The PSN remaster was supposed to be out today, but it got pushed back to December 22nd. Great chance for you and other folks to play it because its PS1 run was very limited in NA and the only other option was the PSP port. Not exactly an easy game to get one's hands on until this new remaster.
Forgot to comment, but I really enjoyed this one! Your improvements with your commentary and editing are super noticeable here and they’ll get better are you hone them in. I’m so glad you have this medium to express your thoughts on these games, it’s incredibly insightful and I appreciate it a ton!
Thanks so much! Yea, I'm pretty happy with my progress and slowly feel like I'm coming into my own style. This one was a passion project for sure because I love VP, but I think the biggest joy for me came in the process of putting this together.
Thank you for making this video! I'm a trans woman and I played Valkyrie Profile when I was 13 or 14 and it really spoke to me, especially the narrative of Platina's rebirth into Lenneth. It's been a long time since I thought about this game and now I'm thinking about it again, which is nice. I was def not thoughtful enough at the time to really consider the anti-imperialist read on it, but the queer and feminist ones def resonate with me!
When Loki started talking I was like, " I know that voice... Is that Bakura from YuGiOh?!" And apparently it is indeed the same voice actor haha Edit: when listening to more lines, it dawned on me that the Valkyrie's voice was familiar too and realized it was Mai from YuGiOh too. They should have done a crossover lol
really enjoyed the video! there was just one thing that I wanted to point out: when criticizing the game you cited its script as melodramatic, as if it was automatically bad due to that, like it was an inherently bad characteristic of the text. melodrama is a very good tool, especially for theater (a language closer to VP's aesthetics due to the fact that it is a sidescroller) and also, and more importantly, mostly used by female authors and for a female audience (and I really recommend Susan Hayward's book "Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts", Melodrama and Women's Films for a deeper look!). I also believe that antagonizing part of the audience that could change their views based on this very well researched and spoken discourse to make a joke of the weirdos in the comments can be counter-productive, as it can give the impression that you are just preaching to the choir. in any case, this is a stylistic choice for the channel so do what you think is best - the melodrama part is the important and constructive part. found your channel through the troll levels video which was a discussion I was thinking of tackling and I'm really glad for that - all of the videos I watched ao far have been great.
It's been a bit, but I certainly was holding "melodrama" as something inherently "lesser" in a value judgment sense here. So thank you for the call out! I will have to reconsider this.
A hidden gem, thank you for covering this beautiful game. I never noticed the seal value (face palm)... I might have to grab this game for a replay. Too bad Tactics Ogre: Reborn is coming out around the same time... good heavens, I hope they don't remake Vagrant Story or Xenogears... if so I'm gonna have a game back-log given the depth of these games 0_o!!!
Even though it is my impression you were more invested into talking politics than the game itself, I raise a point that I've been raising here and there to VP reviewers. The B ending itself (stands for BAD!) is often discredited as middling and dropped to dive into either "the real deal" or whatever the video maker had in mind. Most people will say "There's nothing to it" and move on - I've never seen anyone take a moment to regard the fact that the B route becomes actually increasingly bleaker and bleaker the more you proceed through it. In a way that would reminisces me of Undertale, both the Valkyrie (And the player's) focus have become to simply loot, get decked in the biggest, baddest artifacts sets, please your superiors to earn perfect score rewards from Odin, and mindlessly smash through every dungeon that appears. It's not an ending of "apathy" in my opinion, but one of active despair - Valkyrie becomes a murderous killing machine that never questions her orders. Any sense of "morality" or "justness" formerly embodied is lost when she becomes not a passive cog, but rather the enforcer herself of the oppressive "imperialistic" Aesir. At the very endgame, the element of "harsh fairness" her Valkyrie role would require is casually thrown out of the window along with everything else as Lenneth executes the human mage Gandar for no other reason than 1)He would make a good slave 2)He has seen too much of the Aesir's despoiling of Midgard and has become very inconvenient to Freya. One final note, regarding Surt? Well, lore-appropriateness aside: Surt is a huge deal. In Norse lore, Gods are afraid of even getting close to him, rampaging fire giant of the Apocalypse that he is, yet when you consider that Lenneth comes to his door, decked in the baddest artifacts pilfered throughout all of Midgard, backed by Odin's own limitless reserve of wealth, spellbooks (and more artifacts he sends down every reward cycle, why not), not to mention herself being a goddess, AND followed by her choice pick of the strongest slave-einherjars on the whole planet? Suddenly the math doesn't look good anymore for Surt - I feel these subtle considerations of in-game lore carried through the bleakness of the encounter and the ABSOLUTELY VITRIOLIC exchange Surt has with Lenneth moments before his demise, clearly emphasizes the ultimate message of the B route. You *are* the villain now. Perhaps through carelessness, perhaps because you wanted to get the "best score", perhaps because you didn't care about others to an extent you'd go out of your business' way for them. At the end of this rant, I would just say, I would love to see one day someone actually taking a moment for an even brief analysis of the many elements the developers snuck in the B-exclusive endgame dungeons as they become increasingly darker in tone, where even the bosses (usually wicked creatures on their own merit) regard Lenneth as nothing but the emotionless executioner that she is become.
I'm a normal person and I'm not gonna be an asshole about the politics, i like your video, your production quality is really good, but the leftist discourse is distracting and the content was lost along the way, probably you will have an audience, I'm sorry I'm not one of them.
Such an insanely good video and channel. Hope you get 1000x more eyes
Been meaning to play Valkyrie Profile since like 2003, so I will watch this as soon as I do that!
The PSN remaster was supposed to be out today, but it got pushed back to December 22nd. Great chance for you and other folks to play it because its PS1 run was very limited in NA and the only other option was the PSP port. Not exactly an easy game to get one's hands on until this new remaster.
Forgot to comment, but I really enjoyed this one! Your improvements with your commentary and editing are super noticeable here and they’ll get better are you hone them in.
I’m so glad you have this medium to express your thoughts on these games, it’s incredibly insightful and I appreciate it a ton!
Thanks so much! Yea, I'm pretty happy with my progress and slowly feel like I'm coming into my own style. This one was a passion project for sure because I love VP, but I think the biggest joy for me came in the process of putting this together.
Thank you for making this video! I'm a trans woman and I played Valkyrie Profile when I was 13 or 14 and it really spoke to me, especially the narrative of Platina's rebirth into Lenneth. It's been a long time since I thought about this game and now I'm thinking about it again, which is nice. I was def not thoughtful enough at the time to really consider the anti-imperialist read on it, but the queer and feminist ones def resonate with me!
When Loki started talking I was like, " I know that voice... Is that Bakura from YuGiOh?!" And apparently it is indeed the same voice actor haha
Edit: when listening to more lines, it dawned on me that the Valkyrie's voice was familiar too and realized it was Mai from YuGiOh too. They should have done a crossover lol
really enjoyed the video! there was just one thing that I wanted to point out: when criticizing the game you cited its script as melodramatic, as if it was automatically bad due to that, like it was an inherently bad characteristic of the text. melodrama is a very good tool, especially for theater (a language closer to VP's aesthetics due to the fact that it is a sidescroller) and also, and more importantly, mostly used by female authors and for a female audience (and I really recommend Susan Hayward's book "Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts", Melodrama and Women's Films for a deeper look!). I also believe that antagonizing part of the audience that could change their views based on this very well researched and spoken discourse to make a joke of the weirdos in the comments can be counter-productive, as it can give the impression that you are just preaching to the choir. in any case, this is a stylistic choice for the channel so do what you think is best - the melodrama part is the important and constructive part.
found your channel through the troll levels video which was a discussion I was thinking of tackling and I'm really glad for that - all of the videos I watched ao far have been great.
It's been a bit, but I certainly was holding "melodrama" as something inherently "lesser" in a value judgment sense here. So thank you for the call out! I will have to reconsider this.
A hidden gem, thank you for covering this beautiful game. I never noticed the seal value (face palm)... I might have to grab this game for a replay. Too bad Tactics Ogre: Reborn is coming out around the same time... good heavens, I hope they don't remake Vagrant Story or Xenogears... if so I'm gonna have a game back-log given the depth of these games 0_o!!!
Amazing video, just subscribed
Holy shit dude I love your content, it is so refreshing to see someone actually say these things
Great video! 🧡
Peak!
"D-D-D-D-D-D...."
"He's Saying His First Words"
*Looks At This Game* "DAIKATANA."
Even though it is my impression you were more invested into talking politics than the game itself, I raise a point that I've been raising here and there to VP reviewers.
The B ending itself (stands for BAD!) is often discredited as middling and dropped to dive into either "the real deal" or whatever the video maker had in mind. Most people will say "There's nothing to it" and move on - I've never seen anyone take a moment to regard the fact that the B route becomes actually increasingly bleaker and bleaker the more you proceed through it. In a way that would reminisces me of Undertale, both the Valkyrie (And the player's) focus have become to simply loot, get decked in the biggest, baddest artifacts sets, please your superiors to earn perfect score rewards from Odin, and mindlessly smash through every dungeon that appears.
It's not an ending of "apathy" in my opinion, but one of active despair - Valkyrie becomes a murderous killing machine that never questions her orders. Any sense of "morality" or "justness" formerly embodied is lost when she becomes not a passive cog, but rather the enforcer herself of the oppressive "imperialistic" Aesir. At the very endgame, the element of "harsh fairness" her Valkyrie role would require is casually thrown out of the window along with everything else as Lenneth executes the human mage Gandar for no other reason than 1)He would make a good slave 2)He has seen too much of the Aesir's despoiling of Midgard and has become very inconvenient to Freya.
One final note, regarding Surt? Well, lore-appropriateness aside: Surt is a huge deal. In Norse lore, Gods are afraid of even getting close to him, rampaging fire giant of the Apocalypse that he is, yet when you consider that Lenneth comes to his door, decked in the baddest artifacts pilfered throughout all of Midgard, backed by Odin's own limitless reserve of wealth, spellbooks (and more artifacts he sends down every reward cycle, why not), not to mention herself being a goddess, AND followed by her choice pick of the strongest slave-einherjars on the whole planet? Suddenly the math doesn't look good anymore for Surt - I feel these subtle considerations of in-game lore carried through the bleakness of the encounter and the ABSOLUTELY VITRIOLIC exchange Surt has with Lenneth moments before his demise, clearly emphasizes the ultimate message of the B route.
You *are* the villain now. Perhaps through carelessness, perhaps because you wanted to get the "best score", perhaps because you didn't care about others to an extent you'd go out of your business' way for them.
At the end of this rant, I would just say, I would love to see one day someone actually taking a moment for an even brief analysis of the many elements the developers snuck in the B-exclusive endgame dungeons as they become increasingly darker in tone, where even the bosses (usually wicked creatures on their own merit) regard Lenneth as nothing but the emotionless executioner that she is become.
Bravo!
I'm a normal person and I'm not gonna be an asshole about the politics, i like your video, your production quality is really good, but the leftist discourse is distracting and the content was lost along the way, probably you will have an audience, I'm sorry I'm not one of them.
Mfw the content distracts from the content