Dragon Ball Z: Super Saiya Densetsu

Super Saiya Densetsu for the Super Famicom is actually a remake of two Famicom games - Dragon Ball Z: Kyōshū! Saiyan and Dragon Ball Z II: Gekishin Freeza, combined into one title with the filler elements from the anime removed. This is also a bit of an odd one for me, as while I played those games back in the early days of emulation quite a bit, I never really considered reviewing them on here for whatever reason.  Super Saiya Densetsu is a considerably better experience, though - while the core gameplay is largely unchanged, the animations for attacks are much shorter (they ran upwards of 15 seconds in the original game) and visually it's a much more appealing game, making good use of the Super Famicom's sharper animation and mode 7 effects to capture the dynamic feel of the anime series.  The combat system is based around cards; you can carry up to five at a time, and each has an attack and a defense rating numbered 1-7 or "Z" (representing 10).  Each card also has a symbol - if you match it to a particular Z fighter's fighting style, they'll attack all enemies in the current battle, or do a charge attack against a single enemy for some extra damage.  Choosing a card with the Ki symbol allows that character to do one of their flashy energy attacks from the show (at the cost of some Ki points), while numerous character cards serve as expendable items and grant various advantages.  Restoring varying amounts of HP or Ki, boosting a card's attack or defense (or both) to Z, changing the symbol on said card, or even tossing out your entire hand for a new one.  The game is also faithful to the show, kind of to a fault - Goku is far and away your most powerful character for about 90% of the game, with the rest of the playable characters usually being average at best and useless at worst unless you spend an enormous amount of time grinding random battles to power them up.  Training centers can also boost a character's maximum Ki, though you only get so many "training points" to spend at any given location.  Progression is also pretty linear - while you do get a bit of a chance to explore and find items, train up and places to rest and recuperate, the only real goal for any given area is to grind out some levels, go to the end and fight the boss.  If you're a big fan of Dragon Ball it's probably a game you'll enjoy in spite of its shortcomings (add a half-star to the rating in that case), otherwise you can probably skip it.

Developer: TOSE
Publisher: Bandai
Released: 1992
Platform: Super Famicom

Thousand Arms

One of many RPGs released on the Playstation in the late '90s, Thousand Arms was relatively novel for the time in that it's also something of a dating sim - you build relationships with several women over the course of the game through dialog choices and minigames, which in turn boosts your ability to forge stronger weapons and unlock spells.  The presentation is surprisingly polished for the time as well, transitioning between chibi-style sprites and larger anime-styled animated characters for scenes of dialog (complete with voiceover!).  That said, the rest of the gameplay is rather pedestrian, with a simplistic combat system with one active character and up to two others who mostly support the point character by weakening enemies or bolstering their abilities, and some rather generic dungeons and minigames to fill out the rest of the time.  It's not hard to see why the game has a small but loyal following - after all, it arguably inspired the social sim element of the later Persona games - but it's a bit too simplistic to hold my attention.

Developer: TOSE/RED Entertainment
Publisher: Atlus
Released: 1999
Platforms: PlayStation

Dragon Quest Treasures

A spinoff of the Dragon Quest series starring Erik and Mia from its 11th entry, which as its name implies, is focused heavily around hunting treasures in a large open world.  But does Treasures strike gold, or should it just be left buried?

Dragon Quest, as long running and successful a franchise as it is, is certainly no stranger to spinoff games, running the spectrum from Warriors style beat-em-ups to roguelikes to action platformers centered on the series' signature slimes to a monster collecting spinoff inspired by Pokemon; a bit ironic considering Dragon Quest had recruitable monsters as a mechanic several years before Pokemon was even a thing.

Treasures is another such entry, taking the familiar world of Dragon Quest XI (and starring two of its protagonists) but changing up the gameplay to be an open-world experience focused around completing objectives and hunting for hidden artifacts across a span of several floating islands.  To this end, your two main characters acquire a pair of magic daggers that allow them to procure said treasures, enlist monsters to help them pinpoint exact locations and travel more efficiently, and gradually upgrade their home base by finding loot and recruiting new characters to staff it.

A key component of any open world game, at least in my view, is making it fun to get around; after all, if you're going to be spending a ton of time running around the map, the developers had better put some work into making that aspect enjoyable, otherwise it's just 20+ minutes of empty filler in between each mission. Treasures thankfully does just that - your characters will automatically hop over small obstacles like fences and rocks, and pretty much anything that looks scalable with platforming is.  Recruited monsters aid greatly with this too, with some monsters being ridable to make running around faster (Knights), able to propel you into the air to scale cliffs (Slimes) or even go gliding over significant stretches a la Breath of the Wild (Drackys and other flying monsters).  Others still allow you to simply submerge into the ground, becoming temporarily undetectable to slip past potential dangers or avoid combat.

Combat in the game is pretty simplistic overall - Erik and Mia use their daggers and a slingshot to attack, with the latter having a large variety of pellets to utilize various effects - doing physical and elemental damage, inflicting status effects, healing allies, or even making monsters you shoot with them more likely to be "scouted" after their defeat, and they can hold X to heal using their stock of MP or tap it while moving to dodge.  Your monster allies largely move and act on their own in battles, though you can give general commands to go on an all-out offensive or battle more defensively.  Serviceable, ultimately nothing spectacular; but in a game where the majority of the focus (and experience) is in finishing objectives and treasure hunting, it's excusable.  In fact, the main reason you bother with combat is less for experience and more to gather dropped items or having a chance to "scout" them and make them into a recruitable team member back at your base for a fee (typically a handful of items and/or some gold).  Monsters will also randomly drop Medals, which you can equip on your characters to boost their stats, earning more slots for them as your treasure rank increases.

Treasure hunting itself is pretty cleverly handled.  Holding L and pressing B activates your character's treasure radar, which will point you in the direction of where its' buried.  When you get in close proximity you can pinpoint its location using your monsters' vision, showing where it's at from different angles so you can identify it with landmarks (with cute touches like looking through the slats on the Knight monster's helmet, or having a Ham Shamwich's view blocked by their hat and their nose).  From there, you dig it up and it gets added to your reserves, with one of your monsters carrying it until you're able to return to base and store it in the vault.  Sometimes monsters will drop treasures after taking a heavy blow, and they'll vanish unless you collect them again before too long passes (several minutes, so it's a pretty generous countdown).  You'll also (seemingly randomly) happen across already exposed dig spots with minor treasures called "Bric-a-Bracs" that reward less XP and gold for your vault, but finding enough of them does add up over time.  

There's a bit more to it than that, though.  Party composition, time of day and a few other factors determine each island's "golden ratio", the chance to find treasures there, so you can change up your party and try later if the prospects in an area are pretty bad.  On the other hand, a ratio of 100% is pretty ridiculous - you can barely go 30 yards without finding another bric-a-brac.  Which makes it kind of a shame that you can only carry 6-10 treasures at a time depending on your party composition.

As you complete missions and upgrade your base, you'll also add several new amenities.  These include being able to cook meals that temporarily boost your allies' stats, craft any of the many pellet types available from collected items, or even send out teams of up to three monsters on expeditions - basically they go out and gather items for you on trips that last 30 minutes or more, and they may even bring back some treasures under the right conditions.  Once a certain point in the story is reached, rival treasure hunters will become a more constant gameplay element, attempting to ambush you in the field and steal your treasures or raid your base - you can do the same back to them, however, so it's a fun dynamic.

Dragon Quest Treasures is a fun little romp - an open world lootfest adventure with some creative mechanics and the endless charm that the series has had as its trademark for three decades.  You have to be a Dragon Quest fan to get the most out of it (and appreciate the enormous encyclopedia of references to be found in the goodies you uncover), but for series enthusiasts, it's a quite fun time.  Oh, and mute the voices - I got so annoyed by my monsters constantly repeating the same three phrases over and over again every few seconds that I had little choice to continue playing.

Developer: TOSE
Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: Switch
Released: 2022
Recommended Version: N/A

Front Mission 1st: Remake

Square's Front Mission has been a pretty popular franchise in Japan since the days of the Super Famicom, but never attained anywhere near the same level of success in North America; it got releases on PS1, PS2 and DS, though sales ranged from just passable to abysmal (with the DS remake of 1 only selling a reported 60,000 copies worldwide).  I was surprised they'd make another attempt at localizing it after that, but Front Mission 1st Remake was released as a digital-only Switch exclusive.  It's a remake of the PS1 version of the original game, which includes a bonus campaign viewed from the opposite side of the war.  The core gameplay stays basically the same regardless of your story path, though - you command a squad of customizable mechs in turn-based tactical combat across various maps and terrain types.  Your mech's limbs take damage individually from the body, though you're only rendered inoperable if the body is destroyed - losing arms disables weapons, while having your legs disabled will stop you from moving until they're repaired.  There doesn't seem to be any way to target specific body parts though, so having limbs disabled or just straight crushing an opponent (or getitng crushed) comes down to luck of the roll.  Mecha fans may also be disappointed by the fact that there's not a particularly realistic damage model - "the only hit point that matters is the last one" so to speak.  It's got a pretty decent story and plenty of customization options for your mechs, but the overall gameplay is pretty ho-hum; nothing inherently wrong with it, but not much stands out either.  A game worth a try for RPG historians, or just those who never got a chance to check out the series before, but it doesn't have too much to offer to serious mech combat fans other than a different hemisphere's perspective on the genre in the timeframe of the '90s (compare this to say, Mechwarrior 2, which came out the same year as the original version for MS-DOS).

Developer: G-Graft, Studio Clips, Tom Create, Square Enix, TOSE, Forever Entertainment
Publisher: Square Enix, Forever Entertainment
Platform: Super Famicom, Wonderswan Color, Playstation, Nintendo DS, Switch
Released: 1995, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2022

Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation

The third of the Dragon Warrior games and one that's held in regard as a classic by series fans.  But does Dragon Quest III still prove a worthwhile adventure today, or is this just another one for the history books and little else?

Dragon Quest was huge in Japan and still is today, continuing to get numerous spinoffs and sequels and having surprisingly few changes to its core gameplay despite leaps in technology.  It was not nearly as big in the west, though that didn't stop Enix from localizing three more games on the 8-bit systems alone, and while they may not have been hugely popular (particularly compared to the likes of Zelda), they nevertheless attracted a sizable following.

Dragon Quest III is regarded as one of the best RPGs on the NES platform by many, though, and it isn't hard to see why.  Taking the polished design of the previous two Dragon Quest games and incorporating some elements of the Final Fantasy series into the mix, it managed to introduce some replay value to its format on top of the lengthy adventure it already provided.  It even had a pretty clever twist at the end to tie it into its two predecessor games, though I won't give that away here.

The most significant addition to Dragon Quest III was that it contained a Final Fantasy styled class system.  While the main character themself has a fixed "hero" class, they could visit the guild hall and recruit up to three allies of any class they chose, letting them customize their party for the adventure ahead.  Several of these have direct equivalents to Final Fantasy classes - Soldier is basically equivalent to the Fighter, for example, wielding heavy weapons and armor but being unable to cast spells, while the Pilgrim casts healing spells, similar to the White Mage.  A few are unique, though, like the Merchant class; in addition to being decent fighters, they cause enemies to drop extra items and gold after a party victory, and in the remakes, even get some useful supportive skills like being able to call shops in the field and dig to find random items or money.  A class of dubious value in itself is the "Goof-off" or "Jester", which is a weak class that can randomly decide to take no actions during battle, making them unreliable and not particularly useful; however, they do have high Luck and are the only class that can upgrade to the powerful Sage class without requiring a special item, so keeping one around can be very beneficial in the long run.  Later ports of the game also add the Thief class, who again serves a powerful supportive role, letting the party steal items from enemies as well as temporarily disable encounters and find hidden treasures.

Later ports of the game also add much in the way of new content.  Not only are visual and music greatly overhauled, but much more is added to the gameplay, too.  More than 80 pieces of equipment are added, many of which are tied to finding hidden medals throughout the game world.  Bonus dungeons are added with many new monsters to battle and treasures to find, and the player can now search bookshelves, pots, barrels and the like to find hidden goodies.  Probably the most significant change, though, is that each character now has a "personality" based on a starting quiz which affects their stats, raising some and lowering others by a small percentage.  Some items and accessories found throughout the game can temporarily or permanently alter a character's personality as well, letting the player tweak the party to get more mileage out of their innate abilities.

The core gameplay of Dragon Quest remains essentially the same despite these changes, though - simplistic, turn-based action is the order of the day here.  It also thankfully is not nearly as grindy as its predecessors, though I still found myself hitting a brick wall boss at times and having to break away and level up for a few hours before I could beat them.  This got particularly frustrating toward the end, as I had to spend almost a full day of time farming Metal Slimes to get experience and levels so that I could stand a chance against the final boss.  This may have been addressed in some of the later ports as well (I mostly played the NES version), but I still found it to be a frustrating ordeal.

Despite that, though, I can't deny that this is probably the best of all the Dragon Quest games I've played.  It added some new twists on the format and lets the player customize their party to their liking, giving it an edge over most other RPGs of the era and some pretty good replayability.  The overall length of the journey, plus the amount of grinding and frequent encounter rate, make it one I wasn't overly keen on revisiting, though I imagine this situation is better in the remakes with some of the improvements made to them there.   Regardless, Dragon Quest III is a solid 80's RPG and worth a look for any serious genre fan.

Developer: Chunsoft, Heartbeat, TOSE, Matrix Software
Publisher: Enix
Platform: NES, Super Famicom, Game Boy Color, Mobile, Android, iOS, Switch
Released: 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2009, 2014, 2017, 2019
Recommended Version:  The remakes all have a lot more to offer in terms of content and game balance, though there isn't really a clear consensus on which is the best as they all offer some exclusive content of their own.  The Super Famicom and Game Boy Color versions do seem to have the best value for your dollar though, in the form of a new minigame ("Pachisi") that can affect your characters' stats, animations for monsters and some extra music tracks.  However, the GBC version is the only one of the two that is (officially) available in English; this version also adds a new playable class (the Thief) and some exclusive side content in the form of the Medal Album and a new optional dungeon and boss.

World of Final Fantasy

Released to celebrate the Final Fantasy franchise's 30th anniversary, World of Final Fantasy is one one part fantasy RPG, one part Pokemon-style monster trainer game.  But does it provide enough content and depth to stand tall in the worlds of two RPG giants, or does it simply tip over and crash?

It seems that sooner or later every long-running series gets a celebratory fan service game, and Final Fantasy is certainly no different in that regard; in fact, it's had several.  But while some are mediocre (Final Fantasy IV: The After Years) and others are downright disgraceful (All The Bravest), World of Final Fantasy sets out to do something unique.

The game still does utilize quite a few of the familiar Final Fantasy elements - right from the get-go, you'll be seeing numerous familiar monsters, moogles, chocobos and quite  a few music cues, settings and characters from earlier Final Fantasies.  At its core, though, the story is a unique one, starring two new protagonists (a brother and sister named Lann and Reynn) and following an original story as they traverse the world of Grymoire.  It is built on a familiar archetype, though - Many of the inhabitants of this world are chibi-styled "Lillikins", while the antagonists are primarily more humanoid characters called "Jiants" who conquer the land via their ability to control Mirages (monsters), and seemingly only the protagonists have the power to stand against them.

This leads into the first major gameplay change; namely that it's a Pokemon-styled monster collection and training game.  Monsters encountered in battle can be captured and added to the player's party via a mechanic called 'Imprisming' when they are reduced to a vulnerable state.  Unlike Pokemon, however, this isn't simply limited to weakening them through battle and hoping the dice land in your favor; instead, each type of monster you encounter has differing ways in which they can be made vulnerable to an Imprism.  Often this means using a particular attack or element type on them, but it can also have slightly more obscure conditions, such as having them be the last hostile monster standing, reflecting their magic spells, using mutiple attack types, or even healing them first.  The Libra spell, which identifies monster stats, weaknesses and Imprison conditions, remains a very valuable asset throughout the game.

The game's interface is somewhat simplified too.  By default, combat utilizes a more efficient command menu with four shortcut commands mappable to each monster, and the player can quickly select from individual shortcut menus via the D-pad (though if this menu isn't to your liking, the traditional-styled menu can also be made the default in the game's options).  Combat itself retains the franchise's familiar Active Time Battle system too, so those used to the 90's-era Final Fantasy games will feel right at home.

Mirages' ability pools are similar to the skill trees seen in Kingdom Hearts 3D, with monsters gaining AP as their levels increase,which they can then spend to unlock nodes on their respective grids in order to boost stats, gain new abilities or evolve to stronger forms.  The two protagonists, on the other hand, have something slightly more akin to Final Fantasy VII's Materia system; they have no abilities of their own, but can equip "Mirajewels" that grant them spells and abilities, with more slots being unlocked as their levels increase and certain tasks are completed.

Some creative new mechanics quickly show themselves too, though.  The most prominent of these is Stacking; basically, you stack up to three of your characters atop one another, which effectively combines their stats and move pools into a single, stronger whole. Though you get fewer turns doing this, a stack is much more resilient and versatile than its component characters, making this an invaluable strategy for surviving tough battles.  However, if a stack takes too many hits in a battle, they can be tipped over, forcibly separating the stack into its component characters until the player recombines them or wins the battle.  Enemies are also frequently found in stacks and get similar bonuses when they do so, which adds another layer of strategy to things.  It is a frequent problem, though, that huge groups of smaller enemies will almost always topple your towers after only a turn or two of combat due to getting so many more turns in than you, which often gets you into a drawn-out and frustrating loop of getting knocked over and dizzied, then trying to rebuild your towers and clear them out before they peck you to death.

The gameplay itself is primarily aimed at a younger audience, and as a result features relatively simple dungeon designs and puzzles.  That said, there are still numerous optional quests with items to find, shortcuts to discover and plot threads with classic Final Fantasy characters to experience to keep things engaging for more experienced players.  Many NPCs have the usual assortment of fetch and monster-hunt quests, while some monsters have abilities that can uncover hidden items or pathways -having a Mirage with the Wander ability in the party in certain environments can allow them to uncover secret items that otherwise would not be accessible, while having one with Flight allows the party to move over small gaps they otherwise couldn't, for example.  Most dungeons also contain at least one special switch, which can open new paths if certain conditions are met.  Most often, this entails building stacks with certain requirements, such as having a Weight of at least 8 and statistics (such as elemental resistances) above a certain value.  These are rarely required to progress, but often lead to secret areas with useful items, so it is worth collecting monsters to see what each one contains.

Befitting the colorful storybook style of the visuals and the more accessible gameplay, World of Final Fantasy's tone aims to be lighthearted and fun above all else.  To that end, the protagonists' interactions are often silly, with Lann coming off as generally moronic and Reynn as the long-suffering 'straight man' of the pair.  Dialog with other characters is equally silly, with countless references and puns and a self-aware tone that even breaks the fourth wall at times.  It can get to be a bit much over long play sessions, but I found most of the humor to work surprisingly well, especially as the voiceover in the game perfectly captures the timing of jokes and is well-acted enough not to get grating.  The localization and voice over teams really did an outstanding job here, and it's more than a bit ironic that a spinoff game built for a younger crowd does a much better job with these elements than most of the main-line Final Fantasy games.

World of Final Fantasy is an homage game at its core, but does much to set itself apart from others in that category.  Its Pokemon-styled collection-oriented gameplay gives it a lot of content, the writers do a very respectable job in creating a humorous tone, and the story, while simple at its core, provides enough fan service and twists to keep both long-time series fans and more casual RPG players invested.  So whether you're a series veteran or a relative newcomer, World of Final Fantasy is one that should keep you hooked for a while.

Developer: TOSE, Square Enix Business Division 3
Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: Playstation 4, Playstation Vita, PC, Switch, XBox One
Released: 2016, 2017, 2018
Recommended version: All versions of the game seem to be pretty much identical, but I would recommend getting one of the updated "Maxima" versions if possible; these add many new features and gameplay tweaks over the base versions, as well as numerous new cameos and quests to experience.  This is available as a DLC upgrade for the PC and PS4 versions, but comes as a free inclusion on the XBox One and Switch versions of the game.

Valkyrie Profile

Valkyrie Profile was Tri-Ace's first attempt to break away from their Star Ocean franchise and try a new style of gameplay that combined elements of action, platforming and fighting games into the RPG formula.  But does Valkyrie Profile succeed in doing so, or is it just a game that, like Star Ocean, tries to do too much and ultimately collapses under its own weight?

Tri-Ace was, at least in the '90s, a relatively unknown company.  Consisting of developers who split from Wolf Team (who would later be absorbed by Namco and create the Tales series), they made a splash in Japan with Star Ocean, a game which utilized an action-oriented combat system and even had some digitized voice samples, as well as a small dating sim element (with different scenes throughout the game and endings appearing depending on the player's affinity with the rest of the cast).  Star Ocean 2 would later be released in North America, keeping the same general idea while also adding in an Elder Scrolls-esque crafting system, and while Star Ocean 2 was only a modest success, it drew a loyal fanbase with its combination of eastern and western elements and significant replay value.

Valkyrie Profile was Tri-Ace's next effort, which once again attempted to combine some elements of sidescrolling platformers and western RPGs into the mix - missions and recruitable characters were randomized each playthrough, and many enemies in the game could only be reasonably damaged by utilizing certain weapon or spell types (more than a little reminiscent of games like Dungeons and Dragons).  The game's combat system was also a significant departure for an RPG, combining some elements of a fighting game into a turn-based system.  Each of the four characters (Einherjar) in the party is mapped to one of the four face buttons, and pressing that button in combination with the D-pad will cause them to use one of three different attacks.  However, with properly timed attacks, one can create some impressive combinations, earning damage multipliers as the combo grows longer.  A power bar is also present, allowing the player to unleash a character's super move at the end of a combo that adds a large amount of extra damage and hits.  Considering that there are a grand total of 21 characters to utilize and it's impossible to see all of them in a single playthough, this adds quite a bit of depth and visual flair to the game and is easily its strongest aspect.

Other aspects of the game are less well-handled.  As mentioned, story events and dungeons in the game are not fixed, but instead randomly awarded to the player by pressing Start on the map screen.  These random events often lead to a new character, but other times may just be a randomly-generated dungeon with enemies that tend to be far above the player's level and can wipe out the party in an instant.  In an ill-advised way to offset this, the player is occasionally given (or can buy) weapons that can instantly kill some stronger enemy types (the Dragon Sword, for example, will do massive damage to Dragons); however, these have a high chance to break each time you use them, which quickly leaves you high and dry or burning through your extremely limited currency in short order.

Not aiding these matters either is the fact that one is given only a set amount of random events per each chapter, and once they've gone through three or four, they are basically left with nothing to do (even level up) for the rest of the period. There aren't any extra dungeons that are always available, and towns seem to have no purpose whatsoever as townspeople do not divulge important clues nor sell any useful items.  Several times I found myself getting stuck in the later chapters because randomly-awarded missions in earlier chapters didn't give me enough experience to survive my way through, even though I went to the trouble of killing every enemy I encountered.  Limiting the experience one can gain is never something I like in an RPG, and Valkyrie Profile is one of the big reasons why - when paired with its random events, it's completely up to luck whether you do well in the next chapter or fall behind and get slaughtered by any random battle you run across.  This only gets compounded further in Hard Mode, where the starting levels of all Einherjar are all set to 1, requiring the player to get them caught up in order to make them a viable fighting force (not the easiest thing when they're so weak that basically any enemy attack will kill them instantly).  Even Event Experience (awarded to the player after defeating a boss, which they can then distribute among their party any way they wish) doesn't really help much with this.

Further compounding this frustration is the backstory, which dictates that you train your characters and then send them to fight in Ragnarok; this permanently removes them from the party, denying you access to their skills for the rest of the game.  Simply not doing this isn't an option, either, as if the war starts going too poorly you'll get into a fight with Freya, and whether you win or lose, the game ends right then and there with the worst ending.  Making things worse is that the path to the good ending renders the war entirely meaningless from a story perspective, which only leaves me wondering why this mechanic exists when all it does is actively hinder your experience and trick you into wasting valuable resources.

The best ending is itself another detriment to the game; in order to reach it, one needs to acquire a specific "Seal Rating" at a very specific juncture in the game, send a specific Einheirjar (one of the very few that a player is guaranteed to get in a given playthrough) at a specific time, take specific items out of "forbidden" chests they've been thoroughly warned away from by that point,  and win out against a rather tough late-game boss; if any of these cues are missed, they are locked into either the neutral or bad endings.  Worse, the game provides absolutely no clues for any of this, all but requiring the player to have a guide handy if they want to get through it; to say nothing of being strong enough to beat the boss, which is completely up to a roll of the dice.  But even if one does all of that correctly, the final boss gauntlet is absolutely, insanely difficult to overcome - I still to this day have never beaten that dragon that spews gouts of flame that do enough to wipe out my entire party in a single turn.

But of course, the developers (and their fans) are all too eager to tell you that it's your fault, not the game's, when it fails to give you enough experience to level up.  And that there is an item crafting system in the game.  And that it's so obtuse and badly-explained that it basically requires another guide in itself.  And, of course, that you need to use the ice crystal ability in the platforming segments in an extremely specific way to create ice towers to reach high treasure chests that are either positioned far out of reach or offscreen entirely, so you'd never know they were there unless you went to the trouble of exploring every innocuous nook and cranny for valuable items, which are apparently your only chance of victory in the final gauntlet.  Maybe that's fun to you, but I certainly don't enjoy basically having to cheat in order to complete a game; no thanks.

So the game is badly balanced and almost entirely up to chance, but surely the storyline makes the constant resetting and restarting worth it, right?  Tee hee, no.  Of course not.  There's very little in the way of development for any character other than the main one (Valkyrie Lenneth herself), and what little there is only shows up in the opening cinematics, sporadically through the guaranteed story scenes, and at the very end of the A Ending path, which, as mentioned, requires the player to jump through tons of ridiculous and obscure hoops to reach.  And when you finally get there, it's short, unsatisfying and doesn't answer any of the big questions in the story.  So no, not even Valkyrie Profile's story can save it, nor make it worth the effort to play.  It's not aided by some laughably bad voiceover or cheaply-animated anime cutscenes, either.

When all is said and done, Valkyrie Profile was a major letdown.  While it makes a strong first impression with its dazzling visual effects, amazing music, creative combat system and unconventional mechanics, it doesn't take long before one realizes that completing the game is essentially a matter of memorizing a player's guide and being extremely lucky in order to be strong enough to face the final trials.  That, paired with the lack of a decent storyline or memorable characters, made this just another bad Tri-Ace game that I had no interest in completing.  But at least it never crashed on me or corrupted data on my memory card, unlike their other big game of the time (THANKS, STAR OCEAN 2).

Developer: Tri-Ace, TOSE
Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: Playstation 1, Playstation Portable
Released: 2000, 2006
Recommended version: The Playstation Portable version is apparently based on the original Japanese release, carrying over none of the fixes and upgrades of the Playstation 1 version and censoring some elements of the story.  So go for the Playstation version if you can find it.