The game’s prologue concerns Platina, a young girl living with her abusive mother and father in a despairingly poor rural town. Though she’s miserable, Platina doesn’t quite realize how bad things are until her only friend, a boy named Lucian, bursts into her bedroom one fateful night and breaks the news that her parents are planning to sell her. Lucian and Platina hurredly escape from the village, but it isn’t long before their journey comes to an abrupt and tragic end.

Valkyrie Profile then begins in earnest, as the austere Lenneth Valkyrie is summoned to the Asgard palace of Allfather Odin and the goddess Freya. The pair reveals that a war with the Vanir gods is drawing near, and that the impending conflict may well be Ragnarok (the Norse mythos version of Armageddon). Lenneth is dispatched to Midgard, the realm of humans, to seek out warriors on the verge of death, collect their souls, and train them as Einherjar, soldiers for the coming war in heaven. Picking up the spiritual echoes of promising Einherjar, our heroine searches the cities and towns of Midgard. Each of her visits yields a different story: a soldier who’s little more than a boy sets off to war; a swordsman seeks an unholy pact that will save his twin sister; a brash mercenary finds an odd friendship with a vindictive princess. However, each tale ends with a departed spirit joining the ranks of the Einherjar.

From its opening moments at a mountain stream, Valkyrie Profile is a beautiful game. While its 2-D hand-drawn style doesn’t make an immediate impact, the layered backgrounds and fine details emerge from every angle, be it in the pastoral touches of a farming village or the ornate psuedo-gothic architecture of Asgard. The character sprites are small but animate well, and the accompanying character portraits, by the duo of Kou and You Yoshinari, are gorgeous.

When not gathering souls, Lenneth ferrets out dungeons, ruins, and forests in which to train her Einherjar. Presented in a 2-D fashion that resembles a multi-planar Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, these action stages are filled with treasures, puzzles, and occasionally stories of their own. Eschewing the random encounters of traditional RPGs, Valkyrie Profile not only allows Lenneth to see enemies roaming about the dungeons, but makes it easy for her to leap them, freeze them with an ice crystal, or slash at them and enter the game’s unique battle mode.

An apparent evolution of the reflexive combat commands of Squaresoft’s Xenogears and the hectic melees of Star Ocean: The Second Story, Valkyrie Profile’s fighting system assigns each of four party members to a different button, the pressing of which makes the corresponding character attack. It’s a remarkably innovative concept that starts simple and soon progresses into setting up chain combos or striking enemies in the air so they’ll produce experience-bolstering bonus crystals. The battles are intuitive and effortlessly fun, even if there’s an intimidating amount of detail behind the scenes. In order to make the most of their experience points, players must spend a good portion of their time in menus, managing item combinations, character skills, and the “hero values” of their Einherjar. These complexities aren’t that difficult to master after making a thorough study of the manual, but it’s likely that many players will jump right in and find themselves lost in the game’s many options and sub-screens.

Tap Square and X at just the right moment, and Valkyrie and Lucian will kiss. Aw.

An equal degree of complexity lies in game’s storyline. Much in the fashion of Neil Gaiman’s marvelous Sandman comics, Valkyrie Profile is a tale of an aloof, indifferent deity revealed through self-contained stories detailing the intersection of the mortal and supernatural worlds. Each of Valkyrie Profile’s vignettes is told with surprising conviction, as the Einherjar are presented as vital individuals with believeable desires and motivations. Though heavy-handed, their tales are memorable and unflinching studies of death and all that it encompasses; some Einherjar perish meaninglessly, others knowingly accept their fates, while a fortunate few die content. It’s quite a satisfying change from the bathetic and empty death scenes that often occupy more generic RPGs. Lenneth isn't neglected either; one of the most respectfully portrayed heroines in gaming culture, she's no mere psychopomp, and her missions subtly reveal her true nature.

Unfortunately, the game’s engrossing story provides its only major failing: multiple endings. Two are hardly endings at all, and the best conclusion is attainable only if the player satisfies a number of tricky and easily missed requirements. And though the finest finale is worth the effort, it feels rushed and awkward, and leaves far too many questions unanswered. It’s also worth pointing out that Valkyrie Profile takes myriad liberties with its depictions of Norse mythology (Surt is king of the Vanir instead of a frost giant, Lenneth is part of the fate-goddess trinity, and so forth), so those who prefer stringent adherence to legends will find much to criticize. For my money, though, the game’s divergences are inventive ones.

Valkyrie Profile seems all the more striking an achievement when one considers tri-Ace’s last offering, Star Ocean: The Second Story, which had the poor fortune to mix innovative play elements with bland plotting. Masaki Norimoto and Yoshiharu Gotanda, who planned and programmed Star Ocean, are far more adept as Valkyrie Profile’s respective designer and director. Composer Motoi Sakuraba, another Star Ocean staffer, also improved with the Profile Project. His soundtrack has its forgettable cuts, but most of the compositions are excellent, complementing both the epic grandeur and personal drama of Lenneth’s journey.

The game loses little in translation, thanks to Jeremy Blaustein (best known for his work on Metal Gear Solid and Snatcher) and former GameFan editors Nick “Rox” Des Barres and Casey “Takuhi” Loe, who craft dialogue that's just as melodramatic as the game's unrelenting tragedy requires. If the English voices aren't quite as uniform in quality, most are tolerable and articulate, provided by such anime dub veterans as Veronica Taylor (Pokemon’s Ash, Yukino in His and Her Circumstances), Rachel Lillis (Pokemon’s Jesse, Revolutionary Girl Utena’s title heroine), and Ed Paul (Shu in Now and Then, Here and There). The standout is easily Megan Hollingshead (Pokemon’s Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy, believe it or not), who plays Lenneth Valkyrie with a tone that’s detached and regal at first, but gradually less distant, echoing a similar change in the character. The localization's few faults are barely worth mentioning: a handful of mispronunciations, a too-corny line or two, and shrill, unconvincing voices for Platina and the Norse god Frei, who's apparently a girl in Valkyrie Profile's universe.

Negligible vocal flaws and structural smirches aside, Valkyrie Profile is truly impressive, mixing a unique premise, creative gameplay, artistically solid visuals, and some of the most effective storytelling to be found in the whole of the medium. It’s not the most accessible choice among today’s user-friendly RPGs, but those who give it sufficient attention will find Valkyrie Profile rewarding in a way that few games are.