Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria
So I finally finished this one over the weekend, and the story alone would deserve a 10, but as with all great games, nothing is flawless, and VP2 has more than it's fair share in my opinion.
I think the graphics and character designs are some of the best I've ever seen on PS2. The actual game characters are used for the cutscenes, and I love the facial expressions they give them during these. The characters and enemies are all amazingly detailed, and the voice acting is mostly in the great category and matches the characters they portray.
The gameplay takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, it can feel like your playing a rhythm game as you find the right combination of moves between your characters to make everything connect to score the big combo count and chain them together with your finishing strikes.
Speaking of the finishing strikes, I wish they would have made more variety for those moves as every character only has ONE that they use throughout the whole game, which gets boring since at one point you'll have FOUR characters in your party all with the same move! Only Alicia and Rufus get upgrades for their finishers.
The battles also do tend to drag on for a bit, and sometimes the game really forces you to level up and battle against enemies that are seriously stronger than you, to the point that regular enemies can suddenly beat you and end your game! There will also be some cases where if you don't have a certain member in your active party, you'll either be in for a long fight, or your better off running from the fight or just resetting the system and starting over and re-organizing your party! Trust me, if your in a fight where there are certain elemental enemies or a swarm of wasps and you don't have a magician or someone with magic attacks in your party, just run from the fight and put a magic user in your party before going further.
Despite all this, the game isn't really that bad once you figure out the battle system and can tolerate some lengthy battles and the dire need to level up your characters as much as you can and be prepared for every boss fight. You'll be learning from a lot of mistakes your first time through, but weather the storm and you'll be given a visual treat of a story to play through.
Game Ratings:
Graphics - 10
Sound - 8
Gameplay - 7
Lifespan - 8
Overall - 8
I think the graphics and character designs are some of the best I've ever seen on PS2. The actual game characters are used for the cutscenes, and I love the facial expressions they give them during these. The characters and enemies are all amazingly detailed, and the voice acting is mostly in the great category and matches the characters they portray.
The gameplay takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, it can feel like your playing a rhythm game as you find the right combination of moves between your characters to make everything connect to score the big combo count and chain them together with your finishing strikes.
Speaking of the finishing strikes, I wish they would have made more variety for those moves as every character only has ONE that they use throughout the whole game, which gets boring since at one point you'll have FOUR characters in your party all with the same move! Only Alicia and Rufus get upgrades for their finishers.
The battles also do tend to drag on for a bit, and sometimes the game really forces you to level up and battle against enemies that are seriously stronger than you, to the point that regular enemies can suddenly beat you and end your game! There will also be some cases where if you don't have a certain member in your active party, you'll either be in for a long fight, or your better off running from the fight or just resetting the system and starting over and re-organizing your party! Trust me, if your in a fight where there are certain elemental enemies or a swarm of wasps and you don't have a magician or someone with magic attacks in your party, just run from the fight and put a magic user in your party before going further.
Despite all this, the game isn't really that bad once you figure out the battle system and can tolerate some lengthy battles and the dire need to level up your characters as much as you can and be prepared for every boss fight. You'll be learning from a lot of mistakes your first time through, but weather the storm and you'll be given a visual treat of a story to play through.
Game Ratings:
Graphics - 10
Sound - 8
Gameplay - 7
Lifespan - 8
Overall - 8
Labels: PS2
posted by Eric Extreme at 12/18/2006 11:34:00 AM
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