Here's my review on VP Silmeria. I'm currently playing thru seraphic gate which is the bonus dungeon, 2nd floor.

VP Silmeria is the long awaited sequel to Valkyrie Profile(PSX) also known by VP Lenneth(PSP). This is one of the best and long awaited games of the year.

The 3 best US releases of RPGs (in my opinion) this yr are Xenosaga III, Valkyrie Profile Silmeria and Tales of Abyss.

My Rating for VP Silmeria:
Storyline - 8/10
Graphics - 10/10
Music - 8/10 (music is by Motoi Sakuraba, I personally like the battle music although it is VERY repetitive)
Gameplay - 8/10

The graphics are beautiful and stunning.

Alicia in OP

Rufus


Hrist


Return of chars from VP - Lezard and Arngrim

Lezard Armgrim


And also a new 3D battle system far superior to valkyrie profile which is 2D.

I love the battle system of valkyrie profile especially the special attacks and the battlefield fighting. In VP2 there's a new thing called break mode. Sometimes when u deal enuff damage to enemies u can enter break mode and there will be a few seconds to hit numerous times with no AP cost. There are also party and area effects that can be implemented using sealstones collected through dungeons. These sealstones are useful for bossfights. (eg: x2 exp sealstones, sealstones that reduce elemental/phy damage). Also i've seen many ppl comment in the gamefaqs forum that VP:silmeria is a game where level is not important. I'm not too sure myself because level seems to be quite important as well.

The only thing that disappointed me in VP Silmeria is the ending. And unsimiliar to VP1 which had alternate endings, VP Silmeria only has 1 ending.

I also forgot to review on FFXII which vincent completed a few weeks ago.

Yes... expect very bad comments from me.

My Rating
for FFXII:
Storyline - 0/10
Graphics - 8/10
Music - 5/10
Gameplay - 1/10

I understand there are many gamers in this world.. different gamers have different preferences. But reviewing FFXII based on the history of FF games, FFXII isnothing compared to previous FFs. Its the lousiest FF i have ever played. It is not a good RPG and it is a game that wastes ALOT of time because basically it's a boring game.

As i've mentioned before FFXII follows in the footsteps of FFT which is the only part i'm glad because I love FFT. It is one of my most favourite games and first few strategy RPGs i've played. FFT is all about Ivalice set in ancient europe times. It's about love, betrayal and knights and the storyline is very nice. FFXII totally shattered this impression of Ivalice.

The only maybe "more interesting" parts of ff12 are the beginning and the ending part. but in the middle portion of the game NOTHING is happening. the storyline does not unfold and the fmvs are speechless (or only have 1 sentence in them and show them walking). They're almost unneccessary. You have to pass through many unneccessary dungeons to get to 1 location. The dungeons and bosses have no relevance to the storyline whatsoever. The espers suck a great deal, they're useless in the game for me.

The battle system is very auto. U set gambits like a program code to make ur party do things when a certain condition is fulfilled. At first i didn't mind the battle system... actually i'm in fact quite OK with the battle system.. the major problem lies in the storyline the dungeons and the language in this game. The people are talking like star wars/lotr chars and the "riddles" in the dungeons also uses Master Yoda's sort of talking. The knights looks like from star wars... what happened to all those cool knights in FFT like holy knight, divine knight, dark knight, arc knights... instead these knights have been replaced by black cloaked/masked man -.-. I mean... even when i first saw the starting FMV it looked so dumb to me. Btw the OP is the ending scene -.-. i duno whether the creators were lazy or wad lah but it seems as though they nv put in much effort to emphasize the storyline in the game.

Oh yes and the storyline is about a Queen who is trying to take revenge on the Empire. And that's the end of the storyline.

And the chars... your main char is Van is an orphan who looks like Hugo of Suikoden III whose dream is to be a sky pirate. That's all he said about himself at the beginning of the game. ok... then he follows the queen because his brother was killed by the enemy. he also wants to take revenge on the empire maybe? i am unclear about his objective. nvm about hugo, he sux as a main char lor. the only char that i may come to like is balthier who's the sky pirate in the game. well, partly because balthier reminds me of beowulf from FFT. anyway, he follows the queen lends her his services and all that expecting nth in return? -.- and his apprentice, the rabbit girl i forgot her name. Her voice acting is very bad.. she talks with no expression and
very unnaturally. ugh, i hate to hear her talk. Same for the uncle who talks like an indian... he's not indian but he talk like indian... Then next is Basch... Basch i tink does have a reason to follow the queen anyway so i won't say much about him... and panelo.. i only know that she and van are both orphans or frens. we don't know anything else about her background, so i duno wad she's doing in the story. oh btw the other guy, Vahn's smaller brother reminds me of Mustadio but he's only a guest char.

so dun play ff12 unless u are very free and got alot of time to waste... because i never did the sidequests in the game cuz I know they're a waste of time.

ah.. my blog going to undergo revamp. Today I just realised the words are very hard to read because of the background, they're like 1 chunk 1 chunk then the bg makes it even harder to read. need to utilise more of the given space. my BBS is down, duno how to make it back up... so nxt week i'll change everything...