Okay there are a few things I love dearly in life.

• RPGs
• SRPGs
• Fighting games with ludicrous combos
• Badassery(Badassitude?)

(This is not a full and comprehensive list of all things The Reverend Lei loves dearly in life but can be taken as the context of such for this article.)

That said, tri-Ace has come through with another brilliant installment of Valkyrie Profile (Covenant of the Plume,) it’s brilliant and just like..wait a minute no it’s not – It’s an SRPG? That’s right VP-CotP (here on known as Valk – Plume) is an SRPG, with a twist, combo-combat. What I mean by this is that when you initiate combat, it goes into a semi-action based combat, where your characters are no longer bound by turns but can freely attack at their own discretion, (well, your discretion,) assuming you have enough attacks left for that character, or the monster is still in range of their next attack – similar to the prior games.

Now what makes this different over the previous games, your characters do not share one unilateral action bar, each character can make a move on their turn, but assist as many times as possible as long as they are still in range when someone else attacks (whats that? 16 attacks in a turn? Why yes! Thank you), the down side is that the monsters will in fact get a counter attack on each attack your party initiates (keep those tanks alive) and will also be able to do the same to you.

Minor spoiler alert, honestly this is all found in the first fifteen minutes.

In Valk – Plume, you play the..well no not really heroic… role of Wylfred who’s father tragically died on the battlefield and who’s soul was whisked away by the Valkyrie, the Battlemaiden, leaving Wyl’s family to fend for itself – leading to your mother’s madness and your sister’s death. Pretty heavy for the first five minutes I thought. This all leads Wyl down a path of vengeance to seek justice against the Battlemaiden for destroying his home and family. With the aid of the underworld you seek out on your quest for blood and must fuel your blood rage by committing grievous sin, (which you must gain a certain amount of each battle,) that is acquired by two means – Overkill (Remember that?) which is basically doing more damage than your opponent has health, or, sacrificing your teammates.

Now you may think, why in gods green earth would I want to give up my allies? Reason – When you sacrifice them to your Plume (ah, the title makes sense now) they become rampaging murderous monsters with 1000% to all stats for the rest of the battle, then die a soul-sucking death. This can pull you through in a pinch and really save your ass in a boss battle.

Depending on how many of your teammates you decide to sacrifice to your rampage, effects the plot line you recieve, the characters you encounter and the general events of the world around you. With 3 major story endings and 6 mid-game endings, there is plenty of reason to play through over and over. With the combat staying fresh with a variety of character and class types, there’s little reason NOT to do so anyways (I felt bad ignoring some of my characters.)

Will you stop the madness and grief around you? Or will you reap vengeance and slay the Valkyrie. Your choice, at about 12-14 hours for my first play through and about 9-11 for each sequential one, this game will definitely give you your money’s worth.

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