Valkyrie Profile

"It shall be engraved upon your soul! Divine assault, Nibelung Valesti!"

Valkyrie Profile is a unique Norse Mythology-based role-playing game released on the PlayStation in 2000 by tri-Ace and re-released as Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth for the PSP in 2006. In it, you take control of Lenneth the Valkyrie, charged by Odin to amass warriors to fight with the Aesir in the upcoming Ragnarok. To do so, Lenneth must go down to the mortal realm, find souls of slain warriors that are pure and ready to fight for Odin, train them and send them up to Valhalla. Of course, there are things going on behind the scenes that Lenneth doesn't know about, including those also trying to use the mortal realm for their own plans.

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: 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 a character sheet for the entire franchise.

Not to be confused with Valkyria Chronicles.

Tropes used in Valkyrie Profile include:
  • Acquitted Too Late: Janus.
  • Animated Armor: Grey, his body seemingly destroyed by the time his wife performed a soul exchange, so his soul was fused into a suit of armor to allow him to live. His companions were later confused as to why he never removed his armor, not aware that he is now literally living armor.
  • Anticlimax Boss: Coming right after Bloodbane, Fenrir can be this because of his weakness to fire. Infernas, a sword you pick up much earlier in the game, can kill him in one hit.
  • 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: Justified in that Lenneth expends her power to materialize her Einherjar.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Any souls sent to Odin.
  • Back from the Dead: Lucian in the Golden Ending.
  • Badass: Arngrim takes out dozens of soldiers, and dies by committing suicide rather than have a last stand. Considering he's a Captain Ersatz for Guts, it's about to be expected.
  • Bag of Sharing
  • Battle Ballgown
  • BFS: Primarily Arngrim, though Kashell and Suo have smaller ones.
    • The Nibelung Valesti involves 4 massive spears.
  • Bifauxnen: Jayle.
  • Big Badass Wolf: Fenrir.
  • Black Magician Girl: Mystina and possibly Jelanda.
  • Block Puzzle
  • Blood Knight: Arngrim. He became a mercenary not to get a paycheck, but to get a good fight. Badrach too, who was all too happy to be picked up by the Valkyrie, at least before mentioning his deeds.
  • Body Horror: Jelanda's demon form. Oh God.
  • Bonus Boss: The bosses in the Seraphic Gate.
  • Bonus Dungeon: The Seraphic Gate.
  • Booby Trap: Quite annoying with those explosive traps on the chests.
  • Bow and Sword in Accord: Lenneth. She's actually more useful as an archer most of the time, considered the only useful archer in the game besides Janus.
  • Bragging Rights Reward
  • Brawn Hilda: Averted. All the Valkyries are Ladies of War.
  • Breakable Weapons: Weapons forged by humans, slayer weapons, and staves that allow Great Magic use.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Calling Your Attacks: Every single character and bosses do this in their PWS.

Bloodbane: FEEL MY FLAMES!

  • The Cameo: In the PSP re-release, Alicia shows up in a cutscene when you go back in time in Dipan, arriving just in time to see King Barbarossa, her father, be executed.
  • 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.
    • Suo and Gandar get hit particularly hard, because Gandar you can only get in chapter 8, and Suo only joins around Chapter 7.
  • 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.
  • Captain Ersatz: Arngrim is Guts with the serial numbers filed off.
  • Character Level
  • Check Point
  • Chekhov's Gun: Lezard's Humonculi are a big one.
    • A most likely unintentional one, but if you hold onto the Infernas sword found in Chapter 5, one of the final bosses in the A ending turns from That One Boss to a One-Hit-Point Wonder.
  • Combos
  • 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.
  • Coup De Grace
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Crutch Character: Freya, who at Level 2 does absurd amounts of damage and has absurd amounts of HP (though she dodges everything anyway), joins you for the first tutorial dungeon, until you reach the dungeon's boss, at which point she backs off and lets Lenneth's party take him on.
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus
  • Crystal Prison
  • Cutscene: Plenty of those, just as you'd expect from tri-Ace.
  • Dark Action Girl: Hrist.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Brahms.
  • Dark Magical Girl: Given the definition, you could argue that Lenneth is this, for spoiler reasons.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Lezard Valeth, when he's not chewing the scenery.

Lezard: They say you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, so I say, "Nice try."

  • 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.
  • Deal with the Devil: Lezard claims this in his intro:

Lezard: I am he who hath entrusted his soul to the eternal vortex of time.

  • Death by Irony
  • Death by Origin Story: Pretty much a given. If they aren't killed by someone, expect them to hit the Despair Event Horizon and be Driven to Suicide like Yumei, Grey, and possibly Lawfer, as his death was not shown on screen.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Valkyries are stripped of human emotion to keep from interrupting their duties. Lenneth eventually regains her human emotions and becomes incredibly compassionate. Previously, Lenneth and the other Valkyries are cold. Notably early on when she told Llewelyn that she is not a goddess of love.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: During the Sacred Phase: "You wish to know the status of our Einherjar?" Immediately after choosing one to view: "You wish to know his/her status?"
  • Difficulty Spike: Lezard's tower can be a wake up call dungeon for most players who aim for the A ending or just want Mystina (since you will be forced to clear it in chapter 4). Not only it is a confusing maze, but it's also filled to the brim with Demonic Spiders. On the plus side, after you've been through it once, it's a good place to come back to for some grinding.
  • Digging Yourself Deeper: In Badrach's recruitment scene, Lenneth starts out collecting his soul for Hel to torment him for eternity; she asks if he's done anything good to warrant becoming an Einherjar, and Badrach, in a panic, starts listing off things like, "I helped a kidnapper! I sold women into slavery!" Lenneth is about three seconds away from booting his ass down to Nifleheim before he comes up with his one good deed, which he did out of spite anyway.
  • 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.
    • 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.
  • Does Not Like Men: Aelia, though this is justified since she is not a human.
  • Doomed Appointment: Janus.
  • Doorstopper: According to Lezard, the Philosopher's Stone is the mother of all doorstoppers. He calls it a "ten-billion page codex".
  • Dramatic Wind: 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, Yumei, and potentially Lawfer.
  • Dual-Wielding: Jun.
  • Dying Declaration of Love: Suo.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Without the A ending, the best you can hope for is a "meh". The B ending is pretty anticlimactic.
  • Easter Egg
  • Eleventh-Hour Superpower: In the best ending only, where the last hit of Lenneth's upgraded Finishing Move can hit the final boss for 65k damage. Even with two million HP, that's a big "OUCH".
  • Emotionless Girl: Lenneth early on, at least until she regained her memories and thus her emotion.
  • 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.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: One reason why Lenneth accepted Badrach, as he freed a little girl from slavers, even after all the crimes he has done.
  • Everything's Better with Samurai: Jun and Suo.
  • Evil Laugh: Lezard, several times.
  • Evolving Attack: Lenneth's signature attack has three levels, the final of which is only available against the Final Boss and the Bonus Dungeon.
  • Fake Difficulty: Getting the "A" ending is next to impossible without a guide, unless you're really lucky.
  • Fight Woosh
  • Final Speech: Badrach makes a rather long one to convince Lenneth to not send him to Hel, goddess of Nifelheim.
  • Finishing Move: Everyone has one, and mages technically have 12, but they all share those 12.
  • Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Lezard, sort of.
  • Fragile Flower: Nanami and Yumei; it's even listed as one of their negative traits.
  • A God Is You
  • Golden Ending: Difficult to attain without a FAQ.
  • Good Bad Translation: "It shall be engraved upon your soul!" may have been "I shall annihilate your soul" in the original Japanese. As the original scripts are not available, and the difference between the two is a single character, this may be a case of Misblamed, however.
    • "STEP ON IT PUSH BUTTON", on the other hand...
  • 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.
    • It's too bad that they changed it since its original form is a (potentially accidental) Genius Bonus: one of the archaic definitions of the word "weird" is something like "destiny." As all enemies not specifically stated to be otherwise are "undead" (in VP a catch-all for non-divine immortals; undead also are mentioned in the Golden Ending to exist outside of fate), and the act of defeating them places their souls back into the system, killing them could be called purifying their soul's weird.
  • Great Big Book of Everything: The Philosopher's Stone, which is not a Tome of Eldritch Lore despite who owns it.
  • The Grim Reaper: Lenneth is often referred to as a "death-goddess".
  • 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 about sending on Lucian since he is an exact fit for Valhalla's Einherjar requests in the chapter you're supposed to let him go), the Seal Value requirements (let alone how one goes about meeting them) couldn't possibly be guessed.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Lezard intentionally makes his homunculi of this genetic stock. Divine power + human ability to "grow" = power.
    • Yumei is also half human, and thus can turn into either human or merfolk at will.
  • 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 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.
  • Heel Realization: Badrach has something like this during his recruitment, when he seems to realize just how bad a guy he was. Also, in the A ending, 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.
  • Heroes Prefer Swords
  • Heroic Sacrifice / Equivalent Exchange: The process of "Soul Exchange".
  • Holding Out for a Hero
  • 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.
  • 100% Completion
  • Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Though to be fair, they sometimes mix it up with bags full of loot instead.
  • Infinity+1 Sword: Swords, actually. And staves. And spears. And...
    • 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.
  • I Wished You Were Dead: "Lapis, grant me my heart's desire!"
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Actually a bad guy, but he is right.

Lezard: "You don't have any idea what you are, do you?"

Can you withstand this?

  • Karma Houdini: Lezard Valeth, who gets away with crimes that would make The Joker blush. At least he gets his demise in the sequel.
    • Gandar, too; 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.
  • Karmic Death
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Subverted; katanas are among the worst weapons in the game.
    • The one exception is the Dragonbane katana, which is a very powerful early-game weapon for mages, and is unequippable by your party's samurai.
  • Kill Him Already
  • Kill the Poor: Present in Lucian's backstory. He was part a of a band of thieves that steals for the poor. Consequently, in retribution, soldiers were sent to kill not only the thieves but also the rest of the slum's dwellers.
  • Lady of War: The three Valkyries. Aelia and Jayle, too.
  • Large Ham: The invocations on about 75% of the Purify Weird Soul moves. Plus, there's several of Lenneth's In the Name of the Moon speeches to villains. To little surprise, Loki does this as well in the path to the best ending. You could argue that the final boss battle is over the right to become the patron God/Goddess of Ham.
    • Lezard is also hammy as hell with No Indoor Voice.
    • All the spell throwers when they cast Great Magic, and a large number of Menu Magics as well; Jelanda crying out "Guard Reinforce!!" is something special.
  • Leaked Experience: Completing puzzles and finishing dungeons gives you Story 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.
  • Let's Play: crimeinpartner gives us a wonderfully masterful one.
  • 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 allows 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 four, 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.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: All the different Einherjar, with their unique backstories and recruitment scenes, are the focus of the bulk of gameplay. The second game features even more of them, though their story significance is reduced significantly, to the point where their whole backgrounds are reduced to All There in the Manual status. The third game features fewer recruitable characters, but their stories are pushed back to the forefront.
  • Lost Forever: Odin demands that you give up any items you find at the end of dungeons. Giving them up takes away the item but gives a boost to the Karma Meter and a bucket of exp. Keeping them drops the meter by five times the amount it would have risen.
    • Actually, sometimes if you have a good rating, Freya give some of them back during sacred phase.
      • Thankfully, as long as you send up at least one person in each chapter, your rating gets reset to 100 (or 98 if you don't have the ring on) on sacred phases, so unless you purposefully clear out 5+ dungeons in a single chapter (which is only really possible if you skip some of them over in a previous chapter) and keep every item, you don't have to give up any of them.
    • Also, if you transfer Lyseria, you WILL NOT get her back (unlike most other Einherjar) due to a glitch.
      • Then again, though, that's if you actually want her; she can be good, but a lot of people decide that since Mystina's at a much higher level, that it's not worth it to use anyone but her.
  • The Lost Woods
  • 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.
    • And later, Belenus' wife after her death made a pact with a vampire. Even though he is above doing any of those, it's mostly due to his loneliness after most of his family died.
  • Mad Scientist: Lezard, though he's more of a mad wizard with traits of a mad scientist.
  • The Maze: Salerno Academy, the Tower of Lezard Valeth, Adrianrod Labyrinth...
    • Also the Seraphic Gate.
  • Mercy Kill: If only the cutscene with it had a mercy kill option...
  • Multiple Endings: Three total. Ending C has Freya destroy you in a Hopeless Boss Fight for constant disobedience, Ending B is little more than congratulations (with hints to the true ending), and Ending A is the Golden Ending, which is very difficult to achieve without a guide.
  • Mundane Utility: Freya teleports everywhere, whether across the battlefield or down a half-flight of stairs.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Suo suffered a Heroic BSOD, allowing a peasant to strike him down as he was deep in thought.
  • Nice Hat: Freya.
  • Non-Human Undead: Zombie dragons as bosses and subbosses.
  • Non-Linear Sequel: Valkyrie Profile: 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.
  • Nonstandard Game Over: Ending C.
  • Off-Model: Minor version in the PSP re-release, by virtue of the CGI cutscenes. Lenneth's "Meril" disguise is clearly wearing a different dress depending on whether you see her in sprite form or CGI [1], and when Jelanda is transformed into a monster, the CGI cutscene shows her in her pink Pimped-Out Dress, while the sprite shown just before is the much simpler outfit she wears as an Einherjar.
  • 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.
  • 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 bad[2], 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.
  • Paint It Black: Hrist.
  • Palette Swap: Mostly the monsters, but also Hrist, when she takes over Lenneth's body in the A ending.
  • Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Death
  • Party in My Pocket: Justified: Lenneth is summoning the other party members within her soul whenever a battle begins.
  • Phlebotinum Rebel
  • Puzzle Reset
  • Randomly Drops
  • 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.
    • Well, granted; you might have one because the other archer you have falls into Tier-Induced Scrappy territory, and Lenneth is better with bows than with swords for most of the game.
  • 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.
  • Rebellious Princess: Jelanda.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Played straight and inverted.
  • Restraining Bolt: In the A ending, we learn that Freya sealed Lenneth's memories to prevent her from straying from her mission.
  • Revive Kills Zombie: 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 Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]/DEATH in its description. Even one of the final bosses will fall in one hit because of this.
  • 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 as either Crowning Moment of Heartwarming or Tear Jerker.
  • Sadly Mythtaken: The game is nominally based on Norse mythology. The first wince-worthy moment comes about halfway into the introduction, when the writer fails to have researched which Norse gods are Aesir and which are Vanir. Odin (an Aesir) is telling Lenneth Valkyrie (the player character, who works for Odin) and Freya (your main point of contact among the gods) how war with the Vanir appears to be inevitable -- but Freya is a Vanir in the original myths!
    • Which is rather forgivable, given that in the myth, Freya was given to the Aesir as part of a hostage exchange and never taken back.
    • Also of note is that the myth of Ragnarok concerns a battle between the gods and the Jotuns, a race of giants, not the Vanir. In the myths, the Aesir and Vanir waged war at one point, but made peace long before Ragnarok was supposed to happen.
      • Oddly, the Vanir's stronghold in the B ending is still called Jotunheim.
      • Also, the so-called Vanir in the game are obviously giants (just look at how much taller they are than Lenneth as you run through Jotunheim), and during the lead-up to the A ending, Freya calls their enemies "giants." Just do a mental search-and-replace whenever you see the word Vanir, and swap in Jotun instead; it makes the game a bit closer to the actual myths.
      • Even odder, Surt, the final boss in the B ending, is the king of the fire giants. His stronghold is made of ice.
        • There is a throwaway line in the description for one dungeon (the Citadel of Flame) that states that Surt is the lord of Muspelheim, and that he has a volcano named for him. That makes the ice stronghold make even less sense; why didn't the designers just set the last battle there?
    • Odin has two eyes, so what did he trade for ultimate wisdom? Odin isn't as "All Knowing" as he may seem.
    • For some ungodly reason, Valkyrie Profile's Frey (Freyr?) and Mimir are female.
    • There were either nine Valkyrie, or any number; there were never only three, and they could all be active at once (i.e. they didn't share one body)
  • Save Point
  • Screw Destiny: The point in the A path.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge: Collecting all the voice clips, among others.
    • Although, you only need 95% of the voice clips, as the remaining 5% will then be filled in automatically.
  • Selfless Wish: Deconstructed with Yumei's story. Fuyuki gets a chance to wish for a big boat, but instead wishes for Yumei to be with her parents. Unfortunately, her parents are already dead...
  • Shout-Out: Lezard is pretty much a Shout-Out of Harry Potter. He often mentions "The Philosopher's Stone" and his secret lab is called the "Chamber of Secrets". Didn't help he looks just like him, except for the hair. He also makes some fourth wall breaking comments about Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
    • Aelia's PWS is probably a shout out to Bahamut.
  • Signature Move: The Valkyries all use Nibelung Valesti as their Limit Break.
  • Slouch of Villainy: Odin's favorite position while calmly contemplating his evil plans in the second game. It's notable that the plan goes perfectly while he's slouching magnificently. It all falls apart once he gets up out of the chair.
  • 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.
    • Also, Lezard Valeth sacrifices the Philosopher's Stone in order to survive Ragnarok.
  • Soul Jar: Valkyries are stored within the bodies of humans until Odin needs them.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Lezard.
  • Standard Status Effects
  • Stripperiffic: Mystina, which is especially noticeable when none of the ten other female characters are this. Hers is a rather practical outfit, unlike what most female wizards wear in most fictions, though it still displays much of her lower half.
    • Freya, even more so than Mystina.
  • Sucking-In Lines: Aelia's finishing move.
  • Sweet Polly Oliver: Jayle.
  • The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Sort of. In the Golden Ending, Loki wipes out your party initially, then smugly 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.
  • 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.
  • This Cannot Be!: Barbarossa, and some of the later bosses do make quite a speech if you defeat them.

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!!!

  • Timed Mission: The optional run through Brahm's castle.
  • Tragic Monster: Poor Jelanda. Jun as well.
  • 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.
  • Treacherous Advisor: Loki in Ending A. Not a big shock if you know Norse Mythology.
  • Trick Boss: The Final Boss in the A ending, 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)
    • Also, if you have Unicorn horn, Mystic Stars can really take a huge chunk of his HP off, but again, not as much as Valkyrie.
  • Tsundere: Jelanda and Mystina, who are both voiced by the same person.
  • Unbreakable Weapons: Most weapons are this.
  • Underground Level
  • 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.
  • The Vamp: Genevieve, who's also a literal Vamp.
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment: Where Mystina keeps things like the crystal containing Lenneth's soul.
  • Victory Pose
  • Voice of the Legion: Most undead bosses.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: Yumei can switch between mermaid or human form at will. Aelia also changes form 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 Weapons, making them Too Awesome to Use except for against bosses. But, because of a bug in the way breakable weapons are tracked[3], 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?
    • 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 them, but you never fight them. It's certainly not Genevieve (who herself qualifies in Normal mode, since the final battle with her is in a Hard mode exclusive dungeon).
    • 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 them eventually!
  • What Is This Thing You Call Love?: Lenneth just doesn't seem to get the motivations of some of the mortals, especially the ones who seem to do illogical things for love.
  • World-Healing Wave: The Golden Ending.
  • Wutai: Yamato.
  • 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.
  • Yamato Nadeshiko: Nanami.
  • 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.
  • You Shall Not Pass
  • Zero Effort Boss: Hrist; one could say it is an interactive Cutscene Boss since she is unable to hurt anyone in your party, including 2 Game Breaker Guest Star Party Members. In fact, right before the fight, Brahms says that she isn't anywhere near her true power.
  1. ↑ for example, the sprite looks more eastern inspired, while the CGI form is a more European style
  2. ↑ Janus is considered the only useful archer in the game besides Lenneth.
  3. ↑ It only checks when the enemy's turn comes up, so if you finish the boss off, it won't check.
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