Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume review (DS)

A well balanced SRPG with innovative variable difficulty

Combat System/Level Design

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume is a SRPG with several unique game mechanics that differ from the SRPG norm. It's a quality game that provides good level design, well balanced combat, and a good variety of difficulty levels.

With the Siege system, allies can assist in an attack if they are in attack range. In addition there are bonuses for surrounding the target in certain formations. This is similar to Front Mission 5s link system, except there isn't any friendly fire to worry about. There is some fun strategy involved in setting your units up in certain positions so they can assist with attacking multiple enemy targets.

Attacking an enemy leads to a separate combat scene similar to previous Valkyrie Profile games, where your attacker and any allies in range can gang up on an enemy. Since you carry out these attacks in real time, there is an element of timing involved in making sure all of your allies hits connect in a row, which is made more complex by the fact that some attacks can knock enemies in the air. This is made more complex with the addition of rewards for juggling an enemy in the air, attacking from behind to stun enemies, and charging up a combo meter to pull off special attacks called Soul Crushes.

Each story mission has a 'sin' quota that is built up by overkilling enemies. The player is rewarded with items if they meet or exceed the quota, or punished by being forced to fight highly powerful enemies called Realmstalkers if they fail to meet the quota.

Finally there is the Plume, an ability that makes one of your recruits extremely powerful for one mission, but kills them at the end of it. This ability also alters which of the 3 routes the player will progress on to. The Plume can only be used a few times before it leads to an instant game over.

With the sin quota and plume systems, tri-ace has managed to add a 'built in' difficulty setting into the game. Players with lower skill can use the plume while meeting sin quotas for item rewards, while highly skilled players can avoid using the plume and deliberately avoid sin quotas and sin reward items in order to fight powerful Realmstalkers. This system is innovative and well implemented and provides an interesting alternative to selectable difficulty modes. If you enjoy challenging SRPGs there is definitely one to be found here.

The level design is fairly well done, although there are a few too many flat bridge-like maps. Much of the strategy in the game comes with positioning for sieges and using powerful skills at the right time to quickly kill enemies. There aren't many 'filler' battles and most of the missions involve fighting a unique boss enemy, or a boss and multiple Realmstalkers if you like a challenge.

In a welcome move, there is no quicksaving or level grinding available.

The game is light on the management side, with very little to worry about in terms of equipment, skills, and items.

Graphics/Sound/Plot

Graphics are well done, especially the Soul Crush animations. Sound is fairly generic but thankfully it can be turned off. The plot is somewhat overdone and dramatic, but the theme of working for an evil god, sacrificing allies with the plume, and brutally overkilling enemies is refreshing compared to the usual JRPG 'save the world' plot.