When a battle begins, your party (composed of the Valkyrie Silmeria/Alicia and warriors resurrected through your Norse god-granted power) can be manipulated on a 3D field, dashing and maneuvering to get into striking position and avoid red areas of the field which indicate enemy attack range. You'll move as a group, not individual characters, which keeps the pace nice and brisk. It's an interesting strategic twist that indicates that the developers are taking advantage of the third dimension for gameplay as well.

When you close in, the view switches to 2D and your characters can leap forward to attack and knock enemies back, up into the air, and back down again, in a flashy display of godly dominance fit for a juggle-happy fighter like Tekken. Each enemy is assigned to a button, so all characters can attack simultaneously for a rather one-sided beatdown. To add injury on top of injury, elaborate overdrive attacks slam the hell out of your enemies with choreographed attack sequences that push the hit counter into the high double digits. As far as RPG eye-candy goes, Valkyrie Profile 2 is definitely on par with the best.


The game has taken a lot of forward steps while sticking close to the spirit of the first title. However, some of the unconventional elements present in the original Valkyrie have been reconsidered and revised. The sequel will be fairly traditional and linear in terms of progression, in contrast to the first game's almost experimental structure that featured a rather strict time constraint and had the player training warriors before sending them away to Valhalla. A more linear, story-based progression is planned, so it looks as if the team is willing to trim as well as add.

Silmeria looks like it has an interesting story and great looks going for it, which should please a lot of RPG fans. It seems like the game may have lost some of its edge, both because it's a sequel and because the overall design has been pruned of some of its more radical elements. Players who loved the first game for its battle system but didn't necessarily enjoy the sometimes vague and limiting progression and RPG fans in general should definitely keep an eye on this one.