Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria (Sony PlayStation 2, 2006)

After having played Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth not too long ago, I decided to purchase the prequel

This game is on par with the first one, there are several different things,

First, the way of "Freezing" the enemy has changed, in this game, the first "photon" you shoot (Used to be crystals) halts the enemy like in the last, but if you shoot a second one you teleport with the enemy. This helps give the game harder puzzles to solve. Also, you can not shoot the photons on the ground to use a stand, nor on walls. And you cannot break it to create a dust step.

The story telling is much better as far as i've gotten now. Nice cutscenes and a main cast of characters, although the Einherjar only say one phrase when you recruit them, tends to pull them out of the story.

The battle system is now in 3d, you can run up to your opponents and use the same button to face commands as in the other, or you can split your groups to take advantage of their weak points.
There is also a new Leader setup, If you defeat the leader of the enemies the rest will flee. The faster you kill the leader, the better the rewards (Item, Exp)
Overall, the battles are much tougher then the first. Don't expect to run slashing on bosses with nothing to fear.

Items can no longer be made from the inventory, you must now buy them in shops in town. You also get "Special" items if you sell the necessary materials for the shop keeper to make them. But to see the item, first you need to make purchases to increase your patronage.

Skills are now learned through items, instead of Cpoints. You can only have a limited number of skills equipped at a time.

There is a new feature, they are sealstones, there are stands where you can put them on, or you can hold them on your character for different attributes, let's say a sealstone gives +50% fire damage. If it's on the "dias" the enemies will gain the 50% damage. If you are holding it, you gain the 50% damage.
You can not bring these stones out of dungeons, but you can restore them to "Yggdrasil" and take them out in another dungeon, there is a cost though, Magic Crystals. This prevents you from restoring all of them and creating your own strategy through the game.

There must be a lot I havn't said.

~Overall this game has it's ups and downs compared to the first. The story telling seems better as far as i've gotten now.
~The battles are about on par or a little better.
~The gameplay while "exploring" seems a tad to slow for me, I liked the very fast pace of the first.
~The new features are definitely a plus.

I score this game.
Gameplay 8/10
Battles 9/10 (Note: I refer as gameplay the "exploring" part of the game
Sound 7/10
Graphics 8/10
Story 9/10

Overall: 8.2 Great game! A buyer

I have played Valkyrie 2 before and it was a lot of fun so I decided to buy it myself. The cutscenes are my favorite because of the beautiful graphic and also the gameplay itself is strong in that point. There are several main characters that you keep playing, and the so called einherjar, spirits that you'll find in weapons along your way, who (if you want to) can join your party and be helpful until a certain lvl, but even beyond the "Free LvL"(which means you've made them strong enough to release them so they start living again as humans) you can keep them, although I haven't figured out yet if it's really wise to do so. Your characters have attacks that you have to synchronize smartly, otherwise you might have one character throwing your enemy into the air while the other one was trying to hit him with a downwards attack! So think when you set the following attacks. Then there are skills that can be learned by equipping certain itemgroups, if you remove a necessary item in a combination, you might lose the skill, but be alert to combine items to skills that fit the characters specialties. You collect items during your battles check at the armory at some point if you have the necessary ones for special equipment that you can put together to upgrade your character's strength etc. As every game in this genre it takes a while to get through it especially if you just play it every once in a while when you've got time, thus I haven't gotten through it yet, but I can't wait to see what happens next! I recommand this game to everyone who likes to see beautiful graphics (don't miss out on the special attacks look at all at them at least once!), neat detailed surroundings and action in battle.
I think this should be enough for now.
Enjoy!

I must say I awaited this title eagerly. Though it is not what I expected, it still is an excellent game.

Levelling up is a bit monotonous and time consuming. This is the only problem I have with this game, because I am the type of player who loves to level up and make sure I am just a bit higher level than the upcoming boss. Though I have the patience to level up in games, this one takes considerably longer than most.

The game is beautifully rendered! The characters and scenery are breathtaking. The battle system is pretty easy to master, and easy to use. Character/skill building is unique and took a while to figure out, but is easy, once you get the hang of it - perhaps a guide book would be handy. This is one of the few games I have not purchased a strategy guide for, and am still considering doing that.

Overall, I am very pleased with the game. I believe "novice" rpg-ers will find this easy to learn and fun to play through. The scenery, story line and C.G. segments make it well worth playing on their own. The 2-D based dungeons are not bad once you get into them. The boss battles are well balanced and beautiful. Definitely give this one a try!

Valkyrie profile's 2 backgrounds and character designs are wonderfully detailed and exceptionally beautiful. The voice acting for the main characters are very well done and the storyline is enjoyable.

The world itself is side scrolling but don't believe that make's it easy to explore. Your ability to freeze enemies in crystals and teleport with those crystal are critical to aquiring some items and it can require quite a lot of thought.

The battles themselves are three dimensional and extremely enjoyable as it allows you to out manuver your enemies. Of course if you don't watch what you're doing you can easily end up in a trap.

My only problem with the game is that certain party members leave the group. Five of which when you regain them don't have the level they left with. Whether or not the level is higher or lower depends on what level you had at the time. In my case I had this particular character up to level seventy seven when she left the party. Suffice to say I was very angry when she came back as a level fifty.

This Game Was Pretty Good When I First Read The Battle System I Didn't Think I Would Like The Game. But Man After The First Fight I Got Hooked! The Plot Is Pretty Good As Well And The Graphics Excellent As Expected Of Square Enix. The Fighting System Reminds Me Of A Mixture Final Fantasy XII And Xenosaga II. You Can Run Around In Battles And You Can Break parts Of Enemies So you Can Get Certain Items Off Of Which Part Of The Enemy You Want To Break.