Nothing is explained in this game and I don’t know what the hell I am doing. I am currently playing on normal.
I just completed the artolian mountain ruins and now I’m traveling around with Jelanda and Arngrim. The problem is that all the characters I see in towns don’t want to join me. Llewelyn and Belenus are supposed to be able to in Chapter 1 but the walkthroughs are shit so I have no clue what I’m supposed to do.
THis might sound like a stupid question, but… have you tried pressing start while on the World Map?
I already see towns everywhere. There are people in these towns. People I can’t seem to recruit. I have pressed start and nothing interesting happens.
If I remember correctly, once you’ve seen the scenes where the characters are identified via pressing Start enough times, just entering the correct town should trigger their whole scene… If it doesn’t, then I am completely lost.
Also, once you figure out what’s wrong, reset and start again on Hard. Normal mode is a crippled mode with far less dungeons, less characters, less equipment, inability to get the good ending and, ironically, somewhat harder playthrough since you can’t get the good weapons. It’s a very lame shadow of the real game.
Speaking of the good ending, do keep a walkthrough around for that, it’s completely impossible to get unless you know exactly what the you’re doing.
Yeah, definitely play on Hard.
Basically, what you want to do is:
Towns themselves rarely have anything of any value or interest. The only exception is that it’s generally useful to return to a town after recruiting someone from there, because sometimes they’ll get an item.
Things to keep in mind:
-You can keep all the artifacts you find.
-You only need to send up one character per chapter if s/he has a high enough Hero Value. If they don’t have a high Hero Value, just give them that accessory that raises CP by 200 on level up, use some Party EXP on them and give them 2-3 levels. That’s more than enough to max out their Hero Value.
-Try and get Bracelets of Zoe ASAP (you can transmute them from those consumable items that raise stats). Equip them early and your HP will be sky-high by the end of the game.
-Unless you get bored, there’s no real reason to use one magician over another. They all have exactly the same abilities, so you might as well stick with one so their levels are high.
-Save before going into the Cave of Oblivion, because the monsters there are totally random and may, for example, kill you extremely dead.
-If you use Dragon Slayers as the last attack in a battle, they’ll never break. Ditto other breakable items.
Thanks guys! I’ll try this out.
1 last question: at the end of Chapter 0 (I’m going to redo this on Hard), I received items I could offer to Odin. Should I?
No, those are artifacts. Like I said, you can keep all of them as long as you send one high-Hero Value character per chapter.
No. So long as you send up Einherjar that fulfill Freya’s requests each chapter, you can keep all Artifacts with no penalty.
If you go to gamefaqs, check out the walkthrough by Captain K. It’s the one I used while playing and it should give you a pretty good idea of what to do at all times. VP is seriously not about figuring out things by yourself.
EDIT: Also once you get through Tower of Lezard Valeth (God help you), make sure to pick up the Creation Gem, which you use to create a Creation Jewel, which you use to create like almost every piece of equipment worth having. It’s a really important item. A lot of the Artifacts you’ll pick up will have little to no use by themselves, but can become very useful once transmuted with the Jewel.
This.
I second this statement.
Everything everyone else has said applies. It helps a hell of a lot to use some sort of FAQ, or you’ll likely end up lost. And despite the game having a map function for dungeons, it’s pretty crappy in the huge levels (re: Tower of Lezard Valeth). I regret actually beating the game on normal the first time, seeing as Hard has a lot more to offer.
As far as artifacts go, you should probably keep about 95% of them. Only a few aren’t that great for much. Creation Gem is a must for very good stuff. And for breakable items, don’t equip them unless you have to (like the Dragon/Beast Slayers, etc.).
Leveling characters:
What should I focus on? Traits or Status skills? Some of these status skills confuse me. There are several int boosting skills under different names. I figure I have to boost traits to send people to Valhalla, at the expense of status skills? It doesn’t seem like there is much in the way of grinding due to the lack of regenerating encounters and the period limit.
Edit: correct me if I’m wrong but it looks like by the time I’m done collecting everyone and doing the relevant dungeons, I will have periods left over I should use to grind my characters experience and that I initiate the sacred phase when I am ready before the end of my periods. I also need to have specific traits for each character I send up in each sacred phase, regardless of their stat modulation, along with a base hero value that I raise using the CP.
Since I’m in hard mode now and supposedly the cave of oblivion is impossible at this point, what do you guys do to grind up the stats?
Final but important question: I have 5 characters but 4 slots. I can’t send up Arngrim, so should I just raise both Belenus and Llewelyn right now together or should I boost Arngrim since he hits hard?
Traits are only good to raise Hero Value. Only bother with these for the people you plan on sending up. Status skills are a mixture; some are actually status skills, while others are (again) only useful for people you send up. In general, check the requirements for each chapter, and level up the relevant status skills only for the character you intend to send up that chapter.
You can use the extra periods to grind, but I personally never had to do so. That’s the great thing about Party EXP. 
I also had Arngrim in my party for practically the entire game, so he outleveled everyone but Lenneth, but you might get bored of that. Oh, and make sure to give Emerald Necklaces to as many characters as you can. The extra CP on level-up REALLY helps, especially early on.
The Cave of Oblivion is not necessarily impossible. Like I said, the enemies are random. Just save before you go in and give it a shot, you never know. On the other hand, the cave itself is also totally random (and also very short), so there might not actually be any treasure in it.
For chapter 1, send Llewellyn. Like SE said, Captain K’s FAQ is by far the best thing to use while playing the game. He has recommendations for each chapter. Oh, and make sure to give your characters basic equipment when sending them up (i.e. one piece in each slot other than accessories, no matter what it is).
It’s important to max out the Traits of the guys you will send. If I remember right, Llewelyn was the first one I sent up, so just train him enough to max up his Traits and get high enough Hero Value and ship his ass up to Valhalla. Keep Arngrim in your party at all times, he’s one of the unsendable characters that will make up your permanent party.
Speaking of which, training the Traits of guys you can’t send (Arngrim, Mystina, etc) is completely useless since they have no effect on gameplay, so don’t waste your points.
Status Skills have both combat and qualification applications. Freya will sometimes request you send someone with specific skills. Important note on this: You do not need to satisfy THAT requirement 100%, so long as the guy has SOME of the skills she asks for and high enough Hero Value, it’ll do. Again, look up that walkthrough I told you about for recomendations on who to send.
To sum up: For guys you need to send, max out Traits and whatever Skills Freya asks for. For Arngrim and the like, just focus on Skills.
Yes, the extra periods are to be used for grinding. If you re-enter a dungeon, all the monsters inside will have regenerated.
Much later on, there’s a dungeon (Hard mode only) where you can get infinite encounters without going out, so that eases your job as well.
So I need bracelets of zoe and emerald necklaces. How do I get these? There are no shops. Are they hard to get?
Transmutation. The only “shop” you have is the Divine Item menu, where you spend Materialize Points to make Divine items, but the best stuff is gotten through Transmutation.
You can transmute a Bracelet of Zoe using Normal Transmutation (no need for the Creation Gem or Jewel) from a Golden Egg, and Odin will give you one for free at the end of Chapter 4. If you get an extra Holy Grail, that works too, but be sure to keep at least one of those since it gives you a Holy Drop per chapter (Having more than one Grail is useless though).
You can find an Emerald Necklace in the Solde Catacombs, and Odin will give you one at the end of chapter 2. I don’t remember if they are transmutable.
Remember that these take effect upon Level Up, so you can just equip them on whoever looks like he’ll gain a level soon and then switch them around. Also, the bonuses from two of the same item DO stack, so if you equip one Bracelet of Zoe, you’ll gain 300 DME upon level up, but 600 if you equip 2. Same for the Necklace, one will get you an extra 100 CP, and 200 with two.
Two of them aren’t really necessary though.
I’m pretty sure you can “buy” Emerald Necklaces. Oh, Sin, if you haven’t noticed yet… there’s a menu option called something like Divine Items, that’s only enabled on save points or the world map. That’s your shop. You spend MP to buy items. You get a set amount of MP each chapter, and you can get more by turning items into MP (though this shouldn’t really be necessary much). The shop inventory expands each chapter or two.
Excellent. Thank you for all your help!
np. I love Valkyrie Profile, once you figure out some of the Guide Dang Its it’s one of the most solid and fun games out there.
One last thing: In Hard, there are a total of 8 Flame Gems you can find in dungeons. Make sure to find them all (one dungeon has two of them).
I think this will be my final question. In chapter 2, I have to give Belenus leadership , appraisal and tactics (for example). How high in level do these skills have to be? Is 1 point enough? Do I get bonus points if those traits are especially high? How do I know what traits Freya wants of my heroes in each chapter?
edit: holy shit , I’m lv 5 and Arngrim has 5000 hp? What the fuck happened o_O!? I’m currently also wiping out enemy parties with the all enemy casts Jelanda has. Is there any incentive to not 1 shot enemy parties?
If possible, max them out, if not, as high as you can. Having one (or two) Emerald Necklaces on him should get you enough points after a couple of levels. The Traits increase the character’s Hero Value, and thus the rewards you get from Odin. If I remember right, Freya should tell you if she needs any specific Skills (Status Skills), but as a rule, try to max out all Traits of whoever you’re going to send.
On nuking: It’s fine, but there’s a reason not to: When you hit an enemy that’s currently in the air (Probably because of an uppercut-like move of yours), they drop a crystal. The more crystals you get in a battle, the more experience you get at the end, with a limit of 40 crystals (x3 Exp). You want to crate a combination of moves that juggles the enemy as much as possible to get as many crystals as you can before killing them.