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"It shall be engraved upon your soul!"

Valkyrie Profile is a role-playing game based (loosely) on Norse Mythology. It was originally released on the PlayStation in 2000 by tri-Ace, and later re-released as Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth for the PlayStation Portable in 2006.

Ragnarok (the prophesied battle of gods that heralds The End of the World as We Know It) is approaching, and the god Odin requires a number of great soldiers to fight at his side. He assigns this divine task to Lenneth, one of his most loyal Valkyrie servants, who must descend to the mortal realm and sift through the souls of the recently deceased. Once she has found a suitably pure-hearted soul, she must train it for battle and then send her new warrior to the armies of Valhalla.

However, unknown to Lenneth, there is more to her task than meets the eye: a number of sinister conspiracies are unfolding in both realms as the divine and the mortal manipulate events to achieve their own ends, and Lenneth must decide just who to trust and who to obey.

It was unique in that it had a turn-based battle system that relied on timing attacks well to increase combo hits and thus increase damage. Like other games developed by tri-Ace (like Star Ocean and Radiata Stories), it featured extensive voice acting, which resulted in several classic quotes amongst dedicated role-players.

The game has spawned a prequel/sequel (it's complicated), Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, which was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2006. A third game, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume was released for the Nintendo DS in 2009. There is also a 12 chapter manga adaptation.

In 2016, Square Enix announced a new entry to the series entitled Valkyrie Anatomia: The Origin for iOS and Android devices. It serves as a prequel (for real this time, it seems like) and features a younger-looking Lenneth with a redesigned outfit. It was eventually given a worldwide release in 2019, courtesy of Wonder Planet.

In 2022, Square Enix announced that the Valkyrie series would return to consoles for the first time in 16 years with Action RPG Valkyrie Elysium for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 on September 29th, and PC via Steam on November 11th. A port of Lenneth for PlayStation 4 and 5 (specifically based on the PSP version) was also released on December 22th, 2022 and was given to the purchasers of the Digital Deluxe edition of Elysium.

There is a character sheet for the entire franchise, it contains tropes applying specifically to each individual character.

Not to be confused with Valkyria Chronicles.


Technical Arts Energy is Charged — Purify Weird Tropes!!

  • 100% Completion: There is a completion tracker for unlocking character voices in the gallery.
  • 11th-Hour Ranger:
    • Gandar, who you can only recruit in the last chapter and cannot send up to Valhalla at all.
    • Suo and Lyseria may also count, since these two are probably the last Einherjar aside from Gandar who you'll meet in Midgard.
  • Action Girl: The protagonist - Lenneth - is a Valkyrie, for Pete's sake. Aside from her and her sisters Hrist and Silmeria, this game also gives us several female fighters in Lenneth's Einherjar. These include Aelia, Mystina, Yumei, Lorenta, Jelanda, Jayle, Shiho, Nanami, and Lyseria. Then, of course, there's the uber-badass Freya.
  • Anyone Can Die: In fact, it's more shocking to see who doesn't. Hell, death is a prerequisite for joining the Valkyrie's party.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Aside from Lenneth, you can only have up to three other characters in your party. Justified in that Lenneth expends her power to materialize her Einherjar.
  • Art Shift: In-game? 2D pixelated characters, entities, and static backgrounds. The World Map and some movable parts of the background? 3D. Character portraits? Drawn and colored like a painting. Cutscenes in the original port? 2D anime. Cutscenes in the Lenneth remake for the PSP? 3D CGI FMVs.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Any souls transferred to Asgard. However, they can still die there in battle.
  • Audible Sharpness: In the 3D CGI cutscene of the PSP remake, there is a ringing sound effect just as the camera zooms in on Lenneth's sword when she raises it towards Brahms.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: The one-hit Purify Weird Soul attacks, like Aelia's, fall into this. While they look cool — Aelia turns into a dragon and lets out a Bahamut-style blast — the real power is in multi-hit attacks, which benefit more from party buffs and, more importantly, build up the heat gauge for more finishers. Also, the combo number determines the percentage bonus of subsequent attacks, so a PWS that hits for one strike is just not as good as one that hits for 20. They are made to be used last, especially the most powerful of all, Ether Strike. It's hinted at its Heat gauge increase: a measly 10%.
  • Bait-and-Switch: After spending the game watching the mercenary Celia lose her comrades one by one (all of them joining your party as Einherjar) and becoming increasingly aggrieved by these losses, at the last event where it's just her and her nemesis she and the others had been hunting the whole game, you spend the entire event thinking this is finally her moment to die and become an Einherjar. It isn't. It's Grey, the man she and the others were hunting due to a miscommunication, who joins Lenneth after the ritual he was attempting goes wrong and kills him. The last we ever see of Celia is her sobbing over Grey's empty armor all alone. Poor Celia.
  • Balancing Death's Books: The ritual of Soul Transfer is this trope: allowing someone else to live as you die in their place, and someone who gave their life to revive someone via Soul Transfer cannot be revived by the same means. The Valkyrie can initiate it herself on behalf of another, and does so for Belenus to revive his lover and maid Asaka. It somewhat crosses over with Sacrificial Revival Spell - Grey was the recipient of Soul Transfer from Lemia, who cast it herself and thus died to let Grey live.
  • BFS:
    • The Nibelung Valesti involves 4 massive spears.
    • Among your Einherjar, the ones who wield the biggest swords (in no particular order), are Arngrim, Kashell, and Suo.
  • Black Magician Girl: Mystina and possibly Jelanda.
  • Booby Trap: Quite annoying with those explosive traps on the chests. Other variants can inflict status ailments such as poison.
  • Bonus Dungeon: The Seraphic Gate, which can only be accessed from the main menu once you saved on the final save point. Once you're inside, you can no longer return to the story's final dungeon, but the Einherjar you've sent to Asgard will return to your party as well.
  • Break Meter: While there is no visible meter per se, you do see the special effects whenever the enemy blocks changing color from white to red whenever they block succeeding attacks. It means that repeatedly attacking a blocking enemy will eventually result in a Guard Break, stunning them.note  This is even highlighted in the tutorial dungeon's boss.
  • Breakable Weapons: Weapons forged by humans, including slayer weapons and staves that allow Great Magic use. Notably, they can only break if the battle doesn't end the turn they are used on. This makes weapons that are powerful against specific enemy types very broken as they will generally kill their target in a single turn, meaning you don't have to worry about them breaking as long as you don't use them outside of specifically killing enemies they are meant for.
  • Breast Plate:
    • Lenneth and (especially) Aelia have armor that... exaggerate their assets, but otherwise are perfectly adequate plate armor.
    • Hrist and Silmeria too, obviously. To say nothing of the true Valkyrie.
  • The Bus Came Back: Sending an Einherjar to Valhalla obviously removes them from your party while you are still in Midgard. While you do get to hear reports from Freya commenting on their new lives in Valhalla, those who are still alive by your assault to the final dungeon will return to your party.
  • But Now I Must Go: The game is deliberately set up around this trope: you collect dead warriors to fight in your party, you level them up a bit, then you send them off to Valhalla and must make do without them. So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear factors into it as well; they rank better if you send them off with nicer equipment. Fortunately, they return in the final dungeon.
  • Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": HP is called "Divine Materialization Energy" (or DME) in this game because no one in the party actually has a material form, what with being dead and everything, so they're relying on Lenneth's powers to materialize.
  • Can't Catch Up: Although you do have items to combat this such as Expert Experience, Lenneth can't leave your party at all, so she'll get all the experience, whereas the rest of your party is likely to be changing depending on who you're training for Valhalla or what characters you have. Not to mention that since only the Einherjar on the battlefield gain experience, the other characters often get stuck at whatever level they come at if you don't use them - which is especially brutal if you're playing on Hard difficulty, where everyone comes at Level 1.
    • Suo and Gandar get hit particularly hard because Gandar can only join you in Chapter 8, and Suo only joins around Chapter 7.
    • Of course, there are perks with heroes being recruited at Level 1. It means that you can prop them with two accessories - one that grants a permanent 100 increase in DME when leveling up, and one that adds more CP when leveling up. This means you can actually maximize your heroes even if they come later.
  • Can't Drop the Hero: For the overwhelming majority of the game, Lenneth has to be in your party. The only times she's not is right at the beginning, when you play as Arngrim, and during part of the Golden Ending. This fact also ensures that, by the end of the game, she'll be at least 10 levels higher than anyone else in your party.
  • Calling Your Attacks: Every single character and bosses do this in their PWS.
    Bloodbane: FEEL MY FLAMES!
  • Cap: The DME limit per character is 90,000.
  • Character Level: Typical for a JRPG title, your playable units' overall strength are determined by their levels. The Level Cap is 99.
  • Checkpoint Starvation: The first part of the game, from Valhalla to acquiring your first Einherjar, is a mixture of long unskippable cutscenes, tutorials, two battles, and sparse save points. Your first chance at saving the game in between this long intro sequence only happens when Jelanda, disguised as Angela, falls asleep in Arngrim's bed... And then the next save happens when you finally recruit your first two Einherjar and proceed to the Artolian Mountain Ruins. Depending on your reading speed, the actual dungeon exploration only kicks in when you're already 40 to 70 minutes into the game.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • If you hold onto the Infernas sword found in Chapter 5, one of the final bosses in Ending A turns from a difficult boss to a One-Hit-Point Wonder.
    • Lezard's Humonculi are a big one. A body served as Lenneth's temporary vessel when her soul was separated from her Valkyrie body on the path to the Golden Ending.
  • Combos:
    • Attacks can be chained against one enemy, so it's possible for your entire party to gung-ho up a target for maximum damage. However, timing of the key presses is crucial, as some attacks can miss, interrupting the combo.
    • Some weapons allow the character to have up to three attack combos per turn, although their respective button has to be pressed multiple times.
    • Attacking enemies in the air via combos is known as "juggling", which gives you a chance of making the enemy drop more items or EXP crystals than usual.
    • There's also a skill that extends a character's combo by giving them an additional hit when they attack.
  • Compressed Adaptation: The manga is only 12 chapters long. While it covers most vital events related to the Golden Ending, it only covers the recruitments of Arngrim, Jelanda, Belenus, Lawfer, and Mystina. The latter's role is mostly diminished.
  • Cosmic Keystone: Four of the worlds of Yggdrasil have a powerful relic that sustains their world: Midgard has the Dragon Orb, Asgard has Gungnir, Alfheim has the Sylvain Bow, and Niflheim has the Demon Sword Levantine. If the treasure is removed from the world, it will slowly fall into destruction unless some sort of stabilizing element can take its place. Odin has Hrist seize the Dragon Orb from Midgard when he realizes Dipan is learning forbidden magics, in addition to preparing for Ragnarok.
  • Crapsack World: Children are sold into slavery, monsters are everywhere, amoral or outright evil aristocrats and wizards are doing gods know what to innocent people... Let's face it. Life on Midgard sucks. It's practically a Mercy Kill that Ragnarok is right around the corner, and you could argue that death, and becoming Einherjar, is the best thing to happen to some of the Valkyrie's party. It's like this because Odin had the Dragon Orb removed from the Palace of the Dragon, thus destabilizing Midgard and turning it into the Crapsack World you see in this game.
  • Critical Existence Failure: Notable that if Lenneth is dead for three turns, the entire party ceases to exist and you get kicked back to the world map (or a Game Over if you die in the final dungeons). Justified in that it's Lenneth's energy that permits the other characters to exist in the real world.
  • Culture Chop Suey: The world is heavily based on Norse Mythology, but the island of Hai-Lan has a distinctly Japanese feel, with katanas, samurai, and shrine maidens. The ruins of Akhetanan are based on Egyptian mythology.
  • Cutscene: Plenty of those, just as you'd expect from tri-Ace, and certain ones can be just as long.
  • Dead to Begin With: Being a deity tasked with preparing the souls of the dead for Ragnarok means you don't meet many living folks. Of all the party members in the game, only three temporary party members are not dead. One of them is a goddess, and one of the others is undead.
  • Death by Origin Story: Pretty much a given for the Einherjar.
  • Death or Glory Attack: Any weapon with a low enough Attack Trust stat can turn all of the character's attacks into one - the stat shows how far below the regular attack stat any given attack could land, so a 100 will always attack at full power, while a 50 could be at only half power. Notably, the Infinity +1 Sword, the Angel Slayer, has both the highest attack and the lowest Attack Trust; any given attack with it has the chance of only doing 1 damage or pulling a One-Hit KO on nearly anything.
  • Degraded Boss: Every boss except for the Einherjar bosses, Genevieve, the mummy king, and the final set of bosses get reused as normal enemies. And even they get reused in the Seraphic Gate (although this is more so you can fill out your voice collection).
  • Department of Redundancy Department: During the Sacred Phase, Freya says: "Do you wish to know the status of our Einherjar?" and Immediately after choosing one to view: "You wish to know his/her status?"
  • Disc-One Nuke:
    • The Element and Ether Scepters. They can do incredible damage: unfortunately, they break if you use Great Magic (and the unbreakable ones don't pop up until later in the game). But since they are much more powerful than standard staves, even using normal-version spells from the menu when they are equipped is enough to one-shot most encounters in Chapters 1-3.
    • There is an item called Tome of Alchemy which immediately turns all non-boss enemies (barring very few ones) into crystals. Not only do you instantly kill them for their experience, but you also gain bonus multipliers from said crystals (and rarely, a chest). These tomes are given to you occasionally or through dungeon-delving. So the seemingly scary duo of Dragon Zombies become piñatas.
    • Menu Magic "Lightning Bolt" on all enemies with a strong staff like Dragonbane (assuming you could recruit Nanami in chapter 2) can also be considered as such for 2 chapters, without the disadvantages.
    • Attack items like "Holy Crystal" pretty much kill everything for the majority of the main game regardless of the user's skill and power, which can make even hard enemies and bosses a breeze.
    • Nanami can be recruited as early as Chapter 2, and she comes with Lightning Bolt, which is a powerful spell. And returning to her village after recruiting her can net you Dragonbane, a powerful spellcaster weapon. It can't use Great Magic (which really inflicts damage) but it's unbreakable and has quite a powerful boost.
    • Lorenta comes with Mystic Cross, which is the most powerful magic in the game (And has the most powerful Great Magic), and at that point you might be able to just take out all of Lezard's health with it, given that in order to fight that boss you must recruit her.
    • Lezard's tower also has a couple items that, through alchemy, can give you very powerful weapons that you might be using until the end of the game. During the main story, this makes your two polearm users (Lawfer and Aelia) top tier characters, as well as Arngrim and maybe Kashell since you can get a heavy arms variation, too.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Just because of a single pickpocket, a nobleman sent an army and destroyed the whole town of Gerabellum. Lucian's posse thinks the robbery was just an excuse and that the nobles really wanted to burn the slums to begin with.
  • Doorstopper: According to Lezard, the Philosopher's Stone is the mother of all doorstoppers. He calls it a "ten-billion page codex".
  • Double-Meaning Title: A large portion of the game is Lenneth profiling various dead souls to see if they are worthy of becoming Einherjar. The entire game also takes place in a profile perspective.
  • Dramatic Wind:
    • In the Prologue, wind starts blowing up drastically only after Lucian realizes that he and Platina are in the Weeping Lily Meadow, a place that has a lot of poisonous flowers. It keeps on blowing until the end, when Platina succumbs to the poison and dies.
    • Most of the characters have this in their battle or victory poses. Mages are particularly prone to standing around looking drafty. For them, at least, it could be justified by them using their magic to look cool.
  • Driven to Suicide: Arngrim and possibly Lawfer.
  • Dub Name Change: Suffice to say, the English localization changed a lot of character names and gameplay terms from the original Japanese version.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Ending A, reveals the greater truth behind many plot points and gives a satisfying resolution to Lenneth's character arc. Ending B, by contrast, ends right after defeating the Final Boss of that route, with you earning nothing more than a simple congratulations following which Lenneth's put to sleep. And as for Ending C, that's a borderline Non-Standard Game Over.
  • "End of the World" Special: The path to getting Ending A involves Loki destroying Asgard and, at the climax, Midgard as well. However, the path's events also unknowingly causes Lenneth to obtain the power of creation, which she uses to defeat Loki and recreate the world and its inhabitants (including Lucian) with her as the Lord of Creation.
  • Enemy Mine: In the best ending, Arngrim and Mystina enlist the aid of Brahms (king of the vampires, but not all that bad a guy) and Lezard (who is outright evil, among other things) to save Lenneth.
  • Everything's Better with Samurai: Jun and Suo are two of the Einherjar that Lenneth can recruit. The latter even wears a kabuto.
  • Evolving Attack: Lenneth's signature attack has three levels, the final of which is only available against the Final Boss and the Bonus Dungeon. You get different versions depending on the weapon Lenneth equips. General rule of thumb is that if the weapon allows three attacks, it usually allows her to use the second level of Nibelung Valesti (with few exceptions, for instance the sword Valkyrie Favor only gives the first level version despite allowing for three attacks). The bonus weapons in Seraphic Gate are the only ones that allow the third level of the finisher.
  • Fake Difficulty: Getting the "A" ending is next to impossible without a guide, unless you're really lucky with what you are doing with your playthrough.
  • Finishing Move: Everyone has their ultimate move, and mages technically have 12, but they all share those 12.
  • Foreshadowing: In the tutorial chapter, there is an awkward silence from Freya when she asks if Lenneth remembers anything in Midgard, and the latter answers no. It's a hint to how Lenneth had her memories wiped, and Freya knows about it, she's just confirming something with that question.
  • Dying Declaration of Love: Suo and Jayle to their respective partners.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: A rather interesting case. In the story, Lenneth possesses a ring that she must wear when running her mission as a valkyrie. The ring, named Nibelungen Ring, appears in gameplay as her exclusive accessory, and needs to be worn in her equipment in every Sacred Phase. What the game does not tell you is that the ring is vital in maintaining Lenneth's memory seal, represented by the Seal Value, and lowering it by not wearing it on Sacred Phases becomes a major factor in achieving the Golden Ending.
  • Godiva Hair: The Homunculi have their breasts covered by their long hair.
  • Golden Ending: Ending A, which is much more substantial and impactful than Ending B. It takes an amount of effort managing certain triggers and conditions on specific chapters. So, better hope that you have a guide ready when you want to achieve this ending.
  • Gratuitous English:
    • The game's subtitle ("Should Deny the Divine Destiny of The Destinies"), and arguably "Purify Weird Soul". It's one reason they replaced it with "Soul Crush" in the later games.
    • Nibelung Valesti itself is a corruption of what seemed to be Nibelung Velocity.
  • Great Big Book of Everything: The Philosopher's Stone, which is not a Tome of Eldritch Lore despite who owns it.
  • Guest-Star Party Member: Freya in the first dungeon, and Freya, Brahms, and Lezard Valeth in the Bonus Dungeon. Also, Brahms and Lezard for all of one battle during the path to the Golden Ending.
  • Guide Dang It!: The Golden Ending requirements are extremely counterintuitive, requiring you to perform several seemingly unrelated tasks in quick succession, getting one of your Karma Meters to a certain level, and removing a very clearly plot-relevant character from your party almost as quickly as you get him, without so much as a hint from the game. How did anyone find this out without a guide?
    • The "Seal Value" stat is especially bad: it's never mentioned in any of the tutorials, no one tells you what it does, and there are no hints as to how (or why) you make it go up or down. While most other steps involved in getting the Golden Ending are probably going to be followed by particularly thorough players (there's even a gentle nudge to send the proper character to Valhalla at the required time, since the requirements are a very close fit), the Seal Value requirements (let alone how one goes about meeting them) couldn't possibly be guessed.
    • Getting some of the best items in the game via transmutation is not particularly intuitive, as the options don't seem all that great when viewed through the menu. This is because there are actually three lists, and which list is available depends on whether or not Lenneth has one of two particular items equipped. On top of that, the first of these two items requires backtracking through The Tower of Lezard Valeth (with no indication that may be necessary - also, since that area isn't in Easy mode, you have to be playing on Medium or Hard), and the second requires using that item to transmute an item that otherwise seems random and useless... twice (or purchase a seemingly useless item from the menu when it becomes available in Chapter 6). Naturally, none of this is ever alluded to in-game.
  • Half-Human Hybrid:
    • Lezard intentionally makes his homunculi of this genetic stock. Divine power + human ability to "grow" = power.
    • Yumei is half human, and thus can turn into either human or mermaid at will.
    • Lezard reveals that Odin is half elf, which explains why he could grow stronger, as gods tend to remain static with their divine power.
    • Lenneth becomes one as per Ending A (and the ending that is considered canon to Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria). After rescuing her essence from Hrist, Lezard and Mystina place her into the remaining homunculus that Lenneth spared and Mystina stole. This gives Lenneth power to become the Creator.
  • Hard Mode Perks:
    • The dungeons exclusive to hard mode contain top tier equipment that just isn't available in normal or easy difficulties.
    • An unintentional version is how you get characters at Level 1, instead of at your current level, in Hard Mode, which lets you train them more effectively. Between these two points, Hard Mode can be significantly easier than Normal Mode if you know what you're doing, while Easy Mode can be much more difficult — and it doesn't let you get the Golden Ending, to boot.
    • Lyseria is the only party member found exclusively on Hard Mode. While she has one of the highest base magic stats, there are already a slew of mages to pick from, so her exclusivity loses its value.
  • Heel Realization:
    • Badrach has something like this during his recruitment, when he seems to realize just how bad a guy he was.
    • Also, in Ending A, Lenneth. Or rather, she realizes she's been working for a heel when she gets her memories back, and realizes just how little Odin cares for mortals.
  • Helpful Mook: Lenneth can freeze or crystalize the Pre Existing Encounters in dungeons, and they become temporary makeshift platforms for her to stand on and reach higher vantage points. This often becomes a key mechanic or requirement in some platforming puzzles.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight: Freya and Brahms are supposed to be this, as they're massively powerful and nearly immune to your attacks, but it is possible to beat them. Beating Freya doesn't change the outcome, but beating Brahms makes the game act as if you had decided not to fight him.
  • In the Back:
    • When a character passes through the enemy (usually because of an attack, like say Lenneth's Moment Slide), the character will be behind the enemy and any follow-up attack he or she will do will be a successful, unblockable attack.
    • There's also a skill that lets your character turn around to hit the enemy from behind.
  • Inexplicable Treasure Chests: A lot of the dungeon chests are more like puzzles, requiring you to think and solve how to get to these chests in the first place. Though to be fair, they sometimes mix it up with bags full of loot instead.
  • Infinity +1 Sword: For general weapon types, Swords, actually. And staves. And spears. All of them are considered end-game types compared to the others, since most of these weapon types provide more combos.
  • Infinity -1 Sword:
    • The two best staves you can get in the regular game both sort of count:
      • The Ether Scepters have the highest magic power in the game, and allow for Great Magic, but will break 1/3 of the time they're used.
      • The Unicorn Horns allow for Great Magic and are unbreakable, but their magic power is slightly weaker than the Ether Scepters.
    • For most melee warriors, the Glare Sword is one. It's not quite as powerful as the best items in the game, but it's nearly there, it has the chance of instantly petriftying enemies for a One-Hit Kill, and it can be produced from the common Broken Armor. The only melee characters who can't equip it are spear-users, who can instead equip the similar Crimson Edge, similarly crafted from the Broken Spear.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
    • Subverted for Badrach; even his only good deed is for selfish reasons.
    • Played straight with Arngrim. He's gruff and rude, but he's a caring brother, has a couple of Warrior Therapist moments with Lawfer, and he's one of the leaders of the revive Lenneth and save all of creation plans in the "A" ending..
  • Karma Houdini:
    • Lezard Valeth. At least he gets his demise in the sequel.
    • Gandar; he was saved from being sent to Nifleheim because Odin needed his skills. This probably gave you a hint that Odin is not that nice. Alternatively, it could be that Odin just didn't want Hel to get her hands on him.
  • Karma Meter: Two of them. One measures how well you're doing your job, the other is how well the seal on Lenneth's memories is holding up. The second value also determines her battle quotes. If the Seal is high, she's gung-ho and ready to fight. If it's low, she starts questioning what she's really fighting for, and wonders whether there's a point to all the fighting.
  • Katanas Are Just Better:
    • Inverted in general; katanas are among the worst weapons in the game.
    • The one oddity in general, yet a straight example to the trope is the Dragonbane katana, which is a very powerful early-game weapon for mages, and is unequippable by your party's samurai.
  • Lady of War:
    • The three Valkyries. As expected of their mythological counterpart, they also participate in battle.
    • Aelia and Jayle are the only two female warriors that you can recruit, wherein most of the other female Einherjar end up becoming mages.
  • Large Ham:
  • Late Character Syndrome: Generally anyone you recruit later in the game is going to suffer from this. While there are often ways to buff them up, it might often be better to just stick to the people you got around the middle parts of the game.
  • Leaked Experience: Completing puzzles and finishing dungeons gives you Event Experience, which is pooled in the Exp Orb. You can freely distribute this to any of the characters at your discretion to help them catch up.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: A citizen in the tavern of Artolia talks about a time when he opened a treasure chest loaded with poison gas. Fortunately, he was crouching so it didn't affect him. In the dungeons, Lenneth can open such booby-trapped treasure chests, sometimes with an explosion or poison gas attached. One way for you to avoid the explosion? You have to make Lenneth crouch, just as the random guy mentioned earlier.
  • Levels Take Flight: The Celestial Castle. It's not long, but an unavoidable section of it is tiny platforms with nothing below them, and booby-trapped treasure chests that explode and knock you off the edges. Those rooms also feature flying enemies that will force you into battle, after which you will fall unless you have the presence of mind to re-grab onto the ropes you're supposed to use to cross the gaps. The game has a time limit, and every time you fall off you end up outside, and have to spend more time going in again.
  • Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Played through. Mages are okay at first, but once you get staves that allow them to use Great Magic without it breaking, they'll soon start ruining bosses. Heavy Arms and Lancers can eventually get a near end-game quality weapon with a little searching in Chapter 4, making them (with the exception of Grey) potentially powerful. Archers, meanwhile, tend to lag behind, majorly. With a few exceptions (Janus and Lenneth, who for a while is more powerful with a bow in her hands), they're utterly worthless for anything beyond increasing the combo gauge.
    • In the end, mages and the other warriors (again, save archers) can get more unique in terms of attacks, but all of the mages you get have the same pool of magic and can all learn the same spells; no spell is unique to one sorcerer. Also, the power level of each mage is fixed and generally increases in the order you get them in (Jelanda is the weakest, then the three sorceresses from Yamato, Lorenta, Mystina, Lyseria, and Gandar is the most powerful mage in-game).
  • Love Makes You Evil:
    • Not that Lezard was a nice guy before, what with the necromancy and all, but falling for Lenneth makes him do all kinds of horrors.
    • Belenus's wife made a pact with a vampire upon her death, jealous of her husband's pretty new servant.
  • Mad Scientist: Lezard, though he's more of a mad wizard with traits of a mad scientist.
  • Man of a Thousand Voices: Well, not quite, but the English version of the game uses eleven voice actors (all from TAJ Productions aka 4Kids Entertainment, which in general has a small acting pool) to voice the massive cast, including the extra voices heard during sequences when Lenneth picks up a new Einherjar. The most used actress is Tara Jayne; she voices all three of the sorceresses from Hai-Lan, the boy archer Llewelyn, and most of the secondary female voices heard during Spiritual Concentration sequences. Eric Stuart has the fewest characters voiced, but they differ significantly from each other vocally (Lucian sounds like Brock, while Grey has a deep, hammier voice).
  • The Maze: Several maps are made up of numerous interconnected rooms that it's too easily to get lost inside.
    • Salerno Academy.
    • The Tower of Lezard Valeth.
    • Adrianrod Labyrinth.
    • A small section of the Forest of Spirits loops you until you get the right path.
    • The Seraphic Gate.
  • Mercy Kill: Happens a whole lot, as several of your Einherjar suffer right at death's door, if not already suffering long term in any aspect while they were still alive. The best-case scenario? Lenneth takes their soul, recruiting them as her Einherjar. If only the cutscenes with it had an optional mercy kill option...
  • Multiple Endings: Three total.
  • Mundane Utility: Freya teleports everywhere, whether across the battlefield or down a half-flight of stairs.
  • Non-Combat EXP: The game has Event Experience, which is received at the ends of dungeons and after triggering events while exploring dungeons. It's usually pretty meager in comparison with the experience you get from killing all the stuff in the dungeons, but has the advantage of being able to be divided as you wish among your characters, allowing you to stockpile it and level up weak characters who'd have a difficult time surviving combat.
  • Non-Human Undead: Zombie dragons as bosses and sub-bosses.
  • Non-Indicative Difficulty: Though the enemies are stronger in Hard Mode, a few other factors conspire to make it easier than Easy and Normal.
    • First, while all the recruited characters start at Level 1, in practice this means that you get that many more chances to exploit equipment that gives bonuses to DME and CP at each level up.
    • Second, more dungeons means more battles and both more regular experience and Non-Combat EXP.
    • Third, the hard-mode-exclusive dungeons hold most of the game's really strong equipment. As a result, characters in a hard run-through get more experience in total, have more health at the same level, learn stat-boosting skills faster, and are using near Game-Breaker equipment unavailable to their easy/normal mode counterparts.
  • Non-Linear Sequel: Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria manages to be a sequel and a prequel at the same time without crossing over into the first game's timeline. A Timey-Wimey Ball is involved. Likewise, because of the Timey-Wimey Ball, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume chronologically takes place before Lenneth, but after Silmeria is sealed in Brahms' castle, but "before" Lezard's little time traveling expedition, as Odin is still alive.
  • Nonstandard Game Over: Ending C, which is achieved by basically ignoring all of Odin's requests. Basically, the tide of Ragnarok rapidly turns even worse for Asgard, and Odin and Freya decide that Lenneth needs to be replaced with Hrist.
  • Not the Intended Use: The Dragonbane is an optional katana only obtainable after you recruit Nanami. And despite being a katana, it can only be equipped by mages. Yep, there's a katana in this game that cannot be used by the katana-wielders.
  • Optional Party Member: Everyone except Lenneth, Arngrim, and Jelanda, who you get no matter what. Mystina and Lucian are also necessary for the Golden Ending.
  • Outside-the-Box Tactic: X-slayer weapons are terrible except against X, in which case they do massive damage, usually resulting in a kill in one to three hits. It can make certain bosses incredibly easy. The same applies to weapons with [Insert Element]/DEATH in its description. Even one of the final bosses will fall in one hit because of this.
  • Overrated and Underleveled: This is pretty much the fate of anyone recruited after Chapter 5, particularly in Hard Mode, due to the fact that their base stats are not that much higher than characters recruited much earlier, and the player will have had much less time to use the various Elite Tweak methods to fully take advantage of the higher stats. They're not even that useful in the Seraphic Gate, as there are three bonus characters there that blow all of the others out the window; it's better to just buff them instead. In particular, Lyseria and Gandar are talked up in-story as two of the greatest mages to have ever lived but, outside of those trying to get every sound clip for 100% Completion, hardly get used because Mystina is only a touch less powerful and recruited in Chapter 5 just after the Peninsula of Power Leveling opens up.
  • Overshadowed by Awesome:
    • Obviously happens to those that Can't Catch Up. Several champions you get early in the game, like Belenus, Janus, and Jun also aren't badnote , but they're often sent up to Valhalla, since in the early chapters of the game, you really don't have much of a choice.
    • This also happens to many sorceresses, and Gandar. Mystina's considered the top tier sorceress, and since you only really need one, a lot of people don't bother with the others until Freya asks for you to send someone up to Valhalla. However, Lorenta and Nanami come with a Disc-One Nuke, and it's very likely you'll get Might Reinforce with Shiho first.
  • Palette Swap: Mostly the monsters, but also Hrist, when she takes over Lenneth's body in Ending A.
  • Party in My Pocket: Justified: Lenneth is summoning the other party members within her soul whenever a battle begins.
  • People Jars: The Homunculi of Lezard Valeth are kept in life-sized tubes filled with liquid.
  • Permanently Missable Content:
    • In the Seraphic Gate, failing to juggle an item out of Lezard will make you miss one of the best swords in the game.
    • If you send Lyseria to Asgard, you'll never get her back at the end of the game.
  • Prone to Tears: Nanami and Yumei cry a lot in their backstories; it's even listed as one of their negative traits.
  • Randomly Drops: One of the possible results of juggling a foe is a treasure chest. Most of the items inside are useless or just mediocre equipment, although some of them can become Infinity -1 Equipment with alchemy (presuming you have a guide to show where to get the items needed to upgrade alchemy as well as what alchemizes into what).
  • Ranged Emergency Weapon: Lenneth's ability to equip bows. While there's no enemies that are impossible to engage in melee range, an early boss battle (and some later battles) pits the party against a powerful mage protected by damage-soaking goons. The game advises you to switch Lenneth to a bow to take out the mage first, just in case you don't have a dedicated archer for one reason or another.
  • Really Dead Montage: Nearly every character that joins Lenneth's party gets one of these. Yumei has a particularly long one, which is either a Tear Jerker or simply wangsty depending on the player.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Played straight for most of the time and inverted if you look at the Einherjar business from another perspective. Einherjar are warriors chosen by the Valkyries, so if they die, it's technically a chance to live on after death, like an afterlife. However, the Einherjar need to have some good qualities so that they can be sent to Asgard. It's not a problem for a lot of them, since they start out with some positive traits worthy of becoming a warrior. Some mortals play or invoke this trope, like Arngrim and Badrach, who have questionable morality even at death's door, yet Lenneth choose to have them as her warriors regardless.
  • Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: As expected for a game that centers around Norse Mythology, a lot of characters and concepts have their names taken directly from the myths.
  • Restraining Bolt: In Ending A, we learn that Freya sealed Lenneth's memories to prevent her from straying from her mission.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Lenneth, after regaining her memories and learning of Lucian's death at the hands of Loki. The roaring part is literal.
  • Sacrificial Revival Spell: The ritual of "Soul Transfer". It kills the caster to revive someone who is dead, and someone who died due to this spell cannot be revived by the same means. Grey was a recipient of such a treatment from his lover/wife to be, Lemia. This somewhat crosses over with Balancing Death's Books - The Valkyrie can initiate it on the behalf of another, and does so for Belenus to revive his lover and maid Asaka.
  • Sadly Mythtaken: The game is nominally based on Norse Mythology.
    • The game confuses the Jotuns, a race of giants, with the Vanir, a group of gods and goddesses heavily associated with nature.
      • The myth of Ragnarok concerns a battle between the gods and the Jotuns. In other words, it is between the Aesir and Vanir against the Jotuns. The Aesir and Vanir waged war in the myths, but made peace long before Ragnarok.
      • The Vanir's stronghold in Ending B is called "Jotunheim," while in the myths they're abode is Vanaheim.
      • The character design of most of the Vanir makes them seem to be "giants" (e.g. they are much taller than the main character).
      • Freya, in the lead-up to Ending A, calls their enemies "giants."
    • Description for the Citadel of Flame states that Surt is the lord of Muspelheim (trans. "realm of fire") and that he has a volcano named for him, and in the myths, he is a fire giant. In the game, however, his stronghold is made of ice.
    • Odin has one eye in the myths due to trading his other eye for wisdom. In the game, he has two eyes.
    • Frey is a fertility god in the myths — and as such, phallic imagery is heavily associated with him. However, in the game, Frey is a young woman.
    • In the myths, Mimir was killed in the Aesir-Vanir war, and he was a man. In the game, he is still alive and a woman.
    • The game conflates the valkyries and the Norns.
      • There could be either nine exactly or any number of valkyries — and there were only three Norns — in the myths. There are only three valkyries in this game.
      • Neither the valkyries nor the Norn share a body in the myths, though the Norns notably work together when it comes to fate. In this game, the valkyries share one body and rule over fate itself.
    • The Nibelungen Ring that Lenneth possess (which is also a rather unique case of Gameplay and Story Integration). In the myths, it was an Artifact of Doom that was cursed by its owner (Alberich in The Ring of the Nibelung, Andvari in The Saga of the Volsungs) to bring death to those who possess it. At some point it was given to Sigurd by Brynhild as a token of their marriage in both versions. In the game it is a ring that the valkyrie must wear when doing her missions, but holds a major secret where it acts as a seal to said valkyrie's memories after it got wiped out.
  • Save Point: The game can be saved anytime in the World Map. Inside dungeons however, you need to reach checkpoints called Memory Camps, which are represented by floating crystals.
  • Screw Destiny: The point in Ending A. the world is already destroyed by Loki, yet Lenneth outwits him by having the power of creation to undo all that he has destroyed.
  • Selfless Wish: Deconstructed with Yumei's story. Fuyuki gets a chance to wish for a big boat or be together with Yumei, but instead wishes for her to be with her parents. Unfortunately, her parents are already dead, and he makes the wish to a Literal Genie...
  • Sequel Hook: If the player sticks around after the credits during Ending A, a pair of monologues are delivered by Brahms and Lezard Valeth. Brahms ruminates about the new state of the world with Lenneth as the Creator, wonders how the goddess Hel will react, and is troubled by Lezard's schemes. Lezard reveals that he survived his death at the hands of the Dragon Orb by sacrificing the Philosopher's Stone, making him the only human whose soul is not controlled by Lenneth. He begins plotting how he will achieve ultimate power and make Lenneth his. Those plot points would go on to be explored in the sequel and Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume.
  • Shout-Out:
  • The Smurfette Principle:
    • Inverted for Gandar because he is the only permanently recruitable male sorcerer in the game, not counting the one battle where Lezard fights with you.
    • Aelia is the only female lancer, but there are only two of those (the other being Lawfer).
    • Lenneth can be a light swordsman like Jayle.
  • Sole Survivor:
    • Celia ends up being the last alive out of her mercenary group; Arngrim, Lawfer, Aelia, and Kashell die earlier in the game (the lattermost right in front of her), while even the man she sought to confront and possibly kill ends up acting as an Almost Dead Guy through a failed attempt at self-sacrifice, living long enough to give just an apology. Celia even mentions two other people not detailed by the game, presumed dead.
    • Lezard Valeth sacrifices the Philosopher's Stone in order to survive Ragnarok.
  • Spoiler Cover: A small example. The cover of the PSP release of the game depicts Lenneth crying rather emotionally. This is a pretty big contrast to the Lenneth we know for the majority of the game who is very cold and stoic, letting us know something is going to happen to her to change that.
  • Spoiler Opening: The Opening movie played after the Prologue spoils some revelations in the path to Ending A by reusing most of its related cutscenes – Brahms does play an important role, so does Lucian who is hinted to be Lenneth's love interest (one scene also shows them about to kiss), then there's Arngrim teaming up with Lezard and Mystina, facing a black-haired woman (Hrist).
  • Sprite/Polygon Mix: Characters are in 2D sprites, while the background and environment are mostly 3D polygons. This becomes apparent when you're in the World Map.
  • Status Effects:
    • Your characters can get stunned, petrified, frozen, or poisoned in battles.
    • The Poison status ailment is much more dangerous in dungeon crawling than in encounter battles. Since your Einherjar are tied to Lenneth, any damage that she takes in the dungeon platforming sections also gets applied to the other characters. Poison is permanent until cured, it persists in the battles, and it ticks in intervals.
  • Stripperiffic:
    • Freya is the one female who stands out. She shows a lot of leg, but seeing as she is one of the most powerful gods, she doesn't really have to worry about getting damage.
    • Aelia is half an example—she's wearing full-body plate mail from her waist up, but has her thighs completely exposed, and her official art even has a panty shot.
    • Amusingly, the straightest example in the game is male; Arngrim wears gauntlets and shoulderpads, but his armor conveniently leaves a huge section of his chest and abdomen exposed.
  • The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Sort of. In the Golden Ending, Loki wipes out your party initially, then smuggly scoffs that even the Demon Sword Levantine's power didn't help the Valkyrie, with the game apparently assuming that you'd immediately equip Valkyrie with the Infinity -1 Sword the second you got a hold of it.
  • Teleporters and Transporters: Teleportation magic is an ancient, lost, and powerful magic. The fact that Lezard can pull it off is used as a testament to his ability.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
    • Bosses can spam PWS every turn, and can instant-cast Great Magic PWS.
    • The computer is only cheating a little bit; purple gems (dropped when an enemy is hit while knocked down) reduce the wait time your characters suffer after using their own PWS moves. With sufficient skill (plus abusing the extra hits Reverie gives you, which is why its use with melee fighters is a Game-Breaker; similar abuse comes from using Lucian, whose status as top-tier is due almost exclusively to one of his attacks, Shining Bolt, hitting thirteen times in an instant, pulling thirteen purple gems out of one button-press), you can string a large enough combo that you too can dish out a full set of PWS moves, including using one of the really hefty Great Magic spells like Meteor Swarm or Celestial Star, every turn. The only cheating involved is that the computer doesn't have to string together a large combo with plenty of midair hits.
  • There Are No Tents: You have a limited amount of time to adventure before Ragnarok, and healing costs turns. It's generally more economical to use a healing spell in battle than to heal via resting on the world map.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Juggling an enemy with a combo not only results in increasing the combo gauge and thus increasing the damage of each successive hit, but each such hit will also either release an XP gem (gives +5% experience for the fight, up to a maximum of +200% experience), a purple gem (reduces the wait time before a character can use their Purify Weird Soul/magic spells again), or a treasure chest. The end result is that the player is encouraged to extend a combo well past the point of necessity to max out the rewards for the fight as well as the opportunity to throw out Purify Weird Soul attacks every round.
  • This Cannot Be!:
    • Barbarossa, Brahms and some of the later bosses do make quite a speech if you defeat them.
      Brahms: It... It cannot be!
      Barbarossa: I... I am the king! Had I... had I been in my original body, you would never have defeated me! I... graaaaahh!
      Wraith: It is i..inconceivable! How could pathetic little... I have fallen....NOOOOO!... RRRAAAAAGH!
      Hrist: This is impossible! You creatures are but slaves of the gods! Aaagggghh!
      Surt: It can't be! *cough* Evil.. you mean to say evil prospers? I do not accept this.. I do NOT ACCEPT THIS!
      Loki: The power of creation!? THIS CANNOT BE!!!
    • In a non-villainous example, Lenneth, Freya and Arngrim will sometimes exclaim this should they fall in battle.
  • Timed Mission: The optional run through Brahm's castle, which supposedly only appears at night. Once time runs out, the sun rises and his castle disappears.
  • Training Dummy: Accessed from the party menu, immortal versions of the first monsters in the game can be practiced on in order to figure out how to do your combos effectively in order to get out your "Purify Weird Soul" moves. Unfortunately, it's a feature that's lacking in Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria.
  • Tragic Monster: Poor Jelanda. Jun as well, since both became monsters and had to be slain in order to free their souls.
  • Treacherous Advisor:
    • Lombert to Jelanda in the prologue, as the former is actually a double-agent/spy for the enemy nation.
    • Loki in Ending A. Not a big shock if you know Norse Mythology.
  • Trick Boss: The Final Boss in Ending A, Loki, can only be substantially harmed by Valkyrie's attacks. The rest of the party is pretty much just there to build up the combo meter for her Purify Weird Soul attack.
    • If you use Sap Guard on him first, everyone in your party can make a significant dent on him (Though Valkyrie will still deal the most damage)
    • If you have Unicorn's horn, Celestial Star can really take a huge chunk of his HP off, but again, not as much as Valkyrie.
  • Tsundere: Jelanda and Mystina have shades of this, showing tough lady acts despite having some girly moments as well.
  • Unblockable Attack:
    • Magic is unblockable and unavoidable.
    • Certain attacks are also unblockable, like Llewlyn's third attack.
  • Unbreakable Weapons: Most weapons are this. The only ones that don't are those considered to be Divine weapons.
  • Underground Monkey: Played straight and averted with some monsters. Some have a different color scheme to denote they're higher-powered versions of earlier ones, while others look exactly the same, even though they're much more powerful.
  • Underrated and Overleveled: Averted in Hard Mode, where all the Einherjar start at Level 1, but played very straight in Normal and Easy modes. While Arngrim, the One-Man Army Guts Expy, starts at Level 1 because he's one of the two first recruits, other characters who were explicitly weaker than he was in life start at higher levels due to joining in later chapters. In general, the backstories of the Einherjar Valkyrie recruits do nothing to justify their higher and higher starting levels.
  • Updated Re Release:
    • The 2006 PSP port, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth. While it uses the Japanese PlayStation version that lacks the gameplay changes to the English version, it instead uses CGI full-motion video for the cutscenes instead of the anime cutscenes from the original.
    • On 2018, the game received a port for the Android and IOS smartphones. There are several quality-of-life features that were added, such as: enhanced graphics, UI, text, and character portraits, the ability to skip cutscenes, and a Gameplay Automation mechanic.
  • Victory Pose: Any surviving characters have victory poses after each battle.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting:
    • Yumei can switch between mermaid or human form at will.
    • Aelia also changes form from a human to a dragon when doing her PWS.
  • Weapon of X-Slaying:
    • There's a handful of weapons named [blank]slayer, which when used will kill whatever enemy of that type it hits in one shot. They tend to be breakable, making them Too Awesome to Use except for against bosses. But, because of a bug in the way breakable weapons are trackednote , they can easily last you the whole game.
    • There's another subset of weapons that have a Death effect based around the elemental weaknesses of an enemy rather than the type. One such sword, acquired about half-way through the game, turns the penultimate boss into a Curb-Stomp Battle for your side.
  • We Cannot Go On Without You: If Lenneth is dead for three rounds, the whole rest of the party goes with her. Justified in that, since they're manifestations from Lenneth herself, if she dies, they do too. Becomes an acceptable bit of Gameplay and Story Segregation, too.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?:
    • Lawfer's introduction story does not conclude with Lawfer's death, unlike almost every other playable character in the game, yet he ends up an Einherjar after it's over anyways. How the hell did he die?
      • A developer interview confirms he was executed for helping Roland, Arngrim's brother, excape from jail though.
    • Lenneth hears the name of a vampire early that had indirectly resulted in the death of Belenus, one of the first characters you recruit. She then commits this to memory to look out for her, but you never fight her. Apparently, the vampire in question was Belenus' dead wife.
    • Celia's fate is never detailed; it's likely that she died during Ragnarok. Granted, there are a lot of other mortals whose fate is never explained, but you see Celia in so many recruitment scenes that it seems almost like you'll get her eventually!
  • A Winner Is You: The normal ending just has Freya congratulate Lenneth for defeating the Vanir, with vague hints on how to get the Golden Ending in the post-credits scene.
  • World-Healing Wave: The Golden Ending.
  • Wutai: Yamato. Taking things even further is the fact that the region and the nationality is "Yamato", a Japanese-inspired name ("Yamato" itself being literally an old name for Japan), but the primary village that Lenneth can visit is "Hai-Lan", an obviously Chinese name.
  • Xanatos Gambit: In order to get rid of Jelanda, Lombert kidnaps her and pays two mercenaries to carry her to Villnore. Then, he sends a few soldiers to save Jelanda and gives them a "medicine" (which is, in fact, Ghoul Powder). If the mercenaries manage to get to Villnore, Lombert wins, if the soldiers catch up with them, they give Jelanda the "medicine", she turns into a monster and dies, and Lombert still wins.
  • You Kill It, You Bought It: Lenneth is personally responsible for killing no less than two souls that join her, and a few more die due to her actions.

Alternative Title(s): Valkyrie Profile Lenneth

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