Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume (DS)

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You will understand: a Valkyrie Profile, which is more unique (the series is a PSP remake), is necessarily the expectation, but also some fears. Indeed, if Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth remained exceptional in the background, carrying the portable Sony had not smooth, longuet loads to view the menu, some delays, unclear on some rather bad quality backgrounds, etc. The DS is inferior from a technical to the PSP, there was enough to feed some fears.

From this point of view, let us first, the baby Tri-Ace is rather reassuring. All is fluid, clean and without burrs. The game engine runs on a fairly close to that of Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings released on DS as well. We've got a record combining 3D scenery and characters in 2D. Salute, in passing, the careful design of the characters (visible mainly in the dialogue phase or in the menus) firmly rooted in the continuity of the series. The musical themes have also appeared consistent with the original opus.

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The scenario we propose to follow the young Wylfried whose family has been decimated and had passed all his vengeance towards the Lord Odin's Valkyrie, Lenneth (well known to fans of the series because it's the heroin the first part). As usual, the script has a mature size and dramatic, all bathed in Nordic mythology, although specific to the saga.

"Fighting combines dynamic turn-based and real time, allowing, moreover, interesting combinations"

But what about the gameplay? Somewhat surprisingly, Valkyrie Profile DS is in the tactical RPG turn-based, where each player moves to a limited number of cases once per turn. The purpose is mainly to achieve its purpose by eliminating opponents in the combat arena. We can logically assume that this episode DS totally betrays the expertise of the series focused on fighting global dynamic and combines turn-based and real time, allowing, moreover, some interesting combinations with its allies or opponents.

For if the general mechanisms of battle are drawn from different because the genesis of the tactical RPG, fighting themselves resume for their recipe so effective in Valkyrie Profile. In essence, this means that depending on the number of allies placed around our enemy, it will be possible (from one of our allies is precisely in a position to launch the war) to attack an opponent with one or more of our hero in real time. This system (to fight in surrounding the enemy with our allies) that is clearly preferable to discard the best and the fastest of any enemy.

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Unity is strength

Those who know the first episode will not be lost, each character is affiliated with a touch of DS (A, B, X or Y) and a number of clean blows. By pressing one of its buttons, it launches the attack on the character attached to it. Repeating pressing the same key (A, A or A, A, A for example), we ask a hero to attack several times (though of course his skills permitting). It is also possible and clearly preferable make combinations juggling several attacks on a main character.

This has the effect of increasing the effectiveness of our allies in making up a particular gauge, which reached its maximum, we offer the possibility of launching moves (for each hero) to devastating effect as for the enemies that pleasant for our mirettes. Note in passing, the ability to move small kinematic (while taking the bottom screen) on these famous moves. A very good initiative, which pretty well illustrates the care and know-how seems to have benefited Valkyrie Profile DS.

The result of fighting very dynamic and pêchus, rendering visual and sound convincing. One way perhaps to garner some refractory to tactical RPG, the battles are often kind of a little too soft and slow. This is truly the light of strategic choice that we will make: the choice of characters in combat (four maximum ), equipment, capabilities of each hero, to combine the attacks or not to attack front or back, using the skills or to save, to sacrifice a teammate or not, and so on.

All these points and many others are documented in the video commentary that follows, which summarizes our view on the game.

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Conclusion:-

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume is a successful at all levels, very enjoyable and addictive as long as one accepts the difficulty bodied and obligation to replay the game at least once to really enjoy it. In the end, his greatest fault is without doubt the fact of not having been translated into our beautiful language (the game is entirely in English, not the addition of more contemporary.)