Being the princess of Dipan, you'd think Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria's lead Alicia would have it pretty easy. Instead, she finds herself exiled from the kingdom at an early age and forced to live a life of solitude. And as if the voices in Alicia's head, the reason behind her forced departure, weren't enough, some woman clad in purple armor keeps trying to kill her, their last encounter resulting in the destruction of the prison-esque castle.

The story heavily steeped in Norse mythology, it turns out Alicia has the soul of the rogue valkyrie Silmeria trapped inside her. To put it bluntly, Silmeria did something to really piss off Odin, the top dog in the Norse pantheon. With the castle destroyed and this purple-armored warrior after them, Alicia and Silmeria are now on the run, frantically trying to save themselves, and in the process, the world at large.

Along the way, they'll visit locations and enlist the aide of characters that will seem familiar to those that have played the original Valkyrie Profile. And as the story unfolds, these cameos often have surprising implications. I'll put it this way: Though you may think you have a good idea of what's going to happen and who's going to show up, you don't. This is especially true in Silmeria's latter half, which is when things really start to get interesting.

Of course, there's more to Silmeria than its intriguing narrative. Most importantly, there are the dungeons and the resulting battles that occur within them, where players will spend most of their time. When in dungeons, Alicia's movement is restricted to the 2D plane, reminiscent of old side-scrolling platformers. She also has the ability to shoot photons, which will temporarily trap any enemies they encounter within a crystal. As in Valkyrie Profile, these crystals can then be used to help Alicia reach otherwise inaccessible areas of the dungeon.

But the cool part about these crystals is that Alicia can swap places with them if another photon is fired in that direction. This twist provides for lots of clever scenarios that require you to exploit this ability, something that factors quite heavily into some dungeons. For example, in one dungeon, the low ceiling of a passageway seems like a dead end. But there's just enough room for a photon to fit through, and it just so happens there's an enemy within photon range on the other side. By first crystallizing and then swapping places with this enemy, exploration of the dungeon can continue.

Another consideration within dungeons are the sealstones that populate them. Able to cover an entire section of a dungeon with a specific effect, sealstones can be advantageous or detrimental depending on their effect. Some of them increase the attack value of a certain element, while others decrease the effectiveness of that particular spell. There are those that will increase healing and boost the amount of experience gained in a battle, but there are also those that may injure a character if they act. And with the party able to carry a sealstone around on their own and even transfer them from dungeon to dungeon, there's a lot to consider when placing or equipping the various sealstones.

As for the battles themselves, Valkyrie Profile veterans will feel right at home. Each of the four characters in a party are still assigned to one of the four face buttons on the PlayStation 2 controller, and it's still reliant on players timing their actions correctly to inflict the most damage they can.

The major difference here is that the party can now move around the battlefield. No longer are players and monsters stuck in the same spot as they were in the original. With the option to choose the order in which monsters are tackled and the ability to avoid their attacks depending on the direction they're approached from, the revised battle system provides for the player with more freedom for planning their assaults. In fact, the party can even be split up into two independently controlled groups, the double-approach allowing the weak spots and unguarded portions of monsters to be more easily exploited.

Throughout all of this, Silmeria showcases developer tri-Ace's traditional focus on the tiny details. When entering a new section of the world, the map literally pops to life as forests and mountains rise out of an old-timey paper map. Dust and heat waves distort the desert areas. Alicia's skirt and hair behave realistically when she jumps. Load times are practically non-existent. These little touches make all the difference, helping the world and its locations to appear as if they actually exist.

However, there is a curious flaw within Silmeria in that its cutscenes can't be paused. It seems an odd thing to overlook, the ability to skip cutscenes and extended attack animations show that tri-Ace was aware players may not want to repeatedly watch the same thing, and the option to pause, perhaps in the event of a phone call or a knock at the door, seems the next logical step.