Valkyrie Elysium Could Reignite the Glory Days of PlayStation JRPGs
While there are a smattering of great Japanese Role-Playing Games on other companies' hardware, it seems that Sony has had the monopoly on the genre for a while now. From the wonderment of Midgar in Final Fantasy 7 to the lesser-known story in Breath of Fire 3, the JRPG experiences on the original PlayStation were a-dime-a-dozen, and more often than not were far more than the sum of their parts. Sony's exclusive offerings are often criticized for their one-note approach to AAA game design, with third person action/adventure being the flavor of the generation, but the recent announcement of Valkyrie Elysium could be a catalyst for real change.
Being the latest installment in the long-standing franchise, Valkyrie Elysium has plenty of history that it can tap into to ensure it's a critical and commercial success. JRPGs are fewer in number today than they were in the late-1990s, and while much of the reason for this is due to other genres gaining popularity and widespread attention, titles like Final Fantasy 16 and Tales of Arise show that there is a thirst for more spiky hair, turn-based battles, and elaborate villains among gamers in 2022. Valkyrie Elysium may very well end up being just another game to satisfy JRPG fans exclusively, but it's in prime position to do much more.
Why the Valkyrie Elysium Announcement is Such a Big Deal
Officially unveiled at the March 2022 Sony State of Play, Valkyrie Elysium is the fifth entry in the series, and while it shares similarities with what came before on a mythological level, it's likely to be very different to its predecessors. Instead of a turn-based combat system that was beautifully implemented in 2000's Valkyrie Profile, the new game seems to have more of a resemblance to later
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