Many levels of customization, immersive class system and multiplayer options for co-op and versus battles.
In Valhalla Knights you play as an extremely cliché hero who doesn't speak, wakes up and doesn't remember a thing, and on top of that, hears voices. All you know is that you descend from a legendary adventurer.
When starting the game, you are forced to pick a human character. However, there are five races available in the game: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit and Machine. Each race has a specific set of attributes that makes them better suited for certain classes. Once you pick your name and gender, you can choose your class from Fighter, Mage, Thief or Priest. These are the four basic classes, although later on you can "advance" them by finding certain special items. Once you distribute the remaining bonus points among your character's stats, you're ready to go.
While the game is basically dungeon crawler RPG, the combat doesn't happen on the field map. A battle begins when you walk into an enemy, but on a separate screen, and it's a nearly seamless transition. It's a real-time battle where you have to run around, block and attack whatever comes at you while protecting your party members. The way you encounter an enemy can make a difference, giving you an advantage if you attack from behind or the sides. Although the battle interface may seem complicated at first, it becomes very simple to use. As you hit or take damage, a small sphere gradually fills up near you HP bar. When the sphere is full and glowing, you can use your special attack, which varies according to the weapons equipped. The in-battle menus are very easy to learn and allow you to pick items and spells to use, as well as give other commands. You can also easily switch between party members while in combat, which offers a really good alternative for different styles of gameplay.
At first, adventuring on your own can be a recipe for disaster when there are more than two enemies on the battle screen. A good advice is to spend your initial gold getting a party member at the guild, preferably a healer, since the starting difficulty of the game comes as a surprise.
You can also adjust your party member's abilities to be more prone to certain things. There is a number of points to allocate on different abilities that can make a class much more efficient. This allows further character customization and specialization. As you can imagine, the guild is the definitely the place to be at. In it, you can get your items appraised (for a small fee of course), accept quests and create/add party members (up to six characters in a party). This is also where you can change your class and take on a second and even a third job, much like what we know from FFXI. You can create some interesting class combos by combining what complements your character better. Graphically, I found the game to have a lot of detail. Every piece of equipment is visible on your characters, the environments are rich in everything from children playing to sunbeams or rich furniture. The animations are very smooth, and although the color seemed to be a bit dull, it does tie in well with the cursed land/castle plot. Many levels of customization, immersive class system and multiplayer options for co-op and versus battles give Valhalla Knights a little extra something to what could have been just another dungeon crawler. And although there is an obscene amount of fighting contrasting to the basic storyline, this is certainly a very welcome game on my PSP and one I'm thoroughly enjoying.
Review text part of Grrlgamer.com. Full text and screens at http://www.grrlgamer.com/review.php?g=valhallaknights