Jamshyd
Bluelight Crew
Anyone else played this gem? Another grossly underrated title with a very original concept. Although this game can be called an RPG, it really is so original as to be unclassifiable. The box art might suggest that its a "girlie" game, but its actually not.
Set in a fictional universe strongly adapted from Norse Mythology, you play as Lenneth, a Valkyrie. Your job is to visit heroes near the moment of death to take their souls with you. The game is essentially made up of several vaguely (and a few explicitly) interconnected scenarios of heroes around the moment they die, at which Lenneth would collect their soul (generally in a cutscene). From that time on, you have them with you in your party and you develop them by going through dungeons.
Since there are more than a hundred heroes, the game is incredibly huge and the story is very complex and well-written. Each hero is unique in both story and gameplay. Eventually, when a character is developed enough, you send them to Valhalla where they wait until Ragnarok, the battle between the God's for which you've been collecting heroes to fight on Odin's side. The game is actually timed by a limited number of days, and you may very well waste your time and have very few warriors at Ragnarok and simply lose the entire game!
This game also has the dubious honour of being the most overpriced resell on ebay, ever. This is because between the time it was released on the PS and the PSP, it was one of the rarest games to find and it snowballed into a sort of ebay out-bidding cult (very much like the Suikoden games).
Sound: 5/5 - Wonderful orchestral soundtrack, and excellent voice-acting (especially for its time).
Story: 5/5 - Perhaps one of the best-constructed stories of any game I've ever played, even if not very accurate to the mythology it tries to emulate. The scripts are engaging and amusingly witty at times.
Graphics: 4/5 - Admittedly, not the game's strongest point. However, it still gets a high score for originality - the scenarios are made up of a very interesting mesh of 2D and 3D graphics. The artwork is standard Japanese Anime, and pretty nice.
Gameplay 4.5/5 - This is actually a very difficult game IMO. To date, I never managed to beat it!! Very original (especially for its time), very intriguing.
5/5.
It is worthy of note that I really did not like its later prequel on the PS2. The gameplay had been reduced to simple RPG, and doing what valkyries do is no longer your job... it totally misses the point. I was so psyched up about it after playing the original for the PSone, and was so disappointed when I finally played it, especially with its hefty price tag.
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