Ever wonder why this game usually sells for 100 dollars or more? Well...
You are Lenneth, a Valkyrie who's job is to collect warrior souls worthy of being sent to Valhalla to become an Einherjar, in preparation for Ragnarok. Now, if you're a Norse Mythology buff, maybe you understood some of that, but I doubt it. The premise is simple, on the world map you press the select button, you hear the cries of souls near death in a cut scene, you go to the town it tells you to go to after the short cut scene, then the story will unfold itself in a (usually long) cut scene involving the warrior who is about to die. These warriors, once dead, join your team as Einherjar, now it is your job to train these Einherjar in perpetration for their battles in Valhalla, where they will fight alongside the Gods. The story is simple, but each character's storyline can be somewhat complex and some of them can link together, and some even influence Lenneth's personal life (yes, even Valkyries have feelings and personal lives). The story is quite simple and easy to understand, even if you're not a Norse mythology buff.
The game play is very interesting and unique. When I first played this game as a youngster, the game play and battle system was what kept me so hooked, and when I replayed this game a year or so ago, it still kept me hooked. When walking around in dungeons or towns, it is a side scrolling environment, where you can shoot small beams to form crystal formations on the walls and on the ground to get to unreachable places, these crystal formations get bigger as you shoot more beams into them, eventually the crystal will shatter leaving a powdery substance in the air that you can float on, in addition to the crystal beam feature you can also slash your sword at incoming enemies to obtain an advantage in battle. The battling is very unique, unlike any other battle system I've played to date. The battles start once you run into an enemy, which will be shown walking around as a black blob most of the time. The actual battle system is quite hard to explain, but I'll try: each button on the play station controller (X, O, square, and triangle) correspond with a different character in your current party. When you push the corresponding button, the character will attack one to three times, the number of times they attack depends on what weapon they're using. There are a few different types of weaponry in the game, but they are divided into three categories: magic, long range, and short range. Overall, the game play is superb; very innovative and underrated, without it the game itself would be very poor.
The learning curb is a tad bit higher than most other RPGS out there, I would say you'd need a good hour or two to fully understand how to customize your characters and make them learn new abilities, but once you learn how, the game's a breeze. As for the game's difficulty, it varies on what mode you select at the beginning of the game. If I remember correctly, there's three different difficulty levels: easy, moderate, and hard. To me, Enix messed this system up. Here's why: in easy mode, you are given a lot of experience for winning battles, but you don't get many good items throughout the whole game, and you can't get all of the characters, and believe me, you'll want some of the characters, some are amazing. In moderate, you get decent experience points for winning battles, decent items, and a few more characters than you can get in easy mode. In hard mode, you get poor experience, but all the items, and all the characters. Now, with a battle system catered to the whims of what items and weaponry you have equip, you can see where this system is flawed. On hard mode, you get all the weapons, and all the characters, making the game easier than if it were on easy or moderate mode. At least, this is what it felt like to me. So, I would recommend viewing the difficulty levels in this way: easy mode is hard, moderate mode is moderate, and hard mode is easy.
The graphics aren't the best for the PS1. Being 2D, they are good for their time, but they aren't great by today's standards. This really shouldn't matter, the graphics aren't terrible and the game play takes your mind off of them. For me, the graphics were fine, didn't present any sort of problem. As for the sound, it has a wonderful soundtrack that I've always wanted to purchase, but never gotten around to. The battle theme is intense, and the boss battle theme is even more intense.
With all that being said: this game is a classic, yet I don't think it'd be good for everyone, since the learning curb is rather high and it's not your traditional run of the mill role playing game. But, if you love RPGs and haven't played this game, I recommend you get it for the PSP, I would suggest getting the original version, but it's far to expensive at over 100 dollars. From what I've heard, the port for the PSP is almost exactly like the original, just with a few extra cut scenes thrown in. So, like I said, if you're an RPG fan and haven't given this game a try, do so, you won't regret it. I sure didn't, it's my favorite RPG until I find a better one, which I probably won't.