Originally posted September 8th, 2019. Edited and re-posted here for archival purposes.
To start with, I am a huge Valkyrie Pprofile fan. It’s my favorite series. VP1 and 2 are my favorite games of all time. Each is such a wonderful game that resonated with me like few other games have before. The first Valkyrie Profile came out of nowhere for me. I never waited for it, nor did I even knew it existed until my friend in school let me borrow it on a whim. I don’t know how he knew I’d like it, but he just had a hunch. He was spot on.
Everything about the game left me with a smile, a deep thought, and a stirring of the heart. It did so many things that I’d wanted in games for such a long time. It had an active and engaging combat system, a deep story that wasn’t about the power of friendship, there was no mention of going on an adventure, the cast were tragic characters and pure anti-heroes, and the world was full of relatable people who felt like real people in bad times and down on their luck. It also had a female lead who was strong, tragic and flawed. She wasn’t a weak maiden to be defended by a spiky-haired adventurer. There was so much to Lenneth that slowly unraveled over the story and I adored it. I loved absolutely everything about the game. It did so many new things that opened up my eyes to RPGs being more than just turn-based whack-a-mole. VP1 slotted itself in as my favorite game of all time.
VP: Lenneth (the PSP port) and VP2: Silmeria being announced threw my heart for a spin. I had countdowns on my computer, I saved up what little money I had, and I checked everything. Screenshots, magazines, websites, videos, forums, everything. I was ever so excited to get my hands on VP2, which at the time was the most beautiful game I’d ever seen. In the time between VP1 and 2, I’d played so many great rpgs. I expanded my horizons quite a bit. I enjoyed lovely gems such as Shadow Hearts, Star Ocean, myriad Final Fantasies, Grandia, Wild Arms, Tales, and more. I found so many great games that did something different, but none of them gave me the same excitement I had for VP2. When VP: Lenneth released, I replayed it three times during my wait for VP2. I enjoyed every single moment, despite the port being not-the-greatest. (Note: If there is no other choice, VPL is fine if you’ve never played the series. If you have a PS1 copy, it’s preferred.)
VP2: Silmeria came out and my every wish was granted. It was gorgeous, it had wondrous characters who were charming yet had that tragic smile. It was an upgrade to the battle system that introduced a level of strategic and tactical engagement that I hadn’t expected but ultimately loved. Alicia and Silmeria’s stories are woven so tightly together and ever so well that I cannot think of one character without the other. The ways it tied back into VP1 (and ultimately changed the canon) were seen as great by me, though others weren’t so keen on it.
I played through the game twice in a month and spent hours upon hours in the Seraphic Gate (the end game dungeon where you get lots and lots of super bosses, special characters, and more.) The only downside I had was that the general einherjar were not as prominent as they were in the previous game. However, looking back at VP1/L, there was a ‘main cast’ and then a number of supporting characters who had their story wrapped up within their little vignette.
VP2 did away with those vignettes, but still buried tons of lore in their profiles and backstories. One of my favorite things? Depending on what character profile you look into, you may get different perspectives or recollections of different events. One persons story may refer to them as a hero who protected a city against vile invaders, while another person opposing them may refer to themselves as liberators who freed that city from a hateful despot. If any games were ever 10/10 for me, it would be both of the VP games.
So, where am I going with this long preamble about my love for the series, games, and history? Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume was announced for the DS a couple years after I had my blissful encounters with the series. We were already a couple years into the PS3. Tri-ace had been AWOL and releasing Star Ocean 4 on the 360, alongside Infinite Undiscovery. While I like both games, I wouldn’t say they’re particularly good. The lack of news was causing me to get a little grumpy. Why was my favorite series being ignored for these games on a console that no one even owned in Japan? When was Valkyrie Profile 3: Hrist going to get announced? What is Tri-ace even doing with the series?
During that time, I spent a lot of money on a PS3. So, much like a lot of stupid forum warriors, I felt I had to justify my purchase. Of course, I console-warred like an idiot. It actively made me dislike other systems. It’s stupid, I know. I’ve grown up since, but I still look back at myself during those days and shake my head. I buried myself in the RPGs that did manage to make it onto PS3. I had a low-paying job so I didn’t have money to buy a 360 or a Wii after sinking so much into my PS3 and myriad low-tier RPGs that came over. I was swimming around in a sea of games that weren’t all very good while ignoring the gems on other systems.
In that period of stupidity, I was also against the Nintendo DS. I liked my PSP. I hated touch controls as well as anything to do with motion controls. Additionally, I’m left handed so a number of games simply weren’t playable for me without much discomfort. Yet I received a DS and Pokemon for Christmas one year so I felt I was kind of “stuck with one”. Again, I held ignorant and childish opinions that I’ve since gotten away from.
So, with VP: Covenant announced, I wanted to have some kind of excitement. But it was hollow. It had nothing to do with Hrist. It barely had anything to do with the Valkyries at all. The combat system was wildly different. There were no dungeons, no 2D exploration, no einherjar to get. I thought it starred a stupid kid with a stupid reason to fight. I thought it was all grimdark without feeling like it earned it.
For me, it was just a hugely negative experience. I never got past chapter two because it was slow. It was far too political (I literally mean politics of the three cities, the crown prince war, serf rebellions, etc) for me. Much like FFXII, I just shrugged and felt it to be a big, boring story with bad characters. So, I put it down. I’ve always considered it a black sheep of the series. I did not like it. I would not like it. It was a bad VP game and an insult to fans who have been waiting for VP: Hrist on PS3. It wasn’t a VP game. I told myself this and didn’t touch it for years. Occasionally I’d give it a shot again, but would feel many of the same things, though with less intensity.
I played so many more games between touching VP: Covenant and again broadened and expanded my horizons. I’ve engaged with hundreds of games in the time between attempts, had many life changes and consider myself a better and more experienced person than I previously was in many aspects. I’m far more open now to new things, I like to dig deep to find meaning in stories and characters that I never did, and I even write much of my own fiction.
So, was it that spurned me to try this again? Some conversation with friends about lore and unreliable narrators. Immediately, my anecdote about character profiles telling different stories depending on who you engaged with came to mind. I started thinking about VP game, digging in a bit to the lore of key cities such as Artolia. I grew nostalgic.
I looked at the game box again and thought I’d give it another try. I’ve grown a lot. I’ve experienced a lot. I’ve written a lot myself. I’m no longer some idiot console warrior. I’m a huge proponent of trying things again later down the line if they don’t click now. I’m very open to be wrong and corrected about games these days. So I took it upon myself to try it again.
But first, I had a few issues that needed to be solved. Back then, I hated the DS. Now I own a 3DS XL and quite like it, but I still found it uncomfortable to hold. The corners dig into my hands and it cramps them up quite a bit. It’s just an uncomfortable system for me to hold. So I bought a grip for my 3DS XL. It’s a fantastic grip and it makes my experience so much better. As for my aversion totouch controls? I’ve given up that fight. They’re actually fine in many cases. The left-handed problem? VP: Covenant doesn’t use the touchpad! Every prior roadblock I threw up was now knocked down and I was prepared to go into the game with a fresh open mind, thinking of it as what it really is: a spinoff that tried a lot of new things.
I’ve played the opening chapters maybe five times. This time? It finally resonated. I understood Wylfred’s rage, his plight, his quest for revenge, and his wholly misguided nature. He is a tragic and flawed character in every sense of the word. Much of the tragedy, he brings upon himself. He is so angry at the world and his fate that he’ll do anything to change it…even sacrifice his friends.
It starts rather grim, but I’ll try to avoid spoilers as I want people to give it a look in the future. Throughout the game, you are essentially a villain. It’s not because you want to destroy the world or want to rule it, it’s not because you seek power. No, it’s simple. You have a single goal in mind and its all you can cling to. Otherwise, your life is worthless. There is no value, no meaning, and besides… you’ve already signed a deal with the devil to get what you want most: revenge on the valkyries. If you fail, what was any of this bloodshed for?
One thing I learned in my replays was that each play through was different. I didn’t realize this until my prior attempt, but in the beginning, you’re presented with three towns but not told what they do, who they side with, or which to even go to. You make your choice as any other clueless person would. This seals half of your fate.
What I really love about this is that you can go to a mercenary military bunker and learn there is a peasant uprising in a city and the crown will pay you to fight. As a mercenary, you’re hired to crush this rebellion. However, if you go to the city instead, you learn about a peasant uprising because the crown is a cruel tyrant who is murdering its own people. Again, as a mercenary, you’re hired to fight against the crown. But what if instead you wander into the forest near the town? You come across assassins who are hired by the crown to murder the leader of the rebels. As a mercenary once more, you’re hired to assist in the assassination and put a quiet and less bloody end to the serf rebellions.
I love it. It works so well. Just being a wandering mercenary who doesn’t care about the world and seeks only one thing, you’ve no allegiance to anything other than coin. What could you care about a tyrant king? What could you care about usurpers? What could you care about a hateful populace? You are simply here to get money and commit heinous sins such as sacrificing allies who trusted you or showing not a shred of mercy to your enemies. Viciously mauling soldiers or peasants as they teeter on the brink of death and committing such brutal overkill is something only a monster would do.
And that is you: a monster. However, there’s still a human inside there, somewhere, that whimpers at Wyl’s actions once he sees the aftermath. But his resolve is made of steel, because it has to be. There’s no going back. After all, its better to die fighting for what you believe in than to wallow in regret and despair as your days fade away..
The general plot of the political turmoil between the three kingdoms is roughly the same across the different routes, but your actions can add more or less context to the overall history. After all, history is written by the victor. There may be tales of a wandering mercenary who saved a town, while others may have tales of a bloodthirsty sellsword who slaughtered the leaders of a rebellion.
I really enjoy how either outcome still fits into the ‘canon’ history, because there are so many other events going on at the same time that your involvement may simply be an outlier in the annals of history. Wyl’s actions make him a bad person, but he’s not a bad character. He’s a young man who is desperate and losing himself to madness, only able to break the tides of grief by shoring up his defenses with the blood of others and the sins wrought by his own hands.
Aside from Wyl though, there are many other characters who paint the cast in a different light depending on who you recruit.. Who you receive depends on what you do. Which part of the rebellion are you in? Did you sacrifice any other people? Did you refrain and instead show your brutality against your foes in combat? Each path leads along to different characters. I looked at a brief guide and was also recommended by a friend to pursue a mage named Lieselotte. So, I did just that. But that would require murdering a friend. My long-time companion, Cheripha, had just been reunited with her father. They were to have a grand life together, and for the first time in years, Cheripha smiled when thinking about her father.
Yet, he was useless to me. Lieselotte would be a far superior mage and I had no others that I could sacrifice. As Wyl, I offered up Cheripha’s father, who just cast his lot in with mine as a way to spend time with his estranged daughter. And I took him away from her. I invoked him, let him destroy some of the opposition before me, and he then swiftly died after battle in Cheripha’s arms. She’d no idea it was Wyl. She’d never know. Instead, she just lost her father on the battlefield a mere day after they’d reunited. Yet Wyl would carry that with him forever, never to confess it. Fate can be cruel, especially when you’re the one dictating it for the sake of a ‘higher purpose’.
This would be the last ally I sacrificed, as I would need no more for the path and characters I wanted. I continued on, met with a general who is probably the Only Good Person in the game. Yet he took part in crushing the rebellion, so his action are grey at best. He runs with two psychopathic child soldiers who – at first glance – are little more than the crazy yandere anime kids. Yet there is a depth to them. They’re only twelve and they’ve been conscripted into fighting. They see bloodshed every day. They watch soldiers get paid to kill people and get praised for having higher bodycounts. These kids are in their formative years and they learn these things by watching those around them, for they’ve never had any parents.
They’re brought up in a cold and brutal world. They don’t know the comfort of love and they’ve no real understanding on the concept of death. There are simply people in the way, and then they’re bodies cast aside afterwards. Like a baby mimicking its mother, these kids copy what they see and put it into practice, yet they lack the understanding or critical thought behind their actions. They’re just baby birds observing their mother, yet that mother is a brutal war machine that grinds up innocents, soldiers, and hopeful sellswords before vomiting their bloodied corpses upon the trodden soil.
I would continue down this path, gaining characters who were cast down upon the world in a sea of tragedy that either occurred prior to or during their meeting with Wyl. Again, the story can branch off from there into different outcomes, but the general ending is the same, per my understanding in terms of the political plotline. Much like VP1, the game has multiple endings aimed at Wyl’s personal story.
I watched Lieselotte murder someone who was praying for her, simply because she too was fueled by hate that could never be quelled. Rather than than raise a blade against the murderous Lieselotte, there was a bond that formed between she and Wyl. Two mad souls bent on revenge, each aware that their actions were horrific, yet they did their best to keep the thoughts from intruding. It was best not to think about the people one killed, especially when there was no real proof that they did the act you had punished them for. Acting on whim and suspicion was a way to keep from drowning oneself in a sea of “what ifs”. They were now two broken souls amidst a backdrop of shattered allies. It was bittersweet and cold.
I find a lot to like in the story. I enjoy how on-the-ground it is, covering the events prior to the fall of Artolia. There was so much lore around this particular period in the VP lore that I felt so happy just digging around in, being part of, and actively influencing. I also came around on Wyl. Sure, he’s a bastard, but he’s well written and does not stray from his self-imposed path of revenge. I imagine deep down he knows his quest is hopeless and misguided, but he’s always splattered blood on the ground in its name.
What next? The combat. It’s different from Valkyrie Profile 1 and 2 and this was a huge sticking point for me prior. It’s a strategy/tactical RPG with a VP flair to it. You have a small group (four characters) and that’s it. No backup, no reinforcements. In most SPRGs I’ve played, you get sometimes 10 or more characters and engage in huge battles. With this, you’re simply a tiny group versus upwards of 20 soldiers. You are always outnumbered. You are always outmatched. You are always at a disadvantage. And that is the daunting challenge laid before you.
That’s where the game excels though. In VP games, you tend to play incredibly offensively. You’re aggressive, tearing through groups of enemies and destroying them with chained specials, breaking parts, shattering guards, etc. In VP Covenant, that still exists but only in the battle sequence sans the shattering of parts. When you’re engaging on the battle map, you want to be safe. You want to be defensive. You want to be cautious, shrewd, and prepared. You want to look at the enemies and be prescriptive about when, how, and where you’ll dispatch them. For if you run out carelessly, enemies will surround you, link together and beat your lifeless body into the dirt.
The game made me think more on a grand scale and more tactically than I had in VP1 or 2. I was looking at the battlefield and planning where I’d go, keeping my units all together to fight as one. I’d think up a kill order and ensure I had enough resources or boosts to make sure I could kill an enemy in one skirmish. If I couldn’t, I had to weigh whether it was worth eating the damage and healing up or trying to push for a kill. It was precarious, for I never knew when a boss was going to use a special attack on me.
I’ve used magic in VP Covenant more than I have in any other game in the series. Boosting stats, stopping enemies, debuffing foes, causing status effects and running away. All of it was like a magical guerilla war. Tactics tomes let me use skills to extend my movement at the cost of only being on standby afterwards, they let me extend my range, make enemies target me or ignore me, they let me skulk around the battlefield in stealth, they let me immediately pop up behind enemies, and most important: they let me swap places with them. Transpose is a tactic tome that costs little AP and lets you exchange places with your enemy.
Why is this great? I put it on my archer, who has to be at least 1+ square away to attack. She could move far, attack from a distance, and she had skills to prevent projectiles form doing much damage at all to her. I absolutely abused this ability and used it to throw mages between my two melees and mage to slaughter them with a quickly executed combo attack. I employed this tactic to throw bosses into floor-based status effects. I even used it on enemies that I’d stopped/frozen and pushed out of the way so I could rush the leader, If my sin count was low, I’d put the leader in a corner and massacre his underlings before returning to him. How sad it must’ve been for him to charge back towards me to find his entire squad wiped out. I continued to tinker more and more with the battle system and exploit what little bits I could.
A battle system I previously hated for “not being VP” was something that I now love. It is VP, but it’s also something else. The face-button combat is still there, as is the bonus gauge, all the special attacks being linked, all the blue crystals and purple gems, the bonus attacks, all of it is still there. It’s just presented a bit differently. I’m happy with how they let characters who have already acted link up with an attacking character in range. It kept that sense of aggression and overkill that I love in the series. It keeps that sense of teamwork, that co-operation that is the only positive thing in the waves of madness and glints of rage. I was always active, always thinking even when trying to put together my kill orders, attack chains, and more.
With the Sin Gauge, you’re given an amount of sin to get per battle. Usually its around 350 or so. How do you fill sin? By either sacrificing an ally or overkilling an enemy. And if its not clear, sacrifice is a permanent loss of that character. It’s not simply sending them up to get killed/KO’d. It’s a system that boosts their stats by 10x nearly but kills them immediately after the battle is over. It is impossible to revive them. As you only have a dozen characters or less, this isn’t something you want to do every battle. Before you know it, you’ll be all alone and ahead of you will be a hopeless endeavor.
So, with the aforementioned overkill, I’d have to toy with enemies. I’d get their HP down to low but not kill them off. Instead, I’d surround them with my force and unleash dozens of hits, sometimes over a hundred, onto their near-lifeless corpse. I’ll admit I sometimes did the full combos out of spite due to an enemy wiping out a character of mine. I’d revive that character and make sure they were in for the final blows, wracking up my overkill meter with them often taking the last hit. This seemed like a small, suitable bit of revenge.
These attacks upon depleted HP fills the sin gauge, but only up to 100. That means if you don’t want to invoke anyone, you need to think about how much damage you do, what your combos are capable of, what you can miss or avoid on purpose, and so on. Usually, I’d hit my sin requirement and then try and push it further, for spilling more blood granted more rewards. This can lead to better equipment, items, spells, and more. It’s an endless, vicious cycle that leads to more and more blood to be spilled upon the Destiny Plume – the very thing you’re trying to empower. It is the definition of blood for blood.
Throughout my cautious rampages through these maps, the odds kept getting stacked more and more against me. In the final chapter, there is a very long gauntlet of battles that you cannot save between. These are four, large-scale battles with no save point (other than Suspend, which is a temporary save that gets deleted upon reloading.) A single mis-step can cause hours of lost progress. I had to take every single encounter carefully and slow, because I’d really hate to lose a battle on the 3rd or 4th map and go all the way back to the start.
Thankfully, my somewhat clever thinking and thoughtful planning let me get through this hellish final series of battles. It was intense and nerve-wracking. I never knew what enemies were capable of until they punched me in the head or exploded a nuclear flare above me. I was constantly fighting the unknown, met only with giant HP values that were 3-10x more than mine (sometimes almost 20x) and stats that eclipse mine own.
I had to make my team fight as a team in every engagement. This made it a bit different from other SRPGs I’ve played where I can send some units off to fight multiple enemies on there on. With this, I had to make them stick together because splitting up meant death. This ended up taking me three hours to get through these four fights. It was tense, but I ultimately wish there was a little more breathing room.
Overall, I’m happy with the combat. I’d learned that trying new things and getting experimental was quite healthy for the series. I can appreciate what VP Covenant does quite a bit now. It’s no VP3: Hrist, but it’s certainly a VP game through and through. It has many tracks from the original game that run throughout combat, bringing back a sense of nostalgia that makes me smile.
The writing is superb, the world is bleak, the characters have brutally tragic backstories and events that occur and feel realistic and earned, and the lore really expands into the human world of the VP series. I’ve really lost any defense or reason against this game, and for that I’m actually pretty proud. I was stubborn and refused to see something for what it was because I was too buried in the past, too chained to my own experience with the series, and blinded by hope for something that likely will never come.
As mentioned, as I’ve grown older, I’ve become more open to things. I focus more on how something resonates with me, how it makes me feel emotionally, and how I enjoy my time with it. I’ve learned that just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s bad. The opposite applies too. We live in an age where hyperbole flies left and right. People post on forums where others just drop hot takes for the sole purpose of riling up others. They fight and battle constantly about what the greatest of all time game is is or why X game is trash or how Y game is the best thing ever created.
There is so much absurdity, embellishment, and intensity in peoples words that it makes me a bit sad to even peruse gaming forums. Perhaps that’s because it reminds of how I used to be. A punchy kid who was mad at the world for not getting what they wanted. Someone who was unwilling to actually look into what I was playing or experiencing. Someone who just wanted it all laid out for me exactly how I wanted it. I was ever so picky. And I still am, but I think I’m more open and able to appreciate things for what they can do rather than lament what they can’t.
To tie this off, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume is a game that I was wrong about. It’s truly good and I take back all the vapid trash I ever said about it. It’s a VP game with a great story, fun and intriguing combat, grand characters, and that tried and true sense of nostalgic tragedy that bleeds through every crevice of the series. If you’re a fan of the series and have ever put it off for reasons as bizarre as my own were, consider giving it another try. There is a lot to like about it and I’m glad I gave it a fresh look with an open mind.
