Video Game / Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume

"Feather o'er the battlefield... Unto me thy power yield!"

A 2009 Nintendo DS Turn-Based Strategy prequel to Valkyrie Profile. Covenant of the Plume stars Wylfred, an Anti-Hero (or Byronic Hero or Villain Protagonist, depending on your choices) whose father was killed in battle years before the story starts. He blames his father's death, which lead to his sister's death from hunger and his mother's descent into madness, on the Valkyrie, as she left a feather with the body, and has vowed to take his revenge by seeking her out on the battlefields.

Eventually, the goddess Hel gets wind of this, and makes a pact with him: She'll give him power by corrupting the feather Lenneth left with Wylfred's father's body into the Destiny Plume, which can supercharge a warrior for one battle, but kills him at the end. As an added twist, the plume only works on people who trust Wylfred and consider him a friend.

A handy Succession Crisis for the throne of Artolia serves as the backdrop to Wylfred's Roaring Rampage of Revenge, and how he responds to his task will determine not only the survival of Artolia, but of his own soul and those of his allies.

There is a character sheet for the entire franchise.

Not to be confused with Valkyria Chronicles.

This game provides examples of:

• Alternate Character Interpretation: A rare in-universe example. You see characters behave differently depending on what path you take. A few characters still have the same interpretations though, they just wind up facing you on the other side of the battlefield for different reasons. Wyl has the most variance depending on which path you take.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The Final Battle on the 'A' Path.
• Anyone Can Die: The game does it two ways: First, there are three distinct story paths, and each version of each chapter has different characters you can recruit. However, if you're on one path, and you see a playable character from another path, they're pretty much guaranteed to buy the farm by the end of the chapter, or sometimes show up later as a boss you have to defeat. The second way is with the Destiny Plume, which lets you kill off any of your party members during battle.
• Arc Words: Chapter 3 has Rosea sum up the feelings of that arc (and the game)
  Rosea: Hatred will convince you that sin shall set you free. But it is a dark and only road, and in the end, all you'll have is yourself to hate.
• Artifact of Death: The Destiny Plume, full stop.
• Artifact of Doom: Possibly subverted, since Wylfred can use the Destiny Plume on his own free will.
• Back Stab: Attacking enemies from the back stuns them. It's also how Rosea offs Liselotte in the A and C paths.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Auguste.
  • Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: His appropriately named "Hundred Hands" Soul Crush, which could also be a Shout-Out to Edmond Honda.
• Berserk Button: Mr. Hoppity for Langrey.
  • Apparently, calling Freya old also works wonders.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Valmur may seem to be a Technical Pacifist, and he certainly dislikes unnecessary wars involving his house. This makes his sister think he is a cowardly incompetent loser. In path B, after watching his brother (and later his parents) killed by mercenaries, and seeing the Valkyrie take their souls right before his eyes, he went full on Good is Not Nice and started up the same Roaring Rampage of Revenge as Wylfred did to Valkyrie.
  • Rosea is a kind priestess who reveres the gods and uses her powers to help the people of Artolia, despite being banished by the kingdom for a crime that she didn't commit. Because of that incident, she harbors a deep grudge towards Lieselotte, who was also accused as a suspect. At the end of path A and C, Rosea finally loses her temper and kills Lieselotte, only for her to regret doing it.
  • Kristoff is a peace-loving, kind Prince that is considered weak and passive just because he isn't as warmongering as others. However, in path A, he proves himself quite formidable in combat. In path B, he realizes that all peaceful methods have been exhausted, and decides to go to war with a fervor no one thought he had. Path C is where "beware" really comes in. After losing the fight against Wylfred and Prince Langrey, Kristoff requests to be killed, but is denied. Realizing that Langrey is willing to sacrifice his own people in a bid for power, Kristoff yells, "I'll not let you!" Then, he pulls out a dagger, looks Langrey in the eye, and stabs him right in the gut. What makes this gutsy (no pun intended) is that Kristoff did this from a position of weakness against a very powerful warrior/sorcerer who was at full strength, and in front of many people, including Wylfred. Whether or not Kristoff had any regret is uncertain, because he is killed immediately afterward by Langrey.
• BFS: As is now common in the series, all heavy warriors wield one. Honorable mention to Phiona, who, as the first female representative of this class, doesn't own a large, hard, and undoubtedly very phallic blade and is instead given a Big Fuckin' Rapier. You should not reflect too much on how she manages to use it without breaking it on the first hit.
  • There is also Reinhilde's giant crossbow.
• Bittersweet Ending: The ending on the A path. Instead of being able to save either Rosea or Lieselott like in paths B or C, they BOTH die. Valmur gets killed, and the future of House Haughn comes into question. When Fauxnel's treachery is revealed, you end up joining with him and his Well-Intentioned Extremist scheme because it's too late to undo what has been done. And even after subjugating both Kristoff & Langrey and preventing the war that occurs in paths B & C, Langrey commits suicide anyway. On the plus side, the war is averted before it destroys Artolia, and Wylfred's soul is saved and he gets closure, having given up on his revenge. We also see his mother recover from her mental illness.
• Black and White Magic: Rosea (who starts out as a defensive healer) and Lieselotte (who is more of an offensive spellcaster).
• Bonus Dungeon: The Seraphic Gate, as usual. If the first game's version was only vaguely humorous in the form of the temporary party members making some Fourth Wall-breaking comments and the second game's version had most of its amusement come from humorously renamed storyline bosses and a group of terrier-looking kobolds dressed like the main characters running around the place making a mockery of the game's dramatic cutscenes, this game's version has its Silliness Switch turned up to 11 from the get-go, starting right from the intro to the place and just getting crazier from there, with the only even remotely serious parts being the encounters with Gabriel, Lenneth, and Ethereal Queen, and even then, each of those gets a thorough mocking at some point.
• Boring, but Practical: The ability "Transpose", which lets you swap places with a target. Very handy in a tactical game.
• But Thou Must!: In the game's third battle, you can't take any action until you use the Plume on Ancel. It is still possible to win, by using the end-game equipment that holds over from a New Game Plus to win the battle by letting the enemies attack you first and counterattacking them... But even if you do, the cutscene with Ancel's death plays unchanged.
• Byronic Hero/Anti-Hero/Villain Protagonist: Wylfred, depending on which plot path you're on, as determined by how often you use the plume.
• Calling Your Attacks: All casters shout the name of the spells when casting it, such as "Firestorm!" and "Lightning Bolt!". Even non-offensive ones like "Heal" and "Reflect Sorcery" are subject to this.
  • Physical Soul Crushes also have the user call out the name of the attack, along with some other phrases.
    Wylfred: Suffer my pain! Finishing strike! GRIM VENGEANCE!!!
  • High magic Soul Crushes have a fixed Invocation, regardless of who is using them.
    "Harken the angel's summon, the true path shall guide you, find peace in annihilation. PHANTOM DESTRUCTION!"
  • Each character gets two Pre Ass Kicking One Liners (one of several is chosen randomly when beginning to attack, and one that's always the same is used before a special attack), one Bond One-Liner (again, one of several chosen randomly), and a special line for a critical hit. As usual for the series, these are fully voiced.
• Combination Attack: Limit Break - Soul Crush; yes, There Is No Kill Like Overkill. Actually, you need to carry out egregious overkill (more on that under Karma Meter.)
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Many of those 'bosses' are actually playable characters, yet their damage output goes up around 10 times greater than the time you were using them. They can also spam Soul Crush everytime they attack one of your party members, even though none of the characters can fill up the gauge necessary to use one more than halfway by themselves. Even worse, why do they get weakened again when they join your party?
  • Seraphic Gate displays even more blantant cheating on the AI's part: even though it's easy to reach maximum possible Attack with all the overpowered gear you get from there, the enemy can easily outdamage you with identical stats, and naturally they can have 6-digit HP while you only get 5. The cheating is the most apparent with mage bosses, who can not only cast a spell 3 times per turn as opposed to only 1 you can never increase, but also get an additional damage multiplier for their spells: even with 9999 MAG, which is only attainable by cheating, you can never do more than 3000 damage per hit with Sacred Javelin on an enemy with near-zero Resist, while the high-end boss mages can do close to 20000 damage per hit even on lv 99 characters with less than 9999 MAG.
• Creepy Twins: Mireille and Mischka, who freely admit to killing for fun.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Any battle becomes this if you use the Plume on a teammate.
  • A form of Gameplay and Story Integration, though, since the Plume is intended to offer you ridiculous power in exchange for sacrifices.
• The Dark Side: Kill enough of your allies, and Wylfred's battle quotes change. He stops referencing his father, and starts talking about how "pathetic" his foes are.
• Dead Sidekick: Wylfred is forced to use the plume on his childhood friend before the end of the first area. Wyl has a little breakdown and the friend gets some Last Words, but Wyl doesn't quite show the same angst once he uses it again. (This makes the most sense in the "C" path, because Wyl almost becomes a sociopath!)
• Deadly Upgrade: Previous Valkyrie Profile games forced you to choose how to balance when to give up party members (which you would be rewarded for). In the first and second games, doing so either let them into the afterlife or restored them to life, respectively. In this game, it supercharges them to the point where they can steamroll the entire level and gives you a copy of their supercharged ability, but kills them at the end of the level. Needless to say, you're likely going to feel like a heel every time you do this.
• Deal with the Devil: Wylfred makes the titular pact with Hel, goddess of the underworld.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Mostly gameplaywise: while killing off characters with the plume does have severe consequences, letting characters die in battle is at times even a preferable option: it removes any other status aliments they might have (and all but 2 of them are severely debiliating and disallow them to attack and often would cause that character to die regardless), it allows you to reposition them better by reviving them at a more preferable location and allows them to act on the same turn, and due to both your and your enemies' ability to attack at the same time for every unit in range for each of their turns, you're going to die a lot regardless.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Lockswell, Lieselotte in path B, and Fauxnel in path A, and you can use some of the main game's boss characters (Chapter V and VI bosses) in the Seraphic Gate after defeating them, along with cameo characters from other games.
• Downer Ending: The B ending, which sees Wylfred's father sacrificing his soul to save Wylfred from eternal damnation, leaving the boy to consider what his quest for vengeance has truly cost.
• Dramatic Irony: Those kids Natalia keeps going on about? They're the psychotic twins that end up killing her in one path. They never find out, either; the closest either comes is a battle quote where they say, "What did that woman know about my mother?".
• Driven to Suicide: Darius and Langrey on the A path. (His death on the C path is a Suicide by Cop).
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Has anyone else mistaken Darius to be a woman?
  • Kristoff is also very pretty.
  • Mischka has a rather feminine sounding name... and has the same voice actress as Mirielle.
• Dying Alone: This is Lieselotte's greatest fear. If you use the Plume on her, her last words are of her begging Wyl to stay by her side until she dies.
• Escort Mission: The Ruins on the A path, which is possibly even more unfair than the Roof of Riovanes. Made worse by the fact that one of your party members will attempt to kill the woman you save immediately after the battle... and then she dies at the end of the chapter anyway.
  • There's an escort mission in every version of Chapter 4. However, all are rendered moot by the cutscene afterwards, in which the character(s) you just fought so hard to save are dead anyway. So in all, out of the four escort missions in the game, the rescued character only survives in one of them.
  • Actually, there are two more escort missions where the characters that you rescued will join as permanent party members. Those characters are Natalia (if you sided with the rebels on Chapter 2) and Rosea (if you're taking the C path on Chapter 3).
  • The missions themselves are almost universally reviled. The ally team AI is aggravatingly stupid. In both the Natalia and Rosea missions, the targets will go out of their way to attack nearby enemies, even though they inflict almost no damage, and suffer huge counterattack damage — in the case of the Natalia mission, speeding her own death. Rosea's mission is even worse — she starts in range of two enemies more powerful than her, will attack them even if it is certain to result in her death, and will completely eschew healing herself despite having the ability to do so. The mission is especially notable because, depending on enemy unit movements, it is fully possible for Rosea to die before the end of the first turn — and unless the party intervenes immediately she will definitely die before the end of the second.
• Evil Plan: The A ending reveals that everything involving the Succession Crisis was set up by Hel and Ailyth for their own nefarious purposes. The lead-up to the Final Boss involves Ailyth chewing Wylfred out for not cooperating.
• Evil Twin: If you don't make the "Sin" requirement, Hel will sic "Realmstalkers" on you in the next stage. These "Realmstalkers" are powerful dopplegangers of your party members, both alive and dead.
• Face Death with Dignity: In the A ending, Wylfred tells Ailyth that he cannot honour the covenant forged with Hel, after realizing that murder and vengeance won't give him the peace he wants in his life, and calmly tells her that he's ready to descend to Nifelheim. This understandably changes with Ailyth chews him out for not being a 'good little pawn' and cooperating with Hel's master plan of destroying Artolia through the Succession Crisis.
• Fiery Redhead: Lieselotte, who has a penchant for using fire magic.
• Fighting Your Friend: In the final battle of the C ending, every character you sacrificed comes back as one of Valkyrie's einherjar - fighting against you. Oddly enough, though, despite the fact that he's the only person you have to use it on, Ancel isn't among them.
• Final Boss: Actually, there are three. On the A path, it's Garm. On the B path, it's Thyodor. On the C path, it's Lenneth herself.
  • True Final Boss: In the B ending, it appears like you're at the final battle with Lenneth...however, Thyodor steps in and makes sure you know that you will not harm Lenneth.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The respective elemental attributes of Mireille, Mischka, and Natalia - who all happen to be biologically related to one another.
• First-Episode Resurrection: Wylfred is "killed" by a monster after the first battle, but is revived after making a Deal with the Devil with Hel.
• Foreshadowing: Every time you use the Plume, the after-battle cutscene shows a feather falling on your dead party member, which means they've been chosen as an Einherjar. In the C ending, Lenneth calls them to fight against you.
• For the Evulz: Hel knew from the beginning that the Valkyrie was immortal, and Wylfred could never kill her, and seems to have concocted the whole plot for her own amusement.
• Four Is Death: The game allows you to use the Destiny Plume up to 3 times during a single playthrough. Using it again will lead you to a Non-Standard Game Over.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: The plume is mentioned as being able to bring out most people's hidden powers. Naturally, whenever you use it on someone, they turn the battle into a Curbstomp Battle.
  • A powerful one happens in Path C, where Wyl goes fully Dark-Side and becomes a Blood Knight. His quotes have him insulting his opponents and not referencing his father anymore.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Hel, the goddess who enabled Wyl to embark on his quest for revenge is either directly or indirectly responsible for a lot of the problems in the game.
• Guide Dang It!: The first time you play through the game, you are given a choice to go to three different locations. Did you pick the town and side with the rebels? Congratulations - you just picked the hardest path to do on your first playthrough!
• Harder Than Hard: Go ahead, go for ending A on your first playthrough. We dare you. The official strategy guide goes as far as to say it's impossible.
  • As can be expected from a Bonus Dungeon, Seraphic Gate is this to a major degree: each playthrough gets tougher and tougher and if you miss one of the Infinity Plus One Swords either lying around on the map or fail to get one as a drop from a boss, you're basically screwed in the long run when it comes to the character class able to use it. Furthermore, since every character is reset to level 1 and loses all of their skills and the inventory of the only shop available never changes, you need to have the foresight to grind some of the bosses for their drops beforehand, such as the essential Dash skill. And finally, if you thought you could spam the Plume with reckless abandon due to the repeating nature of the dungeon with the implication that any characters you've killed with it would rejoin you on the next playthough, think again: not only does Wylfred lose the Plume in the introductory cutscene, but he also loses all of his Game-Breaker Plume skills he's learned up until that point.
    • Then again, due to the overpowered equipment you eventually find and the fact that you can grind your characters as much as you like, you'll eventually become just as strong as you would be when under the effects of the Plume (minus the status and elemental damage immunity), with no drawbacks present in the main game such as Realmstalkers or Sin quotas.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: The Escort Missions tend to have a strange habit of having the characters you spent the entire battle protecting from death immediately die once you win.
  • There's also Hel, who either gets Wyl to kill the Valkyrie, or gets his soul. As the Valkyrie cannot truly be killed, only temporarily removed, the C ending has the coin simultaniously land on both sides as much it can. The only reason the A ending doesn't get her anything is because her servant had a freak out, rather than any direct fault of her own.
• Hero Antagonist: The Valkyrie, of course; this time the player's side is turned around. It also applies to Thyodor in the B ending.
• Heroic Sacrifice: On path B, when Ailyth is about to send Wylfred to Nifelheim, his father pushes him away from the portal she created and is taken in his place.
  • If you side with the Bloody Twins & Huegoe early in the game, Natalia gives herself up as a sacrifice to save the other rebels.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Lenneth's (the Valkyrie) Nibelung Valesti Soul Crush does this with 4 giant spears.
• Improbable Infant Survival: Zig-zagged in a brutal way. The Bloody Twins, both twelve, only show up if you pick a certain path and, other than Gwendal, are the only chapter two party members who are not fought as a boss or implied killed on another path. But this is also averted, because you can use the plume on them after you recruit them. (Although, you can assume that even if you use the plume on both of them, they live on as Einherjar, literally the youngest!)
• Infinity +1 Sword: If you complete the Seraphic Gate ten times in a row, you will be given the Angel Slayer, which happens to be the strongest sword in the game.
• In the Back: Rosea does this to Lieselotte on paths A and C.
• It Gets Easier: One of the major themes of the game, along with the Cycle of Revenge is how Wylfred reacts to using the plume:
  • In the A Path, he is so horrified by its effect on Ancel that he can't bring himself to use it again, becoming a remorseful Byronic Hero on a path of eventual redemption and moving on.
  • In the B Path, he uses the plume once or twice more, seeing it as a necessary evil on his Anti Heroic path of revenge, ultimately culminating in his father sacrificing his afterlife to save his from Nifelheim.
  • In the C Path, he falls completely to The Dark Side, becoming a Villain Protagonist Blood Knight ready to sacrifice and kill anyone on his quest for vengeance, which ultimately ends up pointless as he is dragged to Hel.
  • Meta-wise, the more people you've sacrificed, the easier the game becomes. Doing it once during a battle guarantees a win, and grants Wyl a powerful ability he'll retain for the rest of the game and all subsequent playthroughs. So you, the player, will be less and less broken up over the guys you've lost as it goes.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Every chapter has its own plot, which is only loosely connected with everything else.
  • When you actually play through all three endings, there are some things that make sense. Not just Natalia's missing children being the Bloody Twins, but the "B" path has Lieselotte mentioning that she and Rosea weren't the only mages; there was a third named Fauxnel. And if you know him from the "A" path, you'd know that the Magnificent Bastard has been known to order assassinations... sounds an awful lot like Fauxnel did it.
• Kamehame Hadoken: Ailyth's Soul Crush is basically a huge beam that spans visibly from space.
  • "Phantom Destruction" starts with firing some Beam Spam and ends with Kamehame Hadoken.
  • Freya uses this as one of her basic attacks, the other being Beam Spam.
• Karma Meter: In each battle, you're required to max out your Sin meter in order to get various rewards.
  • Interestingly, despite the Sin terminology, all the mechanic really means is dealing extra damage beyond that required to kill an opponent. Thus, There Is No Kill Like Over Kill.
    • Well, that, and the fact that sacrificing your trusted allies for power adds a full meter's worth of Sin. The number of sacrifices also acts as a more literal Karma Meter, as the number of sacrifices you make not only affects how the story plays out, but also affects whether Wylfred acts like an Anti-Hero, Byronic Hero, or full-out Villain Protagonist.
• Karma Houdini: Fauxnel... dear gods...
  • This one's particularly horrible, since once characters join you permanently, they shift permanently Out of Focus. You can only GET the spoilered character on one specific plot path, which also nets you a character who is hunting down the person who killed his (adoptive) father, which said Karma Houdini openly admits to masterminding. Not a word is uttered. A possible explanation is that by this point, the character has gotten over the idea of revenge (since that's the A path's running theme), but still, a scene or a line acknowledging it would've been nice.
  • Let's not forget the fact that Fauxnel's successful assassination plot against a VIP results in Leiselotte and Rosea miserably hating and blaming each other for the rest of their lives. Depending on which path you take, said hatred and blaming results in either Leiselotte killing Rosea, Rosea killing Leiselotte, or both killing each other. The worst part is, the only person who finds out about all this is Wylfred (on the A path). And like he's gonna tell anybody, especially since both girls have been dead for awhile!
• Kick the Dog: Gwendal does this a lot; on the path that gets you him as a party member, the first notable thing he does is kill one of his own men to lure undead to the area, so they can ambush their enemies.
  • Also, the player can do this either via the story (such as when you have to help kill Natalia) or via using the plume to kill sympathetic characters.
• Lady of War: Reinhilde, and to a degree her daughter Phiona, though the latter could also qualify as a Cute Bruiser.
• Limit Break: Every playable character (even bosses) can perform Soul Crush attacks that usually inflict a large amount of damage on one unlucky target.
• Meido: Ailyth. The Bonus Dungeon has fun with this by giving her a feather duster, a mop, and a tea set as her attacks, with the former and latter being her equippable weapons.
  • At least she still has her Garm Soul Crush.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Rosea says this verbatim on the C path.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: NPCs who have finishing strikes get to use them on every attack without having to build up combo meters, presumably because the AI wouldn't be able to figure out how to do so reliably.
• Multiple Endings: Three of them (and a Non-Standard Game Over), depending on how many times you used the Destiny Plume.
  • Ending A: Refuse to use the Plume past the first time, revealing the Plume was all a ploy orchestrated by Hel. After defeating Garm, Ancel forgives Wylfred for being used like a guinea pig, and is able to settle down peacefully.
  • Ending B: Use the Plume once, which condemns Wylfred to Niflheim, but his father ends up taking his place instead, leaving him to atone for his sins.
  • Ending C: Use the Plume more than once, driving Wylfred into madness as his ambitions are All for Nothing. Freya condemns him to Niflheim for eternity.
• Near-Death Experience: Wylfred almost dies at the beginning of the game, but his soul is saved by Valkyrie at the behest of his father. Unfortunately, he never learns this is the case, so this does nothing to end his desire for revenge, much to Hel's delight when she meets him for the first time.
• Never Mess with Granny: Reinhilde. Even if she's the slowest archer (Probably because of that HUGE crossbow!)
• New Game Plus: Lets you carry over all your equipment, items, CP, and learned skills and also gives everyone up to 2 additional passive skill slots. You also have to get all three endings to unlock the Bonus Dungeon.
• Nintendo Hard: The game is as hard as any Fire Emblem game if you choose to refrain from sacrificing your teammates on your first playthrough... But the minute you choose to make that sacrifice, all of the difficulty flies out of the window for that and all future playthroughs.
• No Fair Cheating: Using the Destiny Plume too many times in a chapter (usually, more than once on anything but the A route) will put you into a Hopeless Boss Fight with Freya. Supposedly the fight can be won in a New Game Plus with enough Golden Eggs farming, but the game will still act as if you lost, leading to a Non-Standard Game Over.
  • It's plainly merciful from the game, as in most cases when this happens, Wyl would be on his own or with only one companion in the next battle, rendering it nigh impossible.
• One-Handed Zweihänder: Most characters with 1 handed blades almost always use them with 1 hand, even with the other hand free. But the most prominent example is Kristoff, who holds a 2 handed sword with 1 hand.
• Out of Focus: Everyone you recruit does not get any dialogue after their events are over. Unless you kill them off (or someone closely connected to them.)
• Palette Swap: In Seraphic Gate, you will encounter Hrist, who is Lenneth's Palette Swap; if you defeat her, you will notice that she has exactly the same attacks, and even the same Soul Crush. The same goes for Ancel and Arngrimm.
• Permadeath: The titular Destiny Plume is essentially an "I Win" button when you use it, albeit with the doing this to a character. However, to get the Golden Ending, you have to beat the game without using it.
• Pet the Dog: If you sacrifice Mischka before Mireille, he will act like nothing has happened and tell his sister to go ahead. His last words request that Wylfred never tell Mireille about his death. Surprisely, this is one of the few Plume scenes in which Wylfred shows regret.
• Plucky Girl: Cheripha has a pretty dark past, but she's determined to live her life to the fullest. Hell, she's just about the cheeriest person you pick up during the game.
• The Power of Friendship: Played dead straight in a horrific way. "Guests" of the party and mere acquaintances are of no use to the plume. On the other hand, those who consider you a friend are practically in your mercy. And as the game states, the closer, the better.
• Psycho for Hire / Enfante Terrible / Child Soldiers: Mireille and Mischka come across as preteen versions of this, being rather monstrous child mercenaries who lack any ethical compass due to never having any moralizing influences. They have no qualms whatsoever against bloody, often senseless murder.
• Prophecies Rhyme All the Time: The game's tagline "Destiny by Sinner Sought; Tragedy by Power Wrought" and some of the black background Exposition Breaks.
  • Every character's skill that's used upon using the plume on them and which Wylfred learns after the battle also has an excerpt of a poem relating to the skill in question. Since you get to read them before you actually choose to sacrifice them, and the effects are as stated, they count more or less as prophecies.
• Purposely Overpowered: The titular Destiny Plume is essentially an "I Win" button when you use it, albeit with the cost of a character. However, to get the Golden Ending, you have to beat the game without using it.
• Rage Against the Heavens: A recurring theme of the series, but much more obvious this time around.
• Raised by Natives: Ushio, a swordsman from the Isle of the Yamato, was adopted by the Arch Mage Cennair after the latter found him shipwrecked on the shores of Artolia. Oddly, despite this, he still dresses and fights as a Yamato warrior rather than an Artolian, and keeps to his birthplace's customs, despite being fairly young at his adoption.
• Really 700 Years Old: Somewhat played for comedy with Freya (the super hot immortal goddess) in the Seraphic Gate. Oh Fauxnel...
• Recurring Riff:
  • Much of the music is from the first game. For example, dungeon background music is re-purposed as Battle Theme Music during the enemy phase. Other pieces, like the victory theme are put to their original uses. This is particularly noteworthy, because Silmeria had a very different musical feel from the original, with the Musical Nods much more subtle, so much so that you might not recognize them.
  • Chapter 1 uses "Mighty Blow" as a boss battle theme, a song from Star Ocean: The Second Story, another game develper by tri-Ace.
• Redemption Demotion: Many of the recruitable characters that you have to defeat in certain parts of the story end up becoming weaker once they join your party.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The most prominent examples in this game would have to be Ancel and Wylfred, Cheripha and Lockswell, Earnest and Darius, Mireille and Mischka, Lieselotte and Rosea, Phiona and Valmur, and not to mention Langrey and Kristoff.
• Replacement Goldfish: Wylfred's mother treats him like his father's replacement.
• Retirony: Referenced in Ancel's Truthade Bio:
  Wide-eyed lad who sealed his own fate the moment he told Tilte "There's something I want to ask you when I return," which ranks alongside "wistfully gazing at family pictures" and "expressing eagerness about future plans" in terms of telltale signs that a character is not going to live past the first battle. Take note.''
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: A recurring theme in the chapters, which serve to mirror Wylfred's overall story, which is also an example, though whether it's played straight depends on which plot path you're on.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Every ending to some degree, since as a mortal, Wylfred can't beat the setting's big guns like Lenneth and Hel. The straightest example is the B path, where everything was in vain. The A path has Wylfred deciding on his own to give up his quest, and lets him beat up Garm even if he can't take on Hel. The C ending goes sailing into Shoot the Shaggy Dog territory.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The C ending, where Wylfred learns it's impossible to kill the Valkyrie, meaning his whole quest was meaningless from the start, and was just Hel having a bit of fun. Then Ailyth kills him and sends him to Nifelheim for all eternity.
• Slasher Smile: Wylfred shows it in the C route and in Seraphic Gate, while commenting on the game with Hrist as leading character.
• Silliness Switch: The Seraphic Gate. There's also the Truthade item, which adds humor and snark to your character profiles. Until you find out who those children Natalia was talking about all game are...
• Spam Attack: Some characters have this as their Soul Crush (Natalia, Darius, Auguste, Roienbourg). Auguste, Duwain and Roienbourg also have this as one of their basic attacks.
• Spoiler Opening: Ancel, trusted companion of Wylfred, is the only other party member who is featured in the opening cinema. Averted, since you're forced to kill him off in the prologue.
• Stalker with a Crush: Duwain is humorously seen as this by most people, according to his hidden profile.
• Stripperiffic: Lieselotte and Freya.
• Surplus Damage Bonus: Attacking an enemy with zero HP will fill up the Sin gauge. Acquiring twice as much Sin as the game demands for that battle can unlock powerful weapons, armor, accessories, and abilities. Conversely, failing to overkill enemies will earn you the ire of your mysterious benefactor, generally meaning that she'll screw you over in your future battles by setting her goons on you in addition of fighting the enemy forces: they're basically impossible to beat without using one of the other main mechanics to supercharge one of your allies, which also kills them after the battle as well as automatically fulfilling the basic Sin requirement. In short, she'll get her way no matter what you do.
• Team Switzerland: If Wylfred takes the "A" path, then he finds himself a member of Team Switzerland who actually DOES get their hands dirty to — what else? Stop the succession Crisis that's ruining Artolia. Sadly, this doesn't work...
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Overkill is actually an in-game term: it appears when you kill an enemy and give them extra damage before they collapse. Strongly encouraged for extra bonuses, or at least for the sake of watching the cool Soul Crush sequence. Oh, and if you don't get enough overkill, Hel will punish you.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Subverted by Rosea near the end of path A and C, when she gets revenge on Lieselotte by stabbing her in the back.
• Tsundere: Played for laughs by Tilte during your first visit to the Seraphic Gate.
• Unbreakable Weapons: All of the weapons are unbreakable, but interestingly, several of the weapons and armors mention having the "ether coating" that made only certain weapons in the first game unbreakable.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: When you plume someone, you will receive a cutscene where you see them give up, and their loved one crying for them. You can also proceed to make Rosea's life a living hell by Pluming Duwain in front of her.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: You can at least Mercy Kill Rosea so she at least gets to live on as on one of Lenneth's Einherjar.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Ailyth is really Garm, the Hound of Hel.
• Weapon of X-Slaying: While not as powerful as the Slayer weapons of the first two Valkyrie Profile games, there are still weapons with bonuses against specific types, e.g. Ravenbrand vs. birds.
• Yandere: Ailyth becomes something like this near the end of the A path.
  • Actually, she has been one all along, but can't hide it any longer after Wylfred states that he no longer wishes to continue on with his quest for vengeance.
  • Even more so in Seraphic Gate, "I am going to bite you".
  • Lieselotte is probably one too.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Not as bad as some, but there's a definite effort to make the text sound 'olde.'
  • My Nayme Is: The most flagrant example of the above trope since the writers saw it fit to make sure that no name was spelled traditionally. (Phiona is one thing, as is Wylfred, but Heugoe?)
• Your Soul Is Mine!: This is specifically what's stated to await Wyl unless he kills the Valkyrie. Of course, as you can never permanently kill a valkyrie, Hel is guaranteed to get a soul no matter what. The only reason it doesn't happen in the A route is because Ailyth freaks out over Wyl's acceptance of his fate without achieving any vengeance.

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