In the snow that falls after the battle, the Valkyrie takes her chosen fallen to Valhalla. In their place, a single plume from her wing, a reminder to their families that their loved one fought and died bravely. Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume is quite different than you would expect from its Norse mythology beginnings. Even though the spirit of the series is retained, is it worth your time and money?

Gameplay

This bloodthirsty, mature story doesn’t focus on Lenneth, Valkyrie Profile’s star. Instead, it follows Wylfred, a young warrior who blames the Valkyrie for his father’s death on the battlefield. Wyl is so desperate for revenge he is soon enlisted by the devil, the Norse Underworld God Hel, who is quick to offer what this young warrior desires most, to slay the Valkyrie. To accomplish this feat, Wyl must sacrifice his friends and allies to satisfy the Battle Maiden’s cursed plume, the symbol of his covenant. It’s a creative spin on the anti-hero and plays out well here.


The game plays like most SRPG’s; by alternating from battle to story sequences, but the battle system is what stands out here. Battles play out using turn-based mechanics over a 3-D grid. Each character can have their attack linked to one of the face buttons, which you can assign before you go into battle as you will often have more than four characters in your arsenal. In an interesting twist, team-up attacks are at the forefront here. Despite only having four characters on the battlefield, any ally in the vicinity can join in and help out. This means characters can attack several times in one turn. This makes how you move of great importance. For example, attacking from behind can stun your opponent and surrounding your enemies in specific patterns to perform sieges can grant various bonuses.

The series constant quest for blood to power the cursed plume through the use of sin was quite refreshing especially on a platform like the DS. This deal Wyl has made with Hel not only plays out in the plot, which branches out based on your decisions, but also on the battlefield. The cursed Valkyrie plume Wyl carries with him, must be satiated with sin, which may be earned one of two ways, overkill, attacking a dead enemy player for the sheer pleasure in it, or invoke the cursed plume, killing your ally, and friend at the end of the battle. The game pretty much lets you use the cursed plume whenever you would like, but I feel it encourages you to use overkill more than the cursed plume, favouring strategy.

The game’s sin requirement never felt impossible to reach. At the same time, if I even felt I might not reach my sin requirement, I could invoke the plume, which would automatically reach my sin requirement. This made the sin requirement feel rather easy to reach to me, but then again I had to keep in mind that if I was too aggressive and bloodthirsty, I might run out of allies. Mind you there is a penalty should you not meet you’re sin amount, but even when I tried to not meet the sin requirement, I found myself still meeting it. There are enough enemies on the battlefield that you should have no trouble. When you meet or exceed the sin requirement, you’ll be rewarded with gifts.

There were a couple disappointments’ that made the game feel like a PSP port. The first was the lack of stylus support. While the game really didn’t need it, for a DS game, I was surprised that there was no stylus integration. Seriously, you can put the stylus away here because it will never be used, not even a little bit. I was also surprised that most of the game took place in the bottom window. It made the game feel like a port from the PSP instead of a DS game.

As far as gameplay complaints, some battlefields are so small they force you to sacrifice someone, instead of giving you the choice. While I can understand the decision, it also detracts from idea that it’s the player’s choice. I also noticed that some story and battle sequences failed to provide a save spot. This is exceptionally frustrating because the nice part about a handheld is to be able to play a little of the game while travelling, then save and put it away. But there’s many places where this might be a hindrance. To be forced through three fights while watching and reading through three stories, not to mention the last fight is exceptionally hard unless you use the plume, it’s kind of ridiculous.


As for the AI, it wasn’t very aggressive and often hung back on the battlefield. In fact, I discovered early on how to lure AI characters out one at a time and easily overtake them racking up my overkill points. While I understand that people believed in the Valkyrie back when they used flowery language as used here, it seems kind of silly in the 21st Century to be reading words like “nae”, “hence” and “henceforth.” An old teacher of mine always said, “Unless we’re in England, I’m not expecting an English accent.” Well, we’re not in Old Norse times; I’m not expecting their language either. Another thing I found odd was that the game had no real path around the world. One minute I was at one end, and then I was at the other end with mixed stops near the middle that zigzag’s back and forth as well. While the story helped out here, I think moving some of the locations around would have help add cohesion for the overall game.

Graphics and Sound

The opening cinematic is amazing. We don’t see graphics like this often on a DS and it’s very pleasing to see. Once you get further into the game, player characters use the same three graphics to show a range of emotions. While I understand the reason for this, at the same time, it does get a little annoying after a while. On the other hand, I cannot knock them for their artistic quality. Despite this being the DS, and the size of the characters on the field, I know who is who immediately. Each character has both a larger 2D and small 3D render of themselves. The larger 2D characters are meant for storytelling, while the smaller 3D characters are used for battlefield movement.

My only complaint is that some of the models looked exactly the same regardless if they were used for men or women. I understand that especially in Japanese RPG’s, there is a unisex element to the characters. Still the character models for Darius, a man, and Natalia a woman, are the same. The hair  and features for Darius are too effeminine that I admit I was taken aback when read on screen that Darius was a guy.


Sounds are mostly background music and while they are well done it does get repetitive after a while, but that’s okay they’re in the background. Sound effect sound entirely too 8-bit though. I would have liked a little less of a digital sound from them. We also get some voice-overs, which like all JRPG’s, are character victory mantras at the end of battle. These are delivered well and each one is unique. In a surprising twist, we hear a voice-over for when Wyl invokes the Plume. This is an enchanting spell that entices you to invoke the plume more often, but if we did that, we’d be out of allies wouldn’t we?

Value

There’s a huge replay value here as the game treat’s you to several different endings depending on which allies survive in the end. While there is no Multiplayer here, the game definitely doesn’t need it. You and your friends can share your journeys together, discovering which allies you’ve chosen to off. By visiting taverns, you can find all kinds of interesting lore to discover that will unlock side quests. The plot branches out according to your decisions, which will keep you coming back again and again for hours and hours of fun.

Conclusion

Thanks to alternate endings, multiple plot paths, side quest, and the dark twist of sacrificing friends, there’s a lot here to keep you happy with hours of fun. Square Enix has introduced an interesting concept to their Valkyrie Profile concept and I hope they continue to think outside the box when it comes to reimagining their franchise games.