This Review is for the Ported version Of VP for psp. Not the ps1 version.
Story: 10/10
The prologue opens up with a girl named Platina, who is friends with a boy named Lucian. Platina's parents never treat her with kindness. One day, men in black suits show up at her house. Platina is curious to find out who they were and what their business was, but only gets scolded by her mother. Later that night, Lucian appears by her bedroom window and tells her to run away with him, that the men in black were actually at her house to buy her from her parents. A similar event happened with Lucian as well; Men in black showed up at his house, and the next day, his sister was gone. After her mother stumbles in and yells at Lucian, Platina finally gives in and runs away with Lucian. They end up stumbling across a weeping lily field, which Platina loves the sight of, but ends up inhaling the weeping lily pollen which is severely deadly. Although the main story is focused on Platina and Lucian, there are many more characters who you recruit, which transform into more episodes of the fantastic story.
When you actually start the game, it shows Lenneth in a field of flowers. Her opening words, "How nostalgic..." instantly indicate that she is Platina. She walks over to the Lord Odin's castle in Valhalla, where she gets informed that a war with the Vanir will break out. She then gets transformed into the Valkyrie. Her job is now to go to Midgard (world of Humans) and recruit lost souls (aka, Einherjar) to fight in Asgard (the world of gods) against the Vanir.
Gameplay: 10/10
The game is dividing into Chapters and Periods. There are 8 Chapters in the game where the length of periods in the chapters depends on what difficulty you are playing on. If you are playing on Easy, you get 16 periods per chapter. Normal gets 24 while Hard gets 28. As soon as all periods are consumed, the chapter concludes and you go onto the Sacred Phase, which is updates on the war in Asgard. After the Sacred Phase, a new chapter begins. You consume periods by Spiritual Concentrations (2 periods), going into a dungeon (2 periods), going into a town (1 period), or resting (as many periods as you want to rest until all periods are used up).
At the end of each Sacred Phase, Freya (servant to Odin) asks you to find an Einherjar with specific class, skills, and hero values to send to Asgard. It is then your duty to find an Einherjar that would fit her description. You also get Materialize Points which are used to create items, and if you pleased the Lord Odin with your Einherjar, you will get bonus artifacts (items) from him. You find Einherjar and dungeons by performing Spiritual Concentrations on the world map. After each Spiritual Concentration, it will show you the location of that Einherjar or dungeon. You can get two to three Einherjar per chapter and one to four dungeons per chapter, depending on what chapter it is.
You then have to train that Einherjar to increase their hero value to where it is suitable for Freya. You gain hero value by increasing levels (+2 Hero Value per level) and increasing their traits, which you can do on the skills section in the main menu. Traits use capacity points, and you gain capacity points with each level up. You can increase their good skills and decrease their bad skills for an overall increase in hero value. It is best to just max out all of the traits for the Einherjar. Also, Einherjar need to be properly equipped for Asgard. If they are not well equipped or/and/or has a dramaticly lower hero value than asked for, there is a high chance that the Einherjar will die in Asgard, and you can't play as them again in the final chapter. Once your Einherjar is ready, you transfer them to Asgard through the main menu. After all periods are consumed and the chapter ends, the Sacred Phase begins and you get an overall update of the war and you can also check on how your Einherjar are doing. In Asgard, they participate in non-playable events, but you can watch text overviews, explaining what they did and if it was a victory or a defeat.
The game is set in a 2D environment, where you can walk and run around towns and dungeons, moving to the rear or to the front by just pressing up or down at certain spots, like pathways and staircases.
There are no random battles in this game. It's kind of like Chrono Cross where you see the enemy roaming about and you can choose to battle it or not. A battle initiates when you touch the enemy with yourself or if you brandish your sword and your sword touches the enemy. If your sword touches the enemy, you get the first turn of the battle. If direct contact happens, the first turn is random, but if you happen to get the first turn, your AP (action points) are reduced by 1. What this means is basically you have to wait until your next turn to do what you would normally do in a fight (cast magics or use special attacks).
In battle, you can have up to four characters fight. Each character is assigned a button; Circle, Cross, Triangle, and Square, the four main buttons on the right side of a playstation controller. You can adjust these to your liking but it doesn't really change anything on what positions they are in. You trigger an attack by pressing the corresponding button they are in. For example, if Lenneth is assigned to Square, you press the Square button to make her attack. Of course attacking is not that simple.
Sound 9/10
The music in this game is amazing, especially the battle theme. I actually put headphones into my PSP just to listen to the sound up close to my ears. The music is beautifully cast and is polished to perfection.
This game also delivers voice acting. Each character has their own respective voice, unique and whatnot. I consider some of the voices annoying and not fitting for some characters, but its a psp game so what the heck..applaud them for actually having some voices.
There is a music collection and a voice collection on the main screen, which is like a sound test room. All more for musical glory.
Graphics: 8/10
For a port of a PSX, this game on the PSP looks incredibly insane, The graphics are smoother and the widescreen setting is just added flavor. In the PSX version of the game, you had animated scenes. In this PSP version, those animated scene have been replaced with real-time computer generated graphics, aka new-sk00l graphics, which is totally insane. If you have a save file with CG scenes from the game, you can view them through the movie gallery on the main screen.
Final Review: 9/10
In the end, for a ps1 port of a very expensive games( go to amazon and you will see prices around 100 for this game, even more now). That this game is still a classic and needs to be played, its a unnoticed gem in this rpg world
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