Oh, so because a game is "hard" you give it a lower score? Oh, reviewers you fail me!
Everything is original for this game. Everything except it's Star Ocean presentation. From the battle system, how you travel around, the artwork choice, the puzzles, the story, and of course, the music.
From the gameplay standpoint, we have basically what Star Ocean Till The End of Time, turned Turn-based. You start the battle in a team of 4 and can break up into two groups of two to farther your planning. It's also another odd, but addictive thing to know that your characters will attack according to the button you assigned them to, so when you choose to attack, choose one of the four buttons and that character will attack that moment, and yes you can attack at the same time with another button. This will last until that long bar on the buttom of the screen drops to zero and your whole team's turn ends. And if you think it's a button-masher from that, I laugh at you and expect several game overs from you in no time.
The game requires a *gasp* brain both in combat and it's puzzles. Esp. with it's love for those one hit kills from several bosses, forcing you to rethink any stradegy you thought you had.
From anywhere out of battle, you will be moving via sidescrolling, but in return, you get Ico/Shadow of the Colossus quality visuals in real time that often makes you want to sidescroll your way and see how much work these guys put on the graphics.
Now for an RPG, the story should be first and foremost in a game, and Valkarie Profile delivers....plotwise. Though the presentation could've been better. (Don't worry, the voices are well above passable.) The presentation is much like Star Ocean's presentation of awkward animations and silences. Other than that, the characters...the main ones, are rather interesting, but nothing to care for. The surprises are laughable in a good way of saying: "I just got owned.", so the story is worth continuing regardless of how hard times get for the some of yous.
And of course, the music. Star Ocean's, Eternal Sonata's, Tales of Symphonia, and Baiten Kaitos' composer Motoi Sakuraba is composing for this game and he delivers just enough to live up to his quota, though he could've done better.
This game barely scraps out of the 9/10 range for giving me that classic game feeling as well as difficulty which those "other" 8.5's couldn't do.
Though the game is more than staightforward and no free exploration to speak of, I was never one to care for that "freedom" thing in an RPG and it won't stop me now from giving this game an above average score.