Nice combat and good character design, it sadly cannot carry what it is an incredibly mid game.
It's structure feels like a PSP game (derogatory), dull story with even duller character and even if i like the combat it is just not enough.
The level desing is also pretty bad, with some missions making you follow a slow moving flock of butteflies through a level you already played.
My opinion of the game got better after i unlocked better feeling weapons, but at the end of the day it is a really low budget to a cult game, it's short so if you find it cheap it's worth a playthrough for curiosity at least.

Positives
The Story
The Cast
The Combat

Negatives
Too Long Levels
Gets Very repetitive with subquests

This is the most average video game I've ever played. I've only played 1/4 endings, and the only reason I'm going to get the rest of them is because I'm snowed in..But I don't think the other endings are going to really change my opinion.
The game play is entertaining enough, but the world is really bland. I don't really think it tries not to be, and I can't tell if that makes it better or worse. The sidequests weren't very interesting, and I don't think the character quests actually added anything to the characters. The main story is like, fine. It's a really start-to-finish plot and the deviation that happens in the ending is all pretty predictable.

I will keep playing this game though, as I am snowed in and the vibe of this game matches my mood about it. This was no one's passion project, but I do think someone gave enough of a shit about the character designs. I think that's honestly my favorite thing about this game.

One of the best-looking PS2 games. Was hoping for a solid 7/10 B-game but it was unfortunately more like a 6/10. Enjoyable enough, but it didn't quite come together.

The combat is a little stiff, but once you've got things unlocked it starts to feel pretty fun juggling melee with magic and summons. Feels sort of like Kingdom Hearts with some Ninja Gaiden and DMC elements sprinkled in, and it mostly works. Enemy variety felt pretty thin by the end of an already short game, so I didn't have a ton of desire to try the post-game stuff.

Level design feels like the game was pared back from more ambitious intentions - there's some Dark Souls-y backtracking opportunities but there's never really a point, and often the game precludes you from backtracking at all, which is frustrating if you miss a collectible or quest giver.

The story was fine. Pretty stripped down which is fine, but probably a big reason why Valkyrie series fans weren't hot about the game. Aesthetically, on the other hand, I found a lot to like. It's got a strange look, a mixture of heavy lines with painterly effects and a sort of plastic, doll-like quality to the character models, but it worked for me.

Valkyrie Elysium was a pleasant surprise and is an interesting game too. On one hand it is a lower budget, action RPG, published by Square Enix and is part of the Valkyrie franchise. On the other hand it is a, sort of, character action game, with some quirks, developed by Soleil, that has a shorter than expected run time.

The first thing you’ll notice is how this game looks. It has some beautiful art work but is lower budget and looks kind of bland at first. However as you progress through the game and visit more areas you begin to see a lot of beauty in this dying world. The character, boss and enemy designs are good, even if the enemies are reused too often. Fighting mostly looks very flashy and smooth. I ended up enjoying the look of this game quite a bit and think it creates the right mood and atmosphere. It has a pleasant soundtrack that fits the world and tone of the game too. Everything worked pretty smoothly for me but there are a couple of visual issues. Sometimes when there is a lot going on, the screen is just a mess of things with too much happening. Then there is the camera, do yourself a favour and never go near a wall or corner. This camera was never meant to work in tight spaces but for some reason there are indoor fights.

Valkyrie Elysium’s story starts off kind of bland too but thankfully begins to pick up once you start meeting some of your companions called Einherjar. These companions are a highlight and bring some much needed heart and personality to the game. It’s really worth doing their subquests and viewing their memories. I wish I could say the same about the rest of the subquests but they really don’t add much and aren’t worth your time, outside making you stronger. The world, lore and story build as you progress but it doesn’t truly get going until the last third. You play as a Valkyrie working for Odin and you are tasked with trying to save the world. I won’t say more than that but it does get more complex and I enjoyed it. There are also multiple endings with a true ending. It’s all worth seeing not just for the story but the fights too. If you enjoy the story and characters at all then push through to the true end, I recommend it.

The gameplay, despite a good tutorial, yep you guessed it, also starts of a bit bland before getting really fun. Making your way through locations is very straight forward. Areas are linear with some side areas/paths to find collectables, items and extra fights. Occasionally your Einherjar with have to use an ability so you can progress and there’s some basic platforming. There is your usual RPG stuff – numbers go up, skills to unlock, multiple weapons to use and gain proficiency in, runes to attach to those weapons for different increases and items to use. It could have maybe used some puzzles and more complex platforming but on the other hand this game knows what it’s about and that is the story, characters, atmosphere and combat.

Combat in this game probably surprised many that bothered to learn it and experiment a little. It blends RPG stuff with hack n slash. You have to cast magic of different elements, summon the right Einherjar and use the right weapon to hit enemy weaknesses. Do this enough and they’ll be crushed (staggered) and you get much quicker kills. While doing this you need to be hacking your way through enemies with somewhat basic combos and moves. You’ve also got a soul chain which works like a grapple gun thing that pulls you towards enemies. There’s a bunch of important skills and upgrades to unlock and put to good use like chained attack, soul burst (charged attack), counter, parry, quick evade, double evade, precision guard, ranged attack, soul steal, reversal, automatic summons, finishers and stat boosts. Combine this with the fact that you can also do a lot of this in the air too, seriously, summons, and magic, combos and soul chain in the air. You can jump up hit a combo, and then jump again because you get a double jump, hit another combo, fling yourself to the next enemy and keep those attacks coming. You’ll be ripping yourself around from enemy to enemy, whether on the ground or in the air, dodging attacks, while not forgetting to also be using the correct magic and summons and raking up huge hit counts. The game rewards you for keeping up your pace up and being aggressive. Attacks refill your magic and killing enemies will give you drops that refill health and soul for summons. It works well and is damn fun but it’s not without some issues.

I already mentioned the camera and that the screen can get too busy at times. The difficulty is too easy right up until it’s suddenly not. The regular enemies are often too easy to get through but then a boss or special fight will happen and all of a sudden the game demands you know what you’re doing. This makes for uneven experience with things getting tiresome after too many waves of normal opponents and has you constantly wanting those more interesting fights. It could be worth playing on hard difficulty if you’re really comfortable with this type of game. The items are useless most of the time as they just aren’t needed and you get penalised for using them. Also the game gives you so much to use against your foes that it would be nice to be able to have more things equipped at once. It’s still a great time though for about 15 to 20+ hours depending on how much you choose to do. You can enjoy it even longer than that with replays, plus there’s also been a free update with more content. Hilde’s vengeance is a side mode for one of the characters, Seraphic Gate offers some extra challenges and there is a new harder difficulty too.

I think Valkyrie Elysium could strike a very sweet spot for many people. It’s an action RPG without the length and some of the time wasting stuff. It’s sort of a character action game without being as full on and with a longer run time then what those games usually offer. Its story and gameplay are enjoyable once they get going and the soundtrack and visuals tie everything together into a worthy package. It’s also likely to be very reasonably priced by now too. I think Valkyrie Elysium does enough right that I would consider it a hidden gem and I’d recommend giving it a chance.

7.4/10

6,25/10
Título con muy buenas ideas, pero que en la ejecución se queda pobre en la mayoría de sus elementos.
El combate y sus mecánicas son interesantes, pero pecan de tener un mal ritmo, a la vez de tener animaciones que no se sienten satisfactorias.
La historia es MUY predecible desde el capítulo 1, mal.

En general, se siente como una prueba técnica de lo que podría haber sido un título bueno pero han querido cortar por lo sano y venderlo en su estado actual. Está bien para pasar el rato, pero no es nada del otro mundo.

Much like the other reviews, this game is "average" with the selling point of this game being the combat. This game allows you to have two weapons and change it up in combat in the mist of battle.

The story doesn't really have any complexity to want more. Actually the side characters personalities/stories are stuffed under memories in the menu once you complete their corresponding missions.

The side characters (can be generic to some) had some great backstories but never shown in the story because it was shut down by the main character. Which is a little sad.

overall good game on SALE and if you like brawlers and a shorter JRPG (20 hours was my complete time with side mission)

This is just an ok game. Not great, not horrible. Combat does its job, but it has some problems.
Each enemy is weak to a weapon (not weapon type). You can only equip 2 weapons at a time, so you have to pause the game, and change the weapon if you want to take advantage of a weakness and don't have the weapon already equipped.
Similar thing with spells and elemental damage. You can equip 4 elements, but there are 6 so sometimes you need to pause mid-combat as the game mixes enemies often. I really dislike this.
Story is also just okay. There are multiple endings, the 'true" ending is the most satisfying one. The most interesting is the "audio books" which tells the backstory of your party members. Acting is good, I recognized some voices(japanese) from anime
Boss fights are meh. Pretty easy to exploit their weakness, except for the final bosses. Those were a bit more difficult.

8/5/2023: I have finally gotten around to playing it and holy shit this game fucking sucks. Imagine any action game mechanic in any slightly decent to great game in the genre and this game has it. At best the mechanic will just function and at worse it's just handled worse than the game it took it from. The game has like no sense of feedback in anything going on and the stiffness of everything does not help.
I should feel like a flowing goddess of the battlefield but I feel more like a runaway freight train because you cannot cancel any animation at all which is literally action game 101 so you have to commit to long recovery frames of every action you ever take. This feels like a mid-2000's action game from the ps2 era displaced by time.
This is also the ONLY game I've seen somehow fuck up the concept of the enemy flashing red and attacking you with a strong unblockable attack. The flash gets lost in the cacophony of the battles due to how the game will just become unintelligible non-sense between you, your Einherjar, and your enemies doing shit that when these attacks hit you it never feels like you fucked up. Probably because in literally every game i've played that has this in it (which is most fucking action games by the way) it's also accompanied by a loud ass distinctive sound cue to give you an even bigger warning but this game DOES NOT HAVE THAT. Accompanied with the fact this game commits the cardinal sin of enemies being able to attack you from off screen, this is maddeningly annoying combination to deal with. Enemies will just have no tells half the time because the animation work is so poor on everything going on. Either enemies will have a weirdly animated wind up attack that will suddenly get unrealistically fast, fucking up your defense, or so fast you have no time to react and they just get to combo you (this is what the wolves do all the time). Also ain't it grand that enemies get to combo you for free but if you try to attack them they can just spam a backstep/sidestep that is 100% invulnerable until they feel safe from you and just get to drop out of your combos and hit you because you can't cancel any of your animations? It's like fighting the shittier Tales of Vesperia bosses but it's literally EVERY enemy.
"Oh but Tuck why don't you have the arts bar to stun them like the game wants you to?"
BECAUSE I SPENT IT ON EVERY OTHER ENEMY SO NOW I HAVE TO SPAM MY SUMMONS TO GET IT BACK FAST WHICH ADDS TO THE CACOPHONY.
HOLY FUCK.
Another thing that pisses me off is that this game somehow also fucks up execution attacks, which is another thing that even the most shallow of spectacle action games get right. The game is super fucking finnicky about what criteria you need to execute it.
Is the enemy like a fucking centimeter off the ground? Can't do it.
Slightly higher on a hill even though you're right next to it? Eh try it maybe it'll work. Coin toss, really.
Standing perfectly still (which is the most consistent way to pull it off without the game having a stroke) eh maybe coin toss that one too.
Not a single soul working on this game knew what the fuck they were doing when making it.
This game is impressively bad.