Spirit Valor - PS5 Review

Spirit Valor by developer Exe Create Inc. and publisher KEMCO—PS5 review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

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Spirit Valor is an interesting title from KEMCO and Exe Create Inc., the same people that brought us Astrune Academy if you saw my review for that. Another turn-based RPG with some twist elements thrown in, Spirit Valor is a pretty entertaining journey through a fantasy world, so let’s take a look at what it has to offer!

In Spirit Valor we take on the role of a spirit summoned by a mighty warrior to help in the defeat of an Overlord, one who controls the rise of demons in the world. Unfortunately, there is a magic outburst from the warrior, and so the spirit is stuck in the warrior’s body. Unable to return home to the spirit world, and feeling a sense of obligation to fulfill the warrior’s goal of defeating the new Overlord, the spirit inside the warrior’s body gathers three other companions to set out and save both the human and spirit world from the overlord.

So set out the warrior “Richard” (totally not a spirit, shhh), Alice, a young warrior in training, Finn, the flirty knight, and Vallerie, a spirit researcher. Those of you who remember old school Final Fantasy titles, like the first game, or who’ve played Astrune Academy will have a pretty good idea how things will play out, but for those of you who haven’t, we’ll take a look at what makes Spirit Valor enticing.

Spirit Valor has a pretty standard JRPG game loop. You go visit someone of importance and have a cutscene, you get told where to go, you explore a dungeon, you repeat. This is pretty basic fare for many JRPGs. You’ll explore a world map, getting into random fights until you either enter a town or dungeon. Feel free to explore the various local settlements at your leisure, buying and equipping new equipment, talking with the townsfolk, and picking up any chests you may see hidden around, as is pretty common in these types of games.

Once you enter a dungeon, there are a few things you’ll probably notice right off the bat. First of all, you’ll probably see a little panel on the floor and a weird floating rock tower somewhere nearby. The panel is a warp point, which will bring you to any other panel in the dungeon you’ve stepped on. If you step on it, the floating rock tower is a sort of enemy adjustment device. Basically, battles in the dungeons are random encounters, but the towers near the warp points allow you to adjust encounter rate, as well as summon a set of three battles to use for gaining levels, money, or items. While the first time you interact with a tower you can either increase or decrease the encounter rate slightly, after reaching the last tower you can either stop random encounters or greatly increase the encounter rate. This is pretty handy when you return to an area for a sidequest and don’t want to bother with way too weak enemies while looking for the sidequest objective.

So, what about when you actually get into a battle? Well, this is where Spirit Valor brings out some interesting ideas. Basic combat is turn based, with a sliding bar where both enemy and ally icons will move along indicating each turn order. Faster characters mean faster moving icons. Once it comes to your turn, you can perform your actions. While Spirit Valor has the basics, like attack, defend, and item use, it also has a pretty unique spirit summoning system going for it.

In battle, you can opt to spend a percent portion of your max mana pool to summon a spirit, at varying strength depending on your mana used. The spirits you summon however are actually somewhat random, determined by the area you’re fighting in, and will change each time a spirit gets summoned. Being a spirit himself, the main character doesn’t have that option, but the rest of your party members still do. So let’s say one of your party members summons a spirit. Well, there’s a chance the spirit will stick around and ask to make a contract with you. If you agree. That spirit will lend you it’s power. You can have up to ten spirit contracts per character, but can only “equip” four at a time. You can swap these out outside of battle.

Now, forming a contract with a spirit doesn’t mean you can summon them whenever, it actually means you can use their abilities as skills. Spirits also have levels, and as you bring them into battle with you they will level up, gain new skills, and maybe even evolve! You can swap them out and level other spirits to see if they gain skills you want. Some spirits can provide healing or buffs, and some have large single target damage.

In addition to the spirits and their skills, you also have these things called mana stones. Basically they’re sort of like discount pokeballs. You can throw one at an enemy, and if they have a skill that can be used, there’s a chance you can “capture” the monster’s skills at a certain chance. These mana stones that have a skill can be used three times before they either break or lose the skill. If the mana stone loses the skill, you get the mana stone back and can use it on another enemy. If it breaks, a spirit is released and a character can contract it, or the warrior can learn a skill from it. If you either summon a spirit or break a mana stone and receive a spirit you already have a contract with, that character’s spirit will get a power increase.

Those of you who have played Astrune Academy may remember the store system, where you can exchange gems you’ve gained for items, or permanent buffs applied to your game. Unlike in Astrune Academy however, the items don’t include primary equipment, just accessories, so it’s much tougher to “break” the game, although you can still purchase experience and money increases. These can also be toggled, so you can adjust the game to your preference.

Spirit Valor is a pretty nice retro style JRPG that still manages to put some interesting twists on things. The graphics are definitely a little more old-school looking, but fit really well with the style. As a nice added bonus, while the storyline is somewhat generic, there are still some twists, and tropes that are commonly used that are either subverted or altered in a pretty interesting way. Probably one of the more interesting storyline decisions comes in the post-game, where there is a split in how the story goes based on what you choose. I thought the choice to go this route was pretty interesting, and while I liked the split in direction it went for, being unable to carry over from one plotline to the other is a little annoying. What I mean is that completing one of the branches doesn’t allow you to keep playing with all the stuff you’ve gained in that route. You have to reload from before the branch, although it isn’t too bad, and you can earn the equivalent back on the other branch.

Overall, I actually had a lot of fun with Spirit Valor. It’s a nice JRPG with a pretty unique twist and a solid storyline. The characters all have unique personalities, the graphic style is very fitting for the game type, and there are a number of quality of life options for players. If you’re looking for a smaller JRPG to fill your time, Spirit Valor may be something for you!

Score: 8 / 10