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Valkyrie Profile Classic Jobs Part VIII
Jayle, Lucian, Shiho and Gandar continued their trope-y adventure on April 15, 2025, picking up from the last session in the Citadel of Flame.
All that was left was a room full of fireballs. I actually figured out what to do pretty quickly, though I wasn't sure whether I was confusing this game with Mischief Makers or not. I am sure that game also had you catching falling fireballs in a pot.
Anyway, the team took an awful lot of damage while I attempted this. I for some reason thought this only affected the Valkyrie herself, and consequently was surprised when I got to the boss with 1 DME for each character.
Shiho survived the boss' opening attack with Guts, and the rest of the fight was easy despite this setback. I guess you could expect that with a boss so lame it isn't even palette-swapped.
We got some prizes, but nothing particularly noteworthy. Our first spiritual concentration in Chapter 6 resulted in Shiho's recruitment, which thankfully followed the pattern of not messing with her stats.
All that was left was a room full of fireballs. I actually figured out what to do pretty quickly, though I wasn't sure whether I was confusing this game with Mischief Makers or not. I am sure that game also had you catching falling fireballs in a pot.
Anyway, the team took an awful lot of damage while I attempted this. I for some reason thought this only affected the Valkyrie herself, and consequently was surprised when I got to the boss with 1 DME for each character.
Shiho survived the boss' opening attack with Guts, and the rest of the fight was easy despite this setback. I guess you could expect that with a boss so lame it isn't even palette-swapped.
We got some prizes, but nothing particularly noteworthy. Our first spiritual concentration in Chapter 6 resulted in Shiho's recruitment, which thankfully followed the pattern of not messing with her stats.
It's too bad she doesn't ever actually sing audibly in the game at all.
The next spiritual concentration opened up the Lost City of Dipan. Now, you might remember the issue I encountered at the end of the Tower of Lezard Valeth. Barbarossa, who you need to fight twice here, is one of the very few enemies in the game that was likely to cause issues through the use of great magic. This made me very nervous about this area!
It turns out that I had nothing to be nervous about! The team clobbered Barbarossa pretty easily. The strat was Shiho using Might Reinforce, Gandar using Sap Guard, and then Jayle and Lucian attacking. Jayle recently got Gram, so her attacks were pretty devastating.
An issue here is that I literally didn't know where to go at first and kept walking directly back into Barbarossa. I think I ended up fighting him 4 times instead of the required 2. And although he didn't use great magic and destroy the game, his attacks sometimes left us in precarious situations.
Whatever.
So, with Barbarossa down, the only enemies I expect to encounter who use great magic are Gandar (which will be interesting) and Bloodbane (who is optional). That said, I have considered the possibility that some endgame boss attacks might behave the same way, so I'm not necessarily out of the woods or anything.
The Lost City of Dipan quest is a long but simple one with a whole lot of wandering around. After Barbarossa there wasn't much interest in it... although the palette-swapped Raver Lord fellas looked really strange when they were affected by status effects.
Having not used an Eye of Heaven, I was actually unsure of where to look for the wizard fellas at the end. I looked it up to avoid more walking and felt kind of dumb: it's a really cool spot.
There were lots of reviving eyeball enemies at the end, and they happened to yield a lot of experience. Jayle and Lucian were pretty well maxed on skills and traits now, so Shiho and Gandar kept the Emerald Necklace. The battles against regular enemies weren't challenging, although some were time-consuming.
The Dipani wizard trio were pretty easy, although the topmost wizard did revive an ally causing me to rethink my targeting order. Walther naturally went down last.
Two of the prizes were weapons that we'd never have a use for, so I just offered them up to Odin. I may as well do that for the sake of evaluation points.
The next spiritual concentration was Jayle's recruitment. It happens to include an easy fight against Genevieve. In the course of this, my stream dropped so there's a second, shorter video from this session. After having Jayle around so much seeing her very different-looking portrait was striking.
After recruiting Jayle officially, we spiritually concentrated again and got a Cave of Oblivion. I checked it out; there was actually some fairly good treasure (like an Ebony Powder) and the enemies we all pretty easy. The enemies included Vermin who I think we met way back in Salerno Academy.
We then transferred Lucian and watched the scenes associated with this. Of course, he'll stay with our team regardless.
I checked out Valkyrie's Seal Value, since we need it in the low 30s before Chapter 7, I think? Something like that. Even after transferring Lucian, it was 20, so I think I can transfer a character in Chapter 7.
I saved still in Chapter 6, but I believe there's just the Sunken Temple to go.
The next spiritual concentration opened up the Lost City of Dipan. Now, you might remember the issue I encountered at the end of the Tower of Lezard Valeth. Barbarossa, who you need to fight twice here, is one of the very few enemies in the game that was likely to cause issues through the use of great magic. This made me very nervous about this area!
It turns out that I had nothing to be nervous about! The team clobbered Barbarossa pretty easily. The strat was Shiho using Might Reinforce, Gandar using Sap Guard, and then Jayle and Lucian attacking. Jayle recently got Gram, so her attacks were pretty devastating.
An issue here is that I literally didn't know where to go at first and kept walking directly back into Barbarossa. I think I ended up fighting him 4 times instead of the required 2. And although he didn't use great magic and destroy the game, his attacks sometimes left us in precarious situations.
Whatever.
So, with Barbarossa down, the only enemies I expect to encounter who use great magic are Gandar (which will be interesting) and Bloodbane (who is optional). That said, I have considered the possibility that some endgame boss attacks might behave the same way, so I'm not necessarily out of the woods or anything.
The Lost City of Dipan quest is a long but simple one with a whole lot of wandering around. After Barbarossa there wasn't much interest in it... although the palette-swapped Raver Lord fellas looked really strange when they were affected by status effects.
Having not used an Eye of Heaven, I was actually unsure of where to look for the wizard fellas at the end. I looked it up to avoid more walking and felt kind of dumb: it's a really cool spot.
There were lots of reviving eyeball enemies at the end, and they happened to yield a lot of experience. Jayle and Lucian were pretty well maxed on skills and traits now, so Shiho and Gandar kept the Emerald Necklace. The battles against regular enemies weren't challenging, although some were time-consuming.
The Dipani wizard trio were pretty easy, although the topmost wizard did revive an ally causing me to rethink my targeting order. Walther naturally went down last.
Two of the prizes were weapons that we'd never have a use for, so I just offered them up to Odin. I may as well do that for the sake of evaluation points.
The next spiritual concentration was Jayle's recruitment. It happens to include an easy fight against Genevieve. In the course of this, my stream dropped so there's a second, shorter video from this session. After having Jayle around so much seeing her very different-looking portrait was striking.
After recruiting Jayle officially, we spiritually concentrated again and got a Cave of Oblivion. I checked it out; there was actually some fairly good treasure (like an Ebony Powder) and the enemies we all pretty easy. The enemies included Vermin who I think we met way back in Salerno Academy.
We then transferred Lucian and watched the scenes associated with this. Of course, he'll stay with our team regardless.
I checked out Valkyrie's Seal Value, since we need it in the low 30s before Chapter 7, I think? Something like that. Even after transferring Lucian, it was 20, so I think I can transfer a character in Chapter 7.
I saved still in Chapter 6, but I believe there's just the Sunken Temple to go.
Maybe this is a good time to reflect on how this party conforms to their roles.
Do the roles work? Shiho is quite distinctly a white mage, and she's effective in that role. She is primarily healing and support but she also has some attack utility without much elemental flexibility. If you want elemental flexibility, of course, you go to your black mage, like Gandar! Gandar acts exactly like you would expect your pure offensive caster to behave - no notes. Lucian is clearly a very thief-y character, and his quickness and ability to extract treasure has ended up making this role quite fitting. The oddity, I guess, is Jayle, who isn't really statistically much different from Lucian but has worse attacks. It sure feels like she embodies the role lately, though, although maybe that's just because she is equipped with Gram. Altogether this feels about as class-oriented and with as much conformance to the warrior/thief/healer/blaster trope as possible in this game.
Is the team effective? Yes. And this is interesting, because Jayle seems to be generally agreed to be among the worse characters in the game. She is working out just fine. Gandar wipes lots of enemies, having two mages is nice, and Lucian does his job better than anyone. Would this be easier or better with someone else in place of Jayle? Almost certainly, but it doesn't really matter.
Is this fun to play like this? Mostly? The great magic crash bug really put me off when it cast doubt on the feasibility of this playthrough. This game doesn't have a ton of variety to it, and especially when only using four characters, but it's nice that Shiho and Gandar collectively have so many spell options. Within an area, I do often find myself kind of bored by the end. Most of the time though, yes, this has been fun.
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Do the roles work? Shiho is quite distinctly a white mage, and she's effective in that role. She is primarily healing and support but she also has some attack utility without much elemental flexibility. If you want elemental flexibility, of course, you go to your black mage, like Gandar! Gandar acts exactly like you would expect your pure offensive caster to behave - no notes. Lucian is clearly a very thief-y character, and his quickness and ability to extract treasure has ended up making this role quite fitting. The oddity, I guess, is Jayle, who isn't really statistically much different from Lucian but has worse attacks. It sure feels like she embodies the role lately, though, although maybe that's just because she is equipped with Gram. Altogether this feels about as class-oriented and with as much conformance to the warrior/thief/healer/blaster trope as possible in this game.
Is the team effective? Yes. And this is interesting, because Jayle seems to be generally agreed to be among the worse characters in the game. She is working out just fine. Gandar wipes lots of enemies, having two mages is nice, and Lucian does his job better than anyone. Would this be easier or better with someone else in place of Jayle? Almost certainly, but it doesn't really matter.
Is this fun to play like this? Mostly? The great magic crash bug really put me off when it cast doubt on the feasibility of this playthrough. This game doesn't have a ton of variety to it, and especially when only using four characters, but it's nice that Shiho and Gandar collectively have so many spell options. Within an area, I do often find myself kind of bored by the end. Most of the time though, yes, this has been fun.
<< First | < Previous | Index | Next >