If I had to judge Valhalla Knights by my first hour with it, the game would receive an F. It lacks everything a good RPG needs: story, direction and stability. Within the first six hours of play, it crashed twice and drove me to madness as my repeated attempts at leveling up either resulted in my PSP freezing or my party being wiped out by grossly overpowered enemies. Not a good start, but rather than throwing my PSP across the room and into my big-screen TV, I decided to start the game over.
Our game begins (again) with a battle. A team of unknown adventurers defend the castle from a tyrannosaurus-rex-styled dragon. Your team of overpowered do-gooders, one of which you control, quickly dispatches the creature. I don't know what this scene's purpose is. No important characters are introduced and it's too short for combat training. Anyway, after that disappointing glimpse of things to come, players create their character. You can only choose a human, but other races can be accessed later in the game. In this story (if you could even call it a story), the central character is interchangeable. Whomever you play the most is the star.
Once your character is created, you're transported to an inn where Nior, a voice in your character's head, tells you what to do. But wait, you're broke and can't pay the hotel bill! So your first task is to find gold nuggets in the dungeons for the inn's owner. When you return, your character is free to roam the town. Here is where I give the game credit, Valhalla Knights looks great. From character animations to reflections on marble floors it's PSP eye-candy at its finest. Sound is good too. If you go into the local pub, there's an eruption of ambient noise you'd hear at any local bar. And in dungeons torches burn with the sound of real fire. It's great, but you'll forget about that once the frustration of leveling up sets in.
And a word of advice: don't play as anything else but a fighter when the game starts. My attempt to start as a thief was a failure. Why? Weapons are expensive. Starting as a thief only gives you a knife, which is too weak to fend off most enemies. Any weapon that's not a knife or short sword is expensive. A bow costs 1000 G, arrows cost 5000 G and magic books cost about 300 G. Like the knife, magic spells are also too weak to do any real damage to creatures. Stick with a sword and pump up your character's strength and vitality. Once you get a good base going, and the game stops freezing on you, it gets better.
Because there's no real story to discuss, I'll talk about the character creation system. It's great. Sure you don't have much options on your first character, but beyond him (or her) the possibilities are endless. There are several races to choose from and an equal amount of job classes, some that need to be unlocked. Each race has it's own strengths and weaknesses. Elves, for example, are suited to magic, while dwarves are close-in fighters. You can make a dwarf mage and an elf thief, but you'll be losing out on the heightened stats each race has for another class. That said, only mages have access to damage spells and only priests can heal, so don't equip a healing spell on a fighter and expect it to work. However, each character is entitled to two sub-classes, which can open up the abilities of magic and healing.
This is where Valhalla Knights starts to feel like Pokémon. You start to build your party and you want everything. You want an archer for ranged attacks, you want a mage to heal, you want a mage to attack, you want a priest, but the reality is you only have six character party slots to fill. That seems like a lot but it's not. You can never have enough firepower. I built my party around my healing mage/priest. To her left is an archer and her right, a battle mage. In front of her I had a thief and two fighters. Whichever character you don't play is programmable to react a certain way in combat. By distributing Thought Points, your character will either focus on physical attacks, magic attacks, support, healing or a combination of things. This adds a level of strategy to the game. How you arrange your party on the field and program them plays a big part in how battles resolve.
Bottom Line:
Despite the looks and depth of the battle system, Valhalla Knights is disappointing, which is sad because the game had potential. It's visually stunning but technically flawed. So what's my recommendation? If you find Valhalla Knights in the $9.99 bin, think about it. If someone gifts it to you, smile. But please don't spend $40 on it.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 4.0 |
Posted: 2007-06-13 21:23:04 PST