Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth Review: Shrinking The Backlog

A lot of us have backlogs. Mine goes back well over thirty years, with hundreds of games from every decade of gaming still on a mental list of games I want to play someday. I’ve long since accepted that I’ll never get to all of them, but when a chance comes along to knock one off the list, I like to take it. That’s why I was so excited to see Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth receive a re-release on the PS5. This is a game I’ve meant to play since its original PlayStation release in 2000, but I was never able to find the time for it.

While anticipation for a game can make it even more satisfying, it also can set an expectation that is hard to live up to. The good news is that Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth lives up to the hype as a fascinating RPG from a time when the genre was far more willing to take risks. While certainly not a perfect game, it’s one that will stay with me for a very long time.

The End Of Days

The story of Ragnarök, the prophesized end of days in Norse mythology, has been widely used in media in recent years, but it was far less commonly used in the year 2000. Thankfully for those playing the game in 2023, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth approaches the story from a different perspective from most we’ve recently seen. You play as Lenneth, a Valkyrie warrior awakened to serve her master Odin once more. His Aesir are at war with the Vanir, and things look to be headed toward Ragnarök. To try to prevent this, Lenneth is tasked with recruiting the spirits of the recently dead to serve as einherjar, warriors who will fight even in death to prevent the end of the world.

While Valkyrie Profile has a core story involving the war, it’s not the focus as you move through the game’s chapters. Instead, the focus falls on those einherjar and what led to their death. As you explore, you’ll get to know more and more of them, and each has a tragic tale of how they ended up dying. These stories are frequently beautiful, and many of my favorites left me with a new favorite character that I had to make room for in my party.

Don’t Get Too Attached

That works out as once you’ve recruited an einherjar, you’ll need to train them up and improve their stats to get them to a certain hero level before sending them off to join the fight against the Vanir. This process of saying goodbye to party members is uncommon in RPGs, but I personally loved it. It meant that I couldn’t get too comfortable with a set party but instead had to work different characters in and out, trying new things and finding new combinations in combat. It keeps the gameplay fresh.

When you’re not recruiting new einherjar, you’ll be fighting your way through various 2D dungeons. Combat here is uniturn-basede genre in that it is turn-based, but each of your four party members is mapped to each of the PlayStation controller’s face buttons. A set skill is chosen before combat for each character which is their default, and combining these attacks to break through enemy armor, and guard allows you to slay your foes. If you want more complex options like using items, selecting different spells, and things of that nature, you’ll need to press the select button, which is mapped to the left side of the DualSense trackpad. The joys of translating a game to modern platforms that don’t necessarily have the same control options as the original hardware. I kept pressing the share button for this throughout the entire game, nfromer able to fully break myself of the habit.

Speaking of adapting the game to a modern platform, there are a few differences here around the edges, but they’re minor. This seems to be a very faithful translation of the PSP version of Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, likely using the PS5’s PSP emulator though Square Enix has at least implied it’s a full port. The quality of life options are fairly limited and the same as most PSP games on the PS5, but they’re welcome. These include the option to rewind the game, save states, and some filters that try to make this game look good on HDTVs, though even the best of these only has mixed success. A version of a PSP game blown up on a 60-inch screen can be a bit jarring, but it doesn’t look bad, and most of the game’s presentation, whether we’re talking about the fantastic soundtrack or the art design, holds up extremely well.

Conclusion

Most of Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth holds up exceptionally well, in fact. Even 23 years after its initial release, this is still an excellent game. Sure, there are some minor issues, like awkward platforming, that wouldn’t have been good 23 years ago either, but for the most part, they’re minor issues that don’t take away from a game with fascinating mechanics that are still unique after all these years. If you’re a fan of RPGs and haven’t played Valkyrie Profile, don’t wait 23 years as I did. Make sure to check it out.

Final Verdict: 4.5/5

Available on: PS5 (Reviewed), PS4, Android, iOS; Publisher: Square Enix; Developer: tri-Ace; Players: 1; Released: December 22nd, 2022; ESRB: T for Teen; MSRP: $19.99

Full disclosure: This review is based on a retail copy of Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth.