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f13.net General Forums => But is it Fun? => Topic started by: Rendakor on May 31, 2009, 11:22:29 PM



Title: Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume - tri-Ace - DS
Post by: Rendakor on May 31, 2009, 11:22:29 PM
Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume is the latest in the VP series, making its debut on the DS. Unlike the first two, which were action-RPGs, CotP is an SRPG. You command up to 4 characters on a grid based map that will be familiar to anyone who's played...well, any SRPG released in the last decade. One interesting thing is that whenever any unit attacks, if you have other units in range of the enemy they can attack as well. When attacking, instead of just swinging once, each character has multiple attacks that you can chain into combos; when you have an enemy surrounded with all 4 of your guys, this allows you to really unload.

Like the previous VP games, CotP continues the Norse mythology theme. In the previous VP games the Valkyries chose glorious warriors to go fight in the battle of Ragnarok. In CotP your father was chosen; his loss caused much suffering for the main character and his family. As a result, you swear to get revenge on the Valkyrie. To achieve this goal, you are given the ability to power up one of your allies for one battle; after the battle that ally is lost forever. Apparantly, how often you use that and which characters you use it on can affect your ending; I'm not very sure as I'm not very far.

If you like SRPGs and/or the VP world, Buy it.


Title: Re: Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume - tri-Ace - DS
Post by: Jerrith on June 01, 2009, 03:49:00 AM
Back when I was working on Vanguard at Sigil, Bill Fisher (Tagad) got me interested in the Valkyrie Profile series of games after I mentioned having seen them at E3.  (First for the PSP (originally PS1), second for the PS2).  I've played all of them since, and enjoy the series quite a bit.

To go into a little more detail, the game basically branches at various points based on the number of characters you have powered up / sacrificed in battle.  Give away too many, too soon, and you lose immediately, give away lots, you get the "C" ending, give away a low number, "B", and give away none, you get the "A" ending. 

One mechanic that I found interesting is the sin concept.  Basically, on every main storyline battle, you're given a target "sin" value to reach.  There are basically two ways of getting sin...  Powering up / sacrificing a character will give you a big chunk (450?), and having your final attack against an enemy do more damage than is needed to kill him will give you an amount from 1 to 100 based on the percentage extra damage you did (finish him, having done 150% damage, and you get 50 sin, basically.)  You're then rewarded at the end of these battles based on the sin you acquired.  The best rewards only come if you reach double the target sin value announced at the start of the battle, and you want these items...  They're always the best items available at the point in the game where you get them.  Each map generally has enough enemies so that reaching the double sin target requires a 100% overkill on all but 1 or 2 targets.

One thing I didn't like was except for ~3 one time optional battles, there's no way to fight enemies and gain a couple extra levels, if a main story battle is giving you trouble.  As I hadn't been getting double sin each and every battle, by the time I reached the final battle on the "A" path, I felt too weak...  I basically ended up with a strategy that involved keeping one character out of range of the final boss while the other three would run in and get off a suicidal attack...  Then the fourth would resurrect them, over and over... This boss heals if it's heath gets too low, and getting the window just right such that it wouldn't heal, and my party could finish it off took... awhile.

Overall, I really liked the game, and intend to go back some time and see what the 3rd ending is like.  Getting all three unlocks a bonus area, the Seraphic gate, as well.