons to hit him. He was just outside the boundaries of the map. Like,
02:12:07
Speaker
freaking like, um, hitbox radius wise, but I couldn't hit him. So I had to like, keep trying to lure him. So I'm like, okay, he likes Valkyries. Maybe I'll just lure him with Alicia so I can separate Alicia like running around and just as Alicia to try to get him back so I can hit him?
02:12:28
Speaker
okay so he could still hit you though so finally yes he could hit me that's why you use so many healing items yes i used so many healing items because he could still hit me i couldn't hit him and i was doing shit damage to the crystal so it's like okay the hell is the game i'm just i'm just gonna say after you glitched him out of the map or he glitched himself out of map you should have just restarted
02:12:51
Speaker
Yeah. So I was so stubborn. I was so stubborn because that means I wouldn't have used as much healing items, which means I would have beaten the end boss, but I was so stubborn, like, no. And that's why it took me like an hour and a half on that sequence. Cause he kept being outside the barrier. So I had like 65 plus healing items, but when I got to him, he used up, like, I only had like 30 going into the next fight because he finally, he teleported.
Replayability and Game Challenges
02:13:17
Speaker
Finally he teleported into the map. Yeah.
02:13:21
Speaker
but he wasn't doing that ever so finally he teleports in so i could finally do danovich again and i'm just like oh my god i was like and i was telling edo i'm like i think i borked the game and he's like and i kept showing up like look i can't hit him and he's like what so edo was just confused watching me play this while he was doing playing destiny and he's just like looking over that i could not attack the stupid boss and i was like
02:13:45
Speaker
Oh my god, I was so mad. So like, I had just bad luck that thank you. Like when I, when I finished that, that's why I just watched the ending. Cause I was like, I was so mad that I had two rounds of bad luck, one where he glitched out. So I used all my healing items and two, I had them almost dead because I'm a stubborn person and I, I refused to restart. And I was going to do a little thing being like, ha ha, KJ, I beat him first round. I mean, that's karma. Wow.
02:14:13
Speaker
To me, all of the shade that... I didn't even really throw that much shade. But the shade that I threw about you not finishing the game is deserved. Because you are going to do that. That is karma. I really wanted to be like, I beat it first try. I didn't need to go... Yeah, I was so like... I thought you were going to. I thought I was going to too, because when I said my level, you were like, holy shit. Because I was level 55 going into that fight.
02:14:41
Speaker
Yeah, I was level like, so my, my levels were between like 48 and 51 or 52 when I went in there. And yeah, it was the first time I fought him, it was a struggle. Like the second part was a struggle. The second time I fought him, I went in and I was still the same, basically the same level. It was basically like 52, 53. Um, I,
02:15:07
Speaker
rolled up in there I beat the first part and I had a mage slayer on and I went in there I was doing thousands of damage to him from the jump and like I was using my other characters just to get the soul crush just for Valkyrie so that I could do like
02:15:24
Speaker
tens of thousands of damage. It was nuts. I went in there and I think the first time I fought him, it was such a struggle. I remember because I was listening to some streams and I ended up falling asleep because I was like, it was just so rough and I couldn't do anything. And then the second time I beat him, I beat him in like 20 minutes.
02:15:49
Speaker
Yeah. It's see like for me, I was like, I was so close and I was super excited about it, but like I knew, I knew when I was getting him closer, closer, I was like, Oh my God. That's when it dawned on me that when Alicia merges with the other Valkyrie, she loses her healing magic.
02:16:06
Speaker
I didn't know that happened, so I didn't have a character in my party who could still heal because I went with KJ's party suggestion. I had Arngrim, Rufus, and Bronze, but because KJ probably never even needed her healing, he probably didn't even notice it was gone.
02:16:21
Speaker
so like he had no idea he lose that healing and so like I had and I had tons of items still left I had 30 revives or I had 25 revives and I had like 35 of the fairy things like heal all and then I had some miscellaneous like really big healing items and so like I
02:16:41
Speaker
Like I had enough if I would have just didn't use so many with the fight before, so I would have still beat it. And Amit is alluding to other things with me. It seems like I keep playing these JRPGs for the first time and like beating and bosses and special bosses first try, which is just blowing my mind. I did it with live alive. I've done it with.
02:17:05
Speaker
Golden Sun. I did it with Illusion of Gaia. Illusion of Gaia. I did the end boss, I believe, in one go. And then, back he was like, what the heck? So I keep having this track record and I was like, oh my goodness, this is going to happen again. And it was just a technicality. And it was because I glitched
02:17:26
Speaker
Lazard out of the map so I couldn't hit him. But he could hit me. He kept doing the automatic hit you move.
02:17:36
Speaker
So he kept being able to hit me, I couldn't hit him so I had to keep healing and I wasn't doing enough damage to the crystal to destroy the crystal because it was sealed because I needed to hit him to unleash the seal. So it was a stupid like thing and that's why I told Enno that I had a very good case of not beating this because that would have meant at 2am I would have had to go all the way back out of the dungeon.
02:18:01
Speaker
Yeah, it took me about a few more items just in case I glitched him again. Grab a few things to make my damage a little bit stronger. Go back in and do it. And I was like, that's going to take me to four or five in the morning. I am. I can't. I can't do it. Like I just I had no strike of will anymore with that. So like.
02:18:20
Speaker
I'm just gonna watch it and I will do that in the future because I was very close to which funny enough I looked it up because I didn't know how the Seraphic Gate which is the optional dungeon thing that's unlocked in Valkyrie Profile 1, how you do it in Valkyrie Profile 2 and it's apparently based on map. You have to have 96 completion of a map which means getting all the treasure.
02:18:45
Speaker
going to all the areas. Yeah so that means you have gotten pretty well majority of the treasure and or you've gone to majority of the areas in the dungeon. Okay so that makes sense. That means you only missed 4% of the items. Potentially you could have done 100% too.
02:19:06
Speaker
Yo, that game. And I was just slightly off that I was like, oh, I could just go do that. So that's something I'll do in the future and then actually beat it. So I could say I think I have this under my belt. But so from what I read about the Seraphic Gate, you just have to leave. So you know how you save right before you go in to fight Lazard?
02:19:26
Speaker
Yeah. You just have to save and then leave. If you leave, you'll unlock this traffic gate. So when I left, I unlocked this traffic gate. I went there and I was like, let me try to see if I can just get some broken stuff and just go fight him and be fine. And I got my ass handed to me by the gate guard. The gate guard beat me. I could not beat the boss at the entrance. Like I rolled up and they were, they were legit like,
02:19:56
Speaker
Oh no, you ain't gettin' in. Like, the, the, yo, it was, oh my god. And see, that is canon with Valkyrie Profile 1, because Valkyrie Profile 1's, the Seraphigate, is very difficult. And it's designed that you were playing on hard mode. So you know how Valkyrie Profile you could change, whether you're easy, normal, or hard?
02:20:15
Speaker
So you have to be playing on hard mode to stand a chance at that optional. Really? That makes me kind of want to load it up and see. I kind of wanted watching some people play Valkyrie Profile 1. It's kind of made me want to play again, but I don't know when I'll do that. Yeah, and see Star Ocean 2, Star Ocean 1 all have dungeons like that.
02:20:32
Speaker
Uh, they have the cave of trials, uh, which is what it's called there. And so it's the same thing. The enemies are super strong. Everything's like a big challenge and there's special bosses in it that you can fight and uncover. And there's fun little other characters you can.
02:20:48
Speaker
Yeah, of other games. So like Star Ocean has a history of like pulling other Valkyrie profile characters in and making the boss bosses and stuff like that and Valkyrie profile. I don't know if it does that because I've never gone through a seraphic gate because it's always been really, really hard.
02:21:05
Speaker
Um, but yeah, Valkyrie profile ones, one is pretty hard too. So they're, they're just for, for our fun, optional challenges. And I'm like, I've always wanted to actually go through one. So when I peace out and watch the ending of, of this game, uh, I, I said to myself that if I do load this game back up in the, in a few months or whatever, when I do do it to beat it, finally, uh, I will unlock it and I'll go try to like, actually, you're better than me, that stuff over there. Cause that was.
02:21:34
Speaker
that was built different I walked up in there I was like okay the opening like the gate guardian person shouldn't be that bad like they're gonna ease me into it now I walked in I was doing no damage I was doing very little damage and I got wiped in like three or four turns yeah and so that is because Valkyrie profile 2 has new game plus
02:21:59
Speaker
Yep. You actually, yeah, you're actually supposed to like, you get, um, extra stats and stuff the more times you beat the game. So that's another thing. And that's what you need to do. The seraphic gate, I think to beat the boss without having to do a bunch of grinding. So it's designed that you weren't supposed to unlock it right away. Yep. So yeah. And yeah, that's the thing I going into going to this traffic gate, like the entrance.
02:22:28
Speaker
tells you, you actually can look at your stats. You can look at how many times you've died. It keeps track of everything. So you can see all the different, it's actually really cool to look at.
02:22:41
Speaker
Um, it's really cool to look at. Yeah. And see, and it's designed in a way just like Falcon profile. One was, is that it wants you to go through the game and then it wants you to play it again. And then you could play with the optional stuff. Uh, while you can do optional dungeons in both games fairly easily, which we both did. Um, it's that ending sequence is kind of design that you've played through the game a second time.
02:23:06
Speaker
Uh, which will be what I probably do with this at some point, but like I have so many games on my backlog and everything. And then with podcasts, it's been great because we're going through, I never got to beat this game. And I mean, technically technicalities, I did 99% of this and didn't technically beat it.
02:23:23
Speaker
but it's a technicality that I know now that I glitched and borked the game that I could just do a little finessing to make sure if I glitch him again that it won't matter because either A, I'm doing more damage so it won't matter or B, I'll have enough healing items this time that it won't matter.
02:23:40
Speaker
Also, I'm really confused. Why didn't you just, so, okay, maybe it's just a difference in play style. I, before the final dungeon, I was like, this is definitely the final dungeon. I'm going to max out all my healing items. So I had enough when I left. But you have to leave to do that. So you have to go all the way back out. And I knew that was going to take a lot of time and I was already at like midnight.
02:24:05
Speaker
So I was like, I have to backtrack to go and stock up what he needs to think. So I'm like, no, no, I'll be okay. And I had like 60 plus of each thing. So like, I figured that would be fine. Consider JRPG logic is you hoard all your items and never use
Technical Issues and Game Performance
02:24:19
Speaker
them. I didn't think I was going to really be dependent on it. And I was only dependent on it because of a glitch. And the thing is, is like, I was like part way through the glitch, I was actually going to turn the game off and turn back on.
02:24:30
Speaker
But KJ and I had a problem, both of us had problems with our games, which we don't know if it was our PS2 or if it was the game itself. But we kept having issues where it stopped the gameplay and kept saying that the disc tray was open, which it was not. Or it was like having issues reading the disc.
02:24:52
Speaker
We both kept having that throughout our entire thing that I was stupid worried that I would turn it off, turn it back on, and it would not, like it would glitch or not load up or something like that. We were having nothing. We were thinking, I'm like, that would be my luck. I would like leave this boss because I glitched him. I would turn off the game, turn it back on and be broken. And I would not be able to actually beat it. So I was like, you know what? Maybe I could just wait them out. And I kept using some of the items. I was like, yada, yada, yada.
02:25:20
Speaker
And I'm like, I know I'm going to be supercharged. That's what it was alluding to, that I was going to be fused with the Valkyries. Anyway, so I was like, okay, I knew it was going to be supercharged. So I was just running around and getting hit and stuff like that. And then finally he did teleport out and I was able to hit him. So I was like, great. I didn't waste so much time. I wasted like half my items, but I didn't waste so much time. But hey, you don't need items in JRPG games. That's not how this works. So it's like,
02:25:46
Speaker
So then I got to the second phase and I was not able to keep Valkyrie alive. I couldn't revive Rufus who was keeping Valkyrie alive. So I ran out of revival and she loses her ability to revive and heal because I had unlocked her ability to revive. So you got to the Tower of Lazard and you just didn't leave at all?
02:26:12
Speaker
Like, because what happened? I didn't leave at all because I figured it was going to take way too much time. So when I got when I first got there, I went back and did all that stuff that I was showing you right at the start, because it was like 10, 10 p.m. at night. And I'm like, you know what? I got lots of time. So then why didn't you. OK. So when I stocked up on everything like I had 99 of everything. It's just what I use throughout the the tower. And then I was down to like 60. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK. That's what I was missing because I was like,
02:26:41
Speaker
I left too, but the only thing I did to leave was I left and I got items and then came back. I didn't do anything extra and then I got to the top, realized I couldn't beat the true final boss, and then went all the way back down, re-bought all my items, avoided almost all the fights after I got the skills that I needed, and then just went up there and fought it.
02:27:06
Speaker
But yeah that's why and i had the ps2 slim so it's talking in her chat that that is actually an issue with the slims and stuff like that my ps2 is also slim i originally had the big chunky one but it it died on me.
02:27:22
Speaker
Oh and I can remember when I think when we first started dating it died on me and I needed to get a oh no it died just before uh at when I was at college it died on me um it just I think it might be I don't think it's the ps2 though I think it's the tri ace like the ps2 slim that could be and just maybe it just reacted with the slim differently because the slim was slightly different that
02:27:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's the game. It felt because we had two different versions of the Slim. I think it was something to do with the game. It just kept having this discrete error. And it was that weird parts. Now, it would always work through it. It never was a time when I had to shut the game off and turn it back on. Yeah, it never occurs on me either.
02:28:02
Speaker
but like it was also just like I was just super worried because I had already just glitched a big glitch in the game with Lazard being out of my attack range and then so I'm just like I'm not gonna chance this I'm gonna keep going and then when I was just starting to be like okay if I can't hit him I gotta I gotta quit I gotta redo this and finally he teleported out so it's just like I just saw blacked myself in it so bad yeah that's wrong so uh ending wise though
02:28:33
Speaker
Yeah, I am agreeing with you on that one. I, first of all, it was not worth my two and a half hours of struggle. I predicted what was going
Game Endings and Narrative Reflections
02:28:44
Speaker
to happen. So like, yes, it was building everything up and I knew, I knew Alicia wasn't gonna like, gonna make it. I knew that was going to happen. And I had this like hope with like the, the stuff or whatever that somehow it would work out. But I was like, no, I know that's not going to happen, but
02:29:05
Speaker
First of all, when you fused it to this OP being a Valkyrie, she didn't do like super crazy damage.
02:29:13
Speaker
to be perfectly honest. Like she did more damage than everybody else to Lazard, which made sense because she was literally a god, but also it was just like, okay, I didn't feel a super power, but that's okay because it still left a challenge and I knew what they were doing. They were still trying to make the end boss challenge where you're not like one shotting because sometimes you'll get like these super abilities and then you'll go in and you'll just one shot the boss and you're like, okay, what was the point of this?
02:29:41
Speaker
So I understand they're like, they wanted it to be more that she was on par with him, not that she was OP and he was no longer OP. So like, that was very interesting. But then you beat it and he's, oh my God, Lazar, Lazar dying was just where she's like, you will not be reincarnated. You will not be anything. Uh, you were just going to disappear into the void. And he's just like, still like,
02:30:08
Speaker
But, but, but my lettuce. I'm like, Oh my God. Boo. You stop you crazy man. Anyway. So he like, he fades off. This ticked me off. So Alicia sacrificed herself to be the host of the Valkyries bronze offered. He offered. And then at the end, he's like, now I'm going to stay here and die.
02:30:35
Speaker
Okay, okay, I am so angry at this. This made me so mad. It's that Alicia's like, no, I have to do it. I miss Silmaria, I need to do it. And Bronz didn't do these like, okay, whatever. But he's like, he was planning on dying anyway. Whereas Alicia could have lived and be with Rufus.
02:30:57
Speaker
Nope! No! But it was stupid because Bronz's art grim was even like, okay, I'm gonna protect the dragon arm and that's gonna be my destiny now. And I'm like, yeah, art grim, you go. You have your cool destiny. Bronz is like, there's no reason for me to exist. I'm gonna die. And I'm like,
02:31:18
Speaker
And it was so dumb. I did not. I was not a fan. I was just like, okay. And then the weird part, the part that even made it a little bit more uncomfortable for me was like,
02:31:29
Speaker
the very end scene, it's like, oh, Alicia gets reincarnated, or they allude to her being reincarnated. And like, child version of her walks by Rufus and like, they have like some weird moment and it's like, okay, this is weird, like she's a child.
02:31:45
Speaker
not like I understand like she's reincarnated and that's what that's the point you wanted to push across but like why did she have to be a kid? Why couldn't you have been an adult? Why could it have been like you know you saw this kind of sequence where she was a kid and she grew up to an adult and then she was like sitting beside a tree and like leaning against it and then he kind of came around the tree and like they locked eyes and they left it they could have still done the same effect with her not being a tiny child.
02:32:13
Speaker
What I will say is I'm glad that the game didn't end with basically them walking into the sunset. That is so mean, I mean, that's fair. What I will say, but she didn't need to die because bronze was going to die anyway. Yeah, that that's my
02:32:34
Speaker
Imagine him as a Valkyrie? Oh my goodness. Because they kept some of Alicia's features, but then she had some of the Valkyrie outfit on. I kept picturing Bronts in like the breastplate and the blue eyes.
02:32:52
Speaker
That would have been so good. And I wish that was an option. I wish there was an optional ending where you could have picked bronze to do it and not Alicia. It's not like there is an optional ending. There is if you beat the game without Valkyrie.
02:33:07
Speaker
Yeah, which, fuck that. Which is painstakingly painful that like, I would never subject myself to. I'm sorry. Yeah, because you're hitting for like a hundred and dudes got like hundreds of thousands of HP. It's not worth it.
02:33:23
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So it's like it would have been quite the grind taking Valkyrie out, putting somebody else in and that just it would have been really long would have been really grindy just to get like the optional thing where she's not in the cutscene of his death. But like, that's what I looked up. That's the only difference. So there's not like an alternate ending ending like but with Valkyrie profile one they did and I felt like this was a missed opportunity and why the ending went.
02:33:48
Speaker
for me is that if you would have been able to choose Bron over Alicia and she could have like, you could have chose where you like, okay, she sacrifices herself and had that ending where they parted and anything. Or you could have had an ending where they were like together or happy going. And you could have just made that not the non-canon version, but like allowing you to have that control. Cause he's, he wants, he offered and then he dies anyway. So it's like, and it's his choice he dies. So I'm like,
02:34:18
Speaker
And he knew, he knew that was going to be his choice because when he was talking about being the sacrifice, he said he could feel again, which meant he was no longer undead. Um, and so like, I was so mad. It was a good thing. And it was like, I'm taking the dogs out for a walk while you watch this ending because I was screaming at my monitor being like, come on.
02:34:45
Speaker
Why? Yeah, so, and there's there's a question that where we can get to after we wrap this part up. But like, you're it seems like you're expecting these games to have a happy ending. No, that's not how this was supposed to work. Okay. But like, look at Valkyrie profile one, if you worked hard, you got a happy
02:35:07
Speaker
I mean, humans died, but it's fine. I didn't care about the humans. I cared about the souls. I didn't care about them. I had no attachments on them. I, I just cared about my girl. But like in this one, I knew it wasn't going to be a happy ending, but the fact that they like built this up, that like, like with bronze being like, Oh, I could do it. They shouldn't have had that part in there. If they were not going to have that as an option.
02:35:37
Speaker
because now it's just silly because having him die at the end and he had not even like he volunteered to be like Alicia could have could have lived and be with Rufus and have that like thing and it's like okay and and and i'm going like okay and so with bronze they didn't do it i'm just like you know i that would have been an awesome opportunity for multiple endings uh i didn't expect it to be it could still be like she dies because like they get some time together but she dies because you know like
02:36:07
Speaker
He's a frickin god. So Okay, so here's my interpretation of it. He said he was going to because like At the in the grand like when you really break everything down Brahms, I think was at the point where because Silmeria was gone like he knew that like
02:36:35
Speaker
he didn't, like now that he could feel he didn't really care to exist. And so that's why he said it, but like, I don't think that, I don't know.
02:36:48
Speaker
I think it was I think him not being not being the sacrifice and then like basically saying I'm gonna stay in this world where I can feel and finally guy was a situation where he it was them showing like
02:37:09
Speaker
A, he changed, and B, he really wanted to, like, it kind of showed the tragic end, right? That was, I think, what they were really trying to do there. Yeah, I just wouldn't have set it up of him trying to be the host originally. Like, more emphasis, they put more emphasis on there. Like, that, that should like, that was sort of like,
02:37:33
Speaker
showing his character growth. And that was some of those really cool is that like you got to see his character growth in the sense of like, hey, he's not just the
02:37:45
Speaker
like overlord of the undead, right? Like. Yeah, that's that's true. I guess I guess you could argue that it did give a little bit of plot development to him. I was just like, as somebody who was rooting for Alicia and Rufus in the beginning, I'm like, that was just such a slap in my face. I was like, Oh, and then I agree with you wholeheartedly at that end sequence where you see her as a little kid, she falls and he like picks her up and they have a moment and then he disappears. I'm like, Come on, they could have made it where she was an adult. Why does that?
02:38:14
Speaker
Like anyway, but this is why now that I've beaten back or now that I've seen the ending about group profile to you, we went through this experience together. For me, this is exactly why I was hoping Elysium would be connected because this sets it up that we could see the world that Rufus.
02:38:37
Speaker
changed because he took over and he was going to bring Midgard back and all this other stuff. So he was literally like, he was gonna have a different, like the humans like might not have had to like go this direction anymore because the timeline had been changed. So it's like, I would have loved like they could have entirely connected this to Elysium where it's now showing us the world he created.
02:39:03
Speaker
Um, and, and changed and, and seeing the side and seeing how Leneth and Christ and everything like that falls to the place. Maybe still Maria finally gets out of the crystal or don't cause she, cause they did the fusion and stuff. They disappeared. Maybe they can come back and be reincarnated. Like maybe you go through it and stuff like that. Maybe Alicia pops into it as her reincarnated itself. There's so many possibilities here for a third game.
02:39:30
Speaker
that takes place after this one, whereas the DS game takes place in between. It takes place just before Valkyrie Profile 1, I think, or is like in between Valkyrie Profile 1? It takes place right before Valkyrie Profile 1. Okay, so it's technically a Technically prequel. Yeah. So you have the DS game that's that, then you have Valkyrie Profile 1, and then you have this one that's rewrote the timeline of one.
02:39:56
Speaker
So you could literally have a third game, Elysium, which would be Elysium to do that, but I don't know if they're going to do that at all. That's what worries me the most because if they don't, I'm just going to be very mad and salty that this set it up, that there could be a really, really good third game.
02:40:16
Speaker
or a third like in this timeline fourth game technically or like a really good fourth game that takes place after this one where they could have numbered it and everything and now I don't know if they're doing that with Elysium and it's got me way too worried that I have to wait till it comes out and see it a little bit to see if they're actually going to
02:40:38
Speaker
or if it's just going to be its own thing and they're going to just try to restart the Valkyrie series, which that's where I think they're going. And I don't know if I am going to be happy about that, because to be perfectly honest, out of everything with this game and stuff, like it's got some issues. It's got some like it definitely did not age as well as like Valkyrie Profile One can, for example. It's given as a solid seven.
02:41:07
Speaker
This game is a solid 7. So KJ's going with 7 out of 10.
Game Ratings and Future Potentials
02:41:11
Speaker
I think I'm actually for once on this podcast aligned with you exactly to the genre. I think it's just 7 out of 10. Yeah, you're just talking about rating games. This game's a solid 7.
02:41:24
Speaker
Like, it's got some cool things, it's got some things that I'm just like, throw it away. And like, so there was a question about like, is there anything in Valkyrie Profile 2 that I'd want to see in other RPGs? And like, for me, actually really started to like the steel stone system. And like, so for anybody that wasn't here, the way that the steel stones work, it's like,
02:41:49
Speaker
you they they are placed around different dungeons of um they're placed around different dungeons and like they have different effects and so they actually affect like different parts of the map so one example is like oh attack cut in half and
02:42:14
Speaker
you can only use that sealstone in that specific area unless you spend the currency to then take it. And then it becomes like, it basically goes into your like sealstone bank, we'll call it. And then after that, you can use it anywhere. So it's like, oh, I went to like this super intense dungeon. Let me throw in the half off attack sealstone and now every fight that I get into, the enemies have half off attack. But the other problem is that
02:42:43
Speaker
it while you're carrying it to the place it in the area, you have half attack. Yeah. So I thought that was really cool because it's like, you start off in a situation where you can sort of see like, first of all, the dungeons are all overpowered, because usually what ends up happening is the sealed stone caters to the different enemies abilities. Yeah. And like, they're, they're element.
02:43:07
Speaker
hurt you pretty bad even sometimes one shot you. That's why I was saying the survival skill earlier is such a crucial thing to have because it keeps you from dying in a random enemy encounter and then having to go all the way back to your save point and coming through again.
02:43:23
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And so- It happened to me once with those damn beetles, those self-destructing beetles. I didn't have survival attached. It self-destructed, killed my whole party, and I had to go all the way back and redo it. And I was like, come on, I'm so mad. But then I realized if I would have had the survival skill, I would have been fine. It was like, it taught me to use the skills more by having those difficult gameplay elements.
02:43:48
Speaker
And like, I like that. And I feel like putting those in another RPG game or even in the new Valkyrie game that's coming out, if it had some of those elements, I think they're really interesting because it allows you to have a challenge if you want to stay with a challenge.
02:44:05
Speaker
Or adjust it where you can be stronger and also have more customization over how difficult the game is. Which I think is really, really cool. And have more custom ability of your skills and stuff like that, which is really, really neat. Which is why this Borderline 7.5 for me, because I think
02:44:25
Speaker
A lot of the gameplay elements I did really enjoy and I think they were really smart, even if they were a little clunky executed in some areas like when you had to split your party and stuff.
02:44:36
Speaker
Um, but like the reason why Elysium concerns me is just because it's using the Valkyrie name. And it's not like, it's not like Final Fantasy seven remake where Final Fantasy seven remake changed some things, but still had stuff the same and the characters the same. That's fine because you can play the OG Final Fantasy seven and still experience the love that you have and then play the remake for something different.
02:45:00
Speaker
Totally fine. You can separate it that way. And I know some people don't agree with me with that, but that's why I like it. Cause I'm like, I played OG seven to death and I know so much about it that I'm like, I welcome maybe the slight adjustments to things because it keeps things interesting for me. But with, with the Valkyrie profile series, they literally had an opportunity where they could have continued the timeline.
02:45:21
Speaker
And with the way this has ended, and now that I've done this, I'm like, they literally had a awesome opportunity to now take this and do it. And I don't know, they could still be doing it. But if they weren't planning on doing that, why call it Valkyrie? Why not go with a whole new like, I think they wanted to like,
02:45:42
Speaker
I think they wanted to appeal to people who play Valkyrie Profile wanted to. I think they wanted to appeal to that nostalgia and pull people in to keep the Valkyrie kind of thing, but they want to do their own thing, which is totally fine. It's just like for me, it just feels like this set it up so well to be a sequel.
02:46:05
Speaker
game that made sense and still be wildly different. They could have still been wildly different. And it could be that's what it ends up being a prequel.
02:46:17
Speaker
Yeah, they could have done another prequel too. There's so much that they didn't tie in. There's so much lore in Valkyrie Profile 1 and Valkyrie Profile 2 that you're uncovering that they could have built up a prequel, they could have built up a sequel, and had so much content there for it. And also even just with the way it looks and the gameplay and things, they are definitely coming from this game and expanding from it.
02:46:40
Speaker
um and also taking the whole mute desaturated thing to the level of current gen where it's like super desaturated and stuff like that and they're continuing that art style so Elysium does look like it should be connected to this one you know what i mean one thing one thing i did read is that like in the
02:47:04
Speaker
mobile gacha game or whatever that they had, they do kind of make it that there are, and I read this like not too long ago, it does make it seem like there's like multiple universes and or like parallel timelines. So, Elysium could still fit. Yeah, it could still flip. But
02:47:23
Speaker
It does look really good, but I'm not going to play it until I know where it fits on the timeline. And the story aspects are going to be what potentially dragged me in. It's not going to be the gameplay or the fact that it's named Valkyrie.
02:47:39
Speaker
Yeah, I want to see the story and that's partly why I'm kind of waiting until it comes out and seeing a little bit of how that plays out and then going into it. It's not like for me where I saw the latest trailer of Star Ocean 6 and pre-ordered it.
02:47:55
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So like after seeing that trailer and seeing what they're actually going to be doing with the plot line, I was like, okay, I'm in, I'm done. Whereas I didn't see that yet with Valkyrie Elysium at all. So it hasn't quite like sold me one way or the other. And I'm totally fine with them revitalizing the series too, because at the end of the day, finding Valkyrie profile one for good price is very difficult.
02:48:18
Speaker
And then then bringing Leneth and remastering it was great, but now they've delayed it. And so it's still kind of delaying people into being into the series. And then going into this game, you can't play this game without playing the first one. So you need to get the PSB Leneth, or you need to get the PS1 version of Valkyrie Profile to play it, because you need to have played it to play this. This is too inter-twoven.
02:48:46
Speaker
It's a prequel sequel that you can't really do this standalone. Like you're going to be really lost. You're going to miss a lot of stuff and you may not as enjoy it as much without having that connection. So it's just like it's harder and harder for people to get into the series because it's harder and harder to get the.
02:49:04
Speaker
older games and stuff so I'm totally fine with them also revitalizing it just my just depending on story it just might not interest to me then because I'm going in with just hoping like the story um like because because the gameplay mechanics look like star ocean six to me they they look very similar uh they look like they're just taking this to the thing now if they added in like the skill set system the seal stones all that stuff that this did really well that
02:49:31
Speaker
Pull me in a little bit more cuz I mean I don't even think like the gameplay could be great But if the story isn't gonna be something that I'm going to leave story up. I'm the same way story characters and then gameplay for me I even want it the same thing like I'm thinking about it, and it's just like Because I know if
02:49:54
Speaker
You name it after something just, it ends up being a disappointment. That's why they changed the name. So if you look, it's Valkyrie, it's not Valkyrie profile. It's really Elysium. So they're, they're, they're changing it enough.
02:50:12
Speaker
Right. So like all the games have been Valkyrie profile, something. So it's a Valkyrie profile, Leonard. It's Valkyrie profile one. It's Valkyrie profile to Silmeria. It's Valkyrie profile, something bloom for the DS game. Valkyrie profile is in all the titles except for Elysium. Um, so that's why it instantly made me feel like it was going to be trying to revitalize the series, but not actually be connected in any way to any of the other games.
02:50:42
Speaker
That's where my thought process came from, is that they changed the title just enough that they can argue, well, it's not a Valkyrie profile continuation. But now that I've played this game, it's like, do not remember your Valkyrie profile 2 game, because you've set it up to be a sequel or a prequel involved. You have the grounds of being there and retelling Lena's story now in the new timeline, too.
02:51:12
Speaker
Like, and her obeying Rufus, and if that's going to be like... Oh no, I don't want to do that. That's like too much time traveling nonsense, right? But I mean, there's possibilities, right? So like, I'm up in the air about it. I'm waiting until it comes out to kind of see where they're going with the story before I pull the trigger. But Star Ocean 6, for example, I think did a great job at their recent trailer.
02:51:35
Speaker
to capture me. Once they released that trailer and they showed what they're doing with the story a little bit more, I was like, Oh man, I'm in. I'm in. I am so in pre-ordering. I want those pre-order bonuses, this game. And, um, yeah, that actually connects us perfectly into, um, now that we're kind of wrapping this up, I give it like,
02:51:59
Speaker
I think we're both at the 7. I can lean to 7.5 if we talk about the gameplay, but he's very firmly at 7. I would probably lean the other way, like 6.57. This game was cool. I think it's still worth a play. Yeah, I would say anything higher than like a 5 is probably worth a play for me. That's true. But like, yeah, this game, it was cool.
02:52:25
Speaker
the story was good the story was gonna sit on my shelf it's now a collector's item like maybe i'll load it up at some point to just like relive some of the gameplay but yeah no it's it's good and it was a solid game but i won't replay it
02:52:42
Speaker
Yeah. And so, and like for me, I might just to say that I beat it finally and then unlock it so that I have this there at serif gate and try that a little bit too, so that I have another reason to like load it back up to like fully say, okay, I, I have got the new game plus I did, I did do this.
02:52:59
Speaker
um for me but yeah like a 7 7.5 for me is that it was good the story was good it had aspects in it that i liked like the game some mechanics of the gameplay i did like the ost um i i wasn't a super fan of like them kind of pulling a little bit more away from the art style that i really enjoyed of the the original game but
02:53:23
Speaker
Uh, I could understand that they were trying to make it a little bit more of a dark, like meet the darker tone. That is what they're trying to tell story wise. Um, but it's the ending did not feel like super worth all the work that you took to it, but story progressing as you went. Yes. There were some big plot twist. There was a big, Oh my God moments. Um, that yes, kept me going, but like the very ending felt a little.
Game Value and Market Discussion
02:53:53
Speaker
Okay. It felt a little like it felt a little. I can't sugar coat that the end of this ending. Which for me, if the ending was better that can pull the numbers up because sometimes going through a game and the ending just
02:54:11
Speaker
Like Persona 3 ending? Holy crap. One of my favorite... Yeah, so like this dropped the ball. It built it up so much. Like when I first started the game, I wasn't like super invested in the story. And then I was encouraging Keiji to keep going with it because he wasn't super invested in the gameplay.
02:54:31
Speaker
And so I wasn't invested at all. Yeah. Nothing invested in him. And he was just like, Oh, if this was not a podcast, I would have given this up. So we both pushed through it and we're both glad we did because the story was that good. Um, and the gameplay aspects, when we started to get used to it and what they were trying to do and understand was really, really cool with the seal stones and stuff with those skillsets. But that ending felt like I was on a roller coaster and then it just
02:54:58
Speaker
What I, what I will say is anyone that played Valkyrie profile one and liked Valkyrie, like I would not recommend this to like everyone. Right. Yeah. I would recommend it. Like I know a lot of people that love JRPGs. I would not recommend this to everyone. Let's just play the first one. If you, yeah, if you like Valkyrie profile one and you liked Valkyrie profile one enough that you
02:55:28
Speaker
was like, oh, I wanna get the A ending. If you get the A ending about your profile one, then I would say, okay, you should play two because you need to know how the story ends. But like, if you played about your profile one and you're like, yo, this was cool,
02:55:49
Speaker
I didn't get the A ending, like, I looked it up, whatever, then at that point I'd be like, you don't have to, like, go look up the end of Valkyrie Profile 2, you don't need to, you don't need to buy this A ending. Yeah, look up the story and stuff, like, and I'm on the same opinion, is that this is a game that if you played Valkyrie Profile 1, you really loved it, you liked getting the A ending.
02:56:07
Speaker
You you love the story and stuff like that absolutely play this game because the story is phenomenal and even like some of the gameplay aspects that you get are like a nice like there's some clunky bits of it but it was an interesting evolution from the battle system of one.
02:56:24
Speaker
However, if you were just wanting a JRPG to play, if you've never played the first one, it's tough. I don't really recommend playing this one just because it's ties too much into the first one of knowing the first one. And also it's like, it's definitely banking on people loving the first one and continuing on. And I think that's why this one may not have sold as well, or it's still like valued quite low. Like it's easy to buy this game. It's not very expensive. Yeah.
02:56:52
Speaker
It's like a $40, $30, $40, $50 maybe dollar game if it's like mint condition or something. But like, it's not a hard game to find to add to the story of things, which is generally a telling sign that it's like, A, it was either made too many and people didn't really buy it, or B, like didn't have the issue of like the copies being destroyed, for example. So it's still able to, it's not like,
02:57:19
Speaker
dot hack quarantine where they made literally a lot less than the first three years. Or this we couldn't do. Like, we couldn't do was... Yeah, we could do another good example of that where it's like, it's stupid rare because it's very few of them are out in the wild kind of idea where you can find this fairly easily. So if you're looking for just a JRPG game to play, I mean, there's other ones, even once we've recommended on this podcast already, Live Alive, Grandia,
02:57:49
Speaker
Both of those games better than this one. This game is- That's why we ranked them better, right? This is solid story development for one and very homage to the Vow group profile fans and stuff like that. But as a standalone like itself, nah. And it's definitely not designed to be a standalone user. And that also could be why they're trying to revitalize the series. So it could be it's a standalone thing. I'm excited to play the DS game. I am gonna jump into the DS game. It's gonna be fun.
02:58:17
Speaker
And as we picked this for the podcast, KJ and I were going through RPG games and we found that there was the DS game. Now I knew the DS game existed, but it was, when I thought about it, tactics game, I wasn't a big tactics game or I'm like, okay, I don't want to play this. But now thinking about it, I'm like, oh man, this is up at KJ's alley. You loved the first one and it has the characters in it. And two, it's a tactic style game.
02:58:47
Speaker
it's literally tactics with the first game i'm so and it's harder to find so it's actually more expensive um i think i think you picked it up for what like 60 70 bucks something no it's it's oh you thought it cheap okay it's like 30 35 bucks okay okay yeah so so it'll be really interesting i'm letting kj because i'm i'm not a tactics game i'm the test subject
02:59:08
Speaker
he's gonna play it and then if the story is good enough and that the battle system is it stupid hard that I will otherwise I'll just look up the story stuff or whatever when he makes talk about it but uh but yeah like there's a lot of like games and stuff like that that they're they're this one's easy to find if you like foul group profile one if you like foul group profile lenith and honestly
02:59:29
Speaker
with the upcoming remaster of lenith if you really love it um i do just coming back to this and trying too just because it continues that story but yeah it's seven seven to five at most for me and uh bye guys