Unlike some other game websites, we don't go out of our way to make every single preview sound positive. Keep that in mind while reading this, so you know that I mean business here.
Marvelous Interactive and XSeed's Valhalla Knights is, so far, impressively good. In a number of ways, it approaches being what this writer feels would be an ideal handheld RPG.
The game uses its story mostly as a bit of glue to hold things together, rather than it being the driving force for players to complete the game. Good call. While a good story can help, it doesn't always need to be elaborate or the key point of a handheld. A tad on the cliché side of things, Valhalla Knights stars a guy who has lost his memory and even forgets who he is. Luckily, the voice in his head (he's totally not crazy--don't believe those men in white coats) knows how to get his memory back, as well as free the small, European-feeling town from the curse it's under. Hey, good enough, so long as the gameplay is solid. Thankfully, it is.
Battles start the player off controlling the main character in a real-time system. Other party members are operated by A.I., though the player can issue special commands, set the party's general strategy, and even take full control of another character in mid battle if desired. This isn't often necessary, as the A.I. is competent enough. It feels a lot like an action RPG with a six-member party, pretty fast-paced and sometimes chaotic.
What makes the combat itself better is the class system behind it. Each character has a primary "job" or "class," the variety of which will be familiar to RPG veterans. After developing a primary, the player can change a character's class and still retain the skills learned while performing that particular job; in a nice touch, there is also no stat change or penalty for changing classes. When progressing, only character's prime job will receive level growth. By now, this should sound very familiar to players of Final Fantasy V and/or certain MMORPGs. Valhalla Knights is different, though, in that it allows characters to use two subclasses instead of one (which is the more common case in RPGs that have such a system).
A character's gender and race will also determine his/her stats. The races in this game include "halflings," machines, and the familiar elves and dwarves. The main character is a human, which, predictably, is the most balanced race. All of this comes to play in the player building the perfect party. For 1,000 gold, the main character can go to the town's guild and buy a new party member, which includes the selecting of its gender, race, job class, and distribution of a few statistical bonus points.
Dungeons in Valhalla Knights are decently fun to explore, notwithstanding the occasional run-in with an awkward camera angle. The atmosphere is assisted by well-done sound effects and music, as well as quality graphics. Said graphics will not make jaws drop to the floor or cause reviewers to rave, but they are, seriously, quite good.
Two players can cooperate in multiplayer quests or battle each other, but those have not been explored for this preview.
Impressively, Valhalla Knights is not bogged-down by load times and lag, as is the case with entirely too many other PSP games (especially RPGs). Transition to other areas is pretty smooth, buying and selling stuff is a breeze, and even when there are six party members taking on six enemies, the combat runs free of slowdown. There is a bit of a wait time when changing equipment, but that's plenty excuseable in a game otherwise devoid of such problems.
XSeed looks to release Marvelous Interactive's Valhalla Knights in mid April, and those looking for a solid handheld dungeon crawler should take note. This game is overall well made, with respectable levels of depth, exploration, and fun. Original RPGs on the PSP have not been very good thus far. It seems with every one, people (including this writer) end up saying something like "Well...looks like PSP is still lacking a really great, original RPG." Brace yourselves: this could be The One.
