Picked up Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume today :) Been really looking forward to this game! Played a few solid hours already. The story is more mature than most DS srpgs, or at least the ones Ive seen/played. Wylfred has basically lost everything after his father dies. He blames the Valkyrie who took his father's soul to serve in her einherjar and he vows to kill her. Years later he is offered the power needed to fulfill his vow by a certain person that all who are familiar with Valkyrie Profile will recognize.... If/as he fulfills the conditions of the pact (aka covenant), he must sacrifice all things he cherishes the most and all he loves.

There are multiple endings and depending on your choices when you play it will change Wylfred's psyche, how he interacts with characters, who he will meet along the way, and of course what becomes of him at the end. Wylfred has a Destiny Plume, which when used, will give a party member a huge power/stat boost. Using it though will kill the character permanantly at the end of the battle.

Dialog is fantastic so far. Not very much voice acting, mainly during the battles. The music is wonderful, mostly known Valkyrie Profile tunes which I love.

The combat is a mix between an srpg and the turn based of the original Valkyrie Profile (PS and PSP). The mobs arent too aggressive so far when it comes to advancing across the battlefield. However, that really is a bit of a good thing. Because believe me when you have 3 mobs on you, 2 of which are archers and can not be hit during that turn by a melee character, like Wylfred, the damage really adds up. It does require you to plan ahead and strategically place your characters like all srpgs. Overkills have a very important roll. A lot of the battles give a Sin level for you to obtain. Sin is given when you attack in Overkill, the more damage/hits, the more Sin you collect. When you reach the requirement, you get some very nice items. Fail to reach the mark and you will be punished with a stronger added enemy in the next battle. This makes you have to think a bit more on where to place characters and when to attack. If you only attack an enemy with one character you may not get enough Sin to reach your mark. Instead, you may have to move a character, wait and move a second character into position before attacking so you get much more Sin per Overkill.

Graphics are good, not amazing but nice to look at. I have a soft spot for the sprites and artwork, feels like older games without feeling dated, if ya know what I mean.

Wow I wrote a lot considering I really havent played that much of it :lol:

Next blog will be my impressions on the Patapon 2 Demo!