Valkyrie Profile - Covenant of the Plume

There are a couple of strange things about this one right off the bat. First off...what madness is this? Actual COOL box art? That doesn't happen in America! We get lameass "art" that was probably drawn by one of the producers children for a kindergarten assignment most of the time. Most of the people that work in the video game business apparently have never heard the term "don't judge a book by its a cover". Either that, or they just don't believe it. Guess what? People DO judge books - and in this case, games - by their cover. You show me a dude with a long flowing mane and a sword about to hack up an angel, well then I am SOLD buddy. So, we'll put a win in Valkyrie Profile's favor right off the bat for having a cool box. Second of all, surprise! I'm not all about consoles here, I will recognize the occasional great handheld game. And the DS is pretty much the little handheld that could when we are talking about RPGs. Sure you get your occassional great console RPG (like Valkyria Chronicles...play that yet? You should have. And go read my review if you haven't yet! Also...this game is no relation to that one), but the DS has pretty much had them in spades for a while now. The remake of FFIV is on there, Dragon Quest V (which I wasn't a big fan of, sometimes things can be a little TOO old school), the new Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem...they are all on the DS. Really if you are an RPG fanatic and can't afford much to support your video game habit, you could do much worse than pick yourself up a DS and not even have to worry about consoles.

But anyways, so Valkyrie Profile. Why bring this one up? Well, in the first place, its my favorite DS game. Ever. I've had a DS since the huge monstrosity/blob known as the original DS (you know the one, the ugly gray one that sort of looked like a brick and wouldn't fit in your pocket even if you were wearing the worlds largest cargo shorts), and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (expect a review of that someday soon) held the top spot for a very long time, its even my favorite Castlevania game...until Valkyrie Profile came out and reigned down sweet and awesome vengeance upon it, and left it in the dust. This is an awesome, awesome game. It even has a cool ass name too, I mean Covenant of the Plume? Hell yeah, I'll become a part of just about anything that wants to call itself a Covenant. What a sweet word. Not sure what a plume might have to do with any sort of kickass Covenant...but I'm getting to that.

Ok, so since we are talking about a DS game, obviously this game isn't going to win any awards for graphics. No surprise there, the DS is pretty much like an overpowered super nintendo. But thats cool, sweet RPGs with awesome stories don't need graphics to impress you. So the dude at the top is the incredibly unforunately named Wylfred, not to be confused with Wilfred Brimley, the dude who sold Quaker Oats on all those commercials back in the day. Wylfred, despite having long purple hair and being named Wylfred, is actually a pretty cool dude. For one, hes pretty much the epitome of an anti-hero. His whole reason for going on this quest of his, is to get revenge on the Valkyrie. See, the Valkyrie is this (really good looking) goddess that works for Odin up in Asgard (which is sort of like the Viking heaven), and her job is to bring up all these awesome soldier or warrior types that kicked a whole MESS of ass in life, up to Asgard to basically fight the war in heaven. Uh...hell YES, now thats what I call a set up to an awesome story. It should be known - and it WILL be known already anyways to any nerds reading this - that Covenant is the third Valkyrie Profile game, and this is sort of the game that would take place between the first one (called VP: Lenneth on PSP, just VP on playstation one) and the second one (released on Playstation 2, and REALLY REALLY DIFFICULT btw), because somewhere between the first one and the beginning of this one, Valkyrie comes down from Asgard to pick up the soul of Wylfred's father, who was a sweet mercenary dude that wasted a whole mess of people during his life. Wylfred, who lives with his sick mother and younger sister, obviously doesn't like this much. This left just him to provide for his family at a young age, and he is not a fan of this. He swears vengeance on the Valkyrie, and whenever she takes some of these warriors to Asgard, she leaves behind a feather to let people still on earth know where they went. So he keeps that feather and sets out on his own, but always aware that it his mission to destroy the Valkyrie.

Ok, so we have a pretty sweet setup to a game, and especially if you consider that if the movies have taught us anything at all, its that revenge is awesome. So we have this revenge plot and its a pretty damn cool setup for a game, and I won't get much more into the story, but suffice it to say, that "Plume" and the whole "Covenant" business comes early on in the game (I won't reveal exactly how it goes down, but suffice it to say, it isn't something you'd expect from one of the opening battles of a game), Wylfred makes a deal with Hel, the Queen of the Underworld - yeah, real original guys, lets take out one L, ok, we get it. How about Satana, or maybe Beelzebub...girl, or something. Obviously we know who ol' Wylfred Brimley is making a deal with, and with this "Plume" he can sacrifice some of his comrades to her, and the more he does this, apparently the more powerful he will become, so that he can eventually kill the Valkyrie. Awesome right?

So thats enough story, and we've covered that the graphics aren't anything to write home about since we are on the DS, so hows about the gameplay? Heres where things get interesting - we have the usual strategy type situation, with players moving on a grid and attacking enemies, first we move, then they move, and whoever is attacked can counter attack. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, if it was simple, game would get boring quick. VP throws a couple of curveballs at you with its formula - for one, you can only bring four people out at a time. 3 extra plus Wyl usually. Not much, right? So how are you supposed to win when you are heavily outnumbered like that? Well, thats where the next twist comes in - you can surround enemies with each of your characters and these create chain attacks that basically eff up your enemies crap. When you create these chains and fill up that hit meter to 100% - thats that meter on the left there that says "hits" - the character of your choice gets to unleash a special attack of sorts. For your wizard types, it'll be a more kickass version of the spell they have equipped. For your sword dudes, some sort of cool omni-slash (oh! FF7 reference!) type attack, for your archers, an onslaught of arrows...you get the idea. It's pretty cool. You might get a bit tired of the animations after a while, but good news, game gives you the option to skip them.

And with these chains comes the challenge of the game. With each battle, you need to reap enough "Sin" for Hel to be satisfied, theres a minimum requirement, and if you double or *sigh* triple it, you get rewarded. And rewarded well. If you get the maximum sin - which is no easy feat when you first start out and don't really know what is expected of you - you usually get the best weapons in the game, awesome items, and good spells earlier than you can buy them. So in short, you'll probably want to do this. But the problem is, sometimes, it's pretty damn tough to do this. It's annoyingly tough sometimes, because you have to be pretty much perfect. See, you reap "Sin" by causing overkill on the enemy, since this game is all about revenging vengeance, it makes sense Hel would want you to completely obliterate your enemies. So you pretty much have to have your enemies surrounded to get 100% of the sin each enemy has to offer you. Like I said, you don't HAVE to do this. But it sure will help. The way VP gets around this is, it offers you multiple endings. I always love multiple endings as long as there isn't a ridiculous amount for you to get (*cough* Star Ocean! *cough* Chrono Trigger! *cough cough*), and VP offers three - basically, taking the high road about vengeance, taking the middle road, and the...less than middle road. So yeah, good, average, and evil endings. It also gets around these problems by giving you the option to use the plume to sacrifice a character. If you do this, the character becomes a basically super saiyan (Oh man, DBZ reference, I'm all over the nerd stuff this time!) version of themselves and destroys everything, reaping pretty much maximum sin every time. The problem is, that character is dead after that. Gone. Can't use no more. So you have to use this ability at your discretion of course, and a problem lies in just how many times you can use the plume to make a character the ultra mega version of themselves. I recommed gamefaqs to help you out, you can thank me later.

So, with these multiple endings, you get a new game plus everytime you beat the game, and retain all your weapons. Good! This makes things ALOT easier the second time, and enables you to get all three endings at around 30 hours. Good stuff, and a great length for a handheld game, if I do say so myself. And with that, I think we've covered it, except for the scores.

And one more picture of ol' Wyl raping some enemies face. But here we go -

Graphics - 7/10. I don't think its really possible for a DS game to get much higher than this. They serve their purpose. Your characters and enemies are animated well, and some of the attacks look cool, but you wont, as Mr. Burns would say, "pollute your britches with joy", at anything this game shows you.

Sound - 9/10. Awesome. Epic. Everything you'd expect out of an RPG. Some of the eerie stuff comes in later when you have to make questionable choices, and the sound effects are spot on. Definitely more interesting than the graphics. Play with headphones.

Challenge - Lets split this up again. If you are going for the bare minimum and just want to make it through to see the endings (EDITORS/CLEVS NOTE - DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE I DID AND GO FOR THE BEST ENDING FIRST! YOU WILL TOSS YOUR DS REPEATEDLY AT THE LAST FIGHT! If you DO decide to go down the ill-fated path I did, do yourself a favor and wrap some pillows or cushions around your DS so that it doesn't break when you toss it. You've been warned.), about a 6/10. It's not going to piss you off too awful much. But if you want all the best stuff, bump this up to a 9/10. Its tough to get the best stuff, but its also worth it, because you will pwn faces later on for doing so.

Fun - 10/10. This is a brilliant game. The story isn't like anything else. It's truly epic, its the stuff of a really great fantasy novel, worthy of David Eddings (name drop! Perhaps my status as a literary nerd as well as a video game nerd may soon be revealed on here) or something. It has great dialogue too. No one in the game is really a great person, they are all flawed, and that in itself is interesting. It's also damn fun to surround an enemy and completely ruin their stuff. You will let out more than a few maniacal laughs as you make your way through this one, I certainly did.

Overall - 9/10. It isn't perfect, which is to say, its no Valkyria Chronicles. But to be able to dethrone a magnificent Castelvania game to become my favorite DS game ever is no small task. This game is awesome, and it isn't like most strategy RPGs. It will keep you entertained for hours, and is well worth the price of admission. If you are new to the handheld world, start with this one when you first get your snazzy new DSi. After you are done taking goofy pictures of yourself or of various body parts, pop this one in and let the good times roll.