Customizable characters, customizable party, loads of items, and lots of game play time.
I, too, thought this was extremely cliché. Despite this cliché and the fact your character was an adventurer who then became LvL1, this game turned out to be a decent game.
-=Gameplay=-
This game can be VERY slow in the beginning. Level 1 and things just tend to kill you or close to it. Its even slower if you chose to Solo in the beginning as i did. It took me a 5 hour hump to start really having fun with this game once i got stronger. But, if you so pleased, you choose to have a couple party members to help out in the beginning making the 5 hours into, say, 1-2 hours. After that hump, the gameplay really goes up, despite the 1-2 hit combos. The combat system is enjoyable. It kinda reminds me of Final Fantasy in the sense you engage and fight in some small arbitrary arena.
In Valhalla Knights, you see the creature in the dungeon (Like Evolution for Dreamcast =D) and you can engage face one or u can engage on the sides or behind it to damage it like a sneak attack of some sort. You gain a small advantage this way. You control the character in battle in real time so it can be difficult for all you FF fans who enjoy the think time =X.
If you choose to have multiple people in your party, ou are able to make your own characters for the party. So if you want to make a Full party of Elven Thieves, then by all means, do so. Or if u always wanted to make that perfect party well balanced with mages, priests, close combatants and rangers, you can do that as well. You will aslo be able to set the party member's behavior. So if the character is a Fighter, sub classed with a Priest, you can set it so that, for the most part he will attack but cast spells every now and again. The only thing is that, there is a small fee to make the extra members of the party.
Now your thinking... Well why wouldn't you have a full party?
More party members = more money spent on equipment and other things. Also, the experienced gained is distributed evenly among the party members. So if a monster Gave 600 EXP and you had 6 members, thats 100 for each member, whereas 3 members would gain 200 each.
Since i am a huge RPG fan, i found myself trying to Find items more than wanting to finish the quest or progress in the game. And thats where the frustrating part can come in. Spending hours on that really rare item whereas some people get really lucky and find it after a few mobs.
What i enjoyed about the item system in this game was, not only did every item have a different look that reflected on your character, but there were "enchanted" versions of the item.
For instance, that is called a Claymore Indig1 (Indig for indigo).
Indigo is an attribute which can inflict Silence upon the enemy. For those who are new to RPGs, Silence disables the ability to cast spells.
-=Graphics=-
Good graphics have never been a huge thing for me nore is it very expected on the PSP. Some places where things should be round, there are clear polygons, but this is okay. Although, when you have a party of 6 fighting another party of 6 (12 combatants) the FPS can get really low. I'm just glad I'm sticking with 3 characters to my party.
Gameplay should always be before Graphics.
-=Sound=-
No voice overs which can be good for some and bad for others.
For me, i like to improvise what they would sound like as opposed to some lame voice over that doesn't fit.
Background music is decent. Effect sounds are a tad lacking.
-=Value=-
Well its totally worth getting if you are an RPG or Action/Adventure Fan and anyone who has played Monster Hunter should get it.
I like to deny that Monster Hunter and this game have anything in common and yet i play Monster Hunter and this game so maybe people who like Monster Hunter will like this.
Totally worth renting at your local Block Buster to try out if you aren't compelled to pay the $40.