Dezz123 plays and reviews Valkyrie Stories:
First of all, I'd like to mention that this is only a review based on the short demo that is available in the downloads section to summarise my own opinion on this game, and I intend to update this as the game progresses.

Storyline:
The storyline isn't really shown that much in the beginning demo, as it just shows some cutscenes of the character, Vance, with past scenes to connect the story together. For what I can gather so far though, it seems as if the story itself is an entire flashback for the main character to recall what happened to his brother, but in the flashback there are even more flashbacks connected throughout. This does not really seem so cliché to me as there are rarely seen games with this type of storyline - especially ones with the story being a flashback for the most part.
For most of the demo you are seeing flashbacks and you get to use your character to move around just a minority of the time and for a short period of time until the story seems to end and you're able to take a look at the environment. The flashbacks all help fit with the storyline, as if backstories, which is always a good thing when used right.
Storyline Rating: 8/10 so far. (Good)

Gameplay:
The gameplay of Valkyrie Stories is pretty well-made too, with many custom edited scenes, such as Items, Equip, and the Main Menu scene totally edited. I believe the only scene yet to be edited would be the Save Scene, though that isn't much of a bother if you only use it to save a game.

The Message system seemed custom too, with a small message box the characters talked in having the face 'pop out' of the window with a border around it and a name tag added too to leave you less confused on who is talking.

There were some pretty good tutorials for most things too, with custom graphics for them which you'd usually see in the likes of the new Final Fantasies or something, like a page shown filling the entire screen with a detailed analysis of the systems, where you're also able to 'flick' through the pages with the left and right arrows. You are also able to read these again from the Items menu in case you forget, which can be proved useful.

The Title system was also pretty good, as instead of the usual 'use up and down arrows to choose whether to start a New Game, Load another or Shut Down the game' you could press the left and right arrows to 'glide' through the buttons to choose New Game, Continue, Quit or Options, however the Options didn't seem available in the first demo.
Gameplay Rating: 9/10. (Very Good)

Characters:
There's not really much I can say about the characters since you're introduced to around 5 characters throughout the demo - each with their own personality. One of them is a 'cute' little animal-thing known as Skie which seems pretty unique, yet cliché all the same. It seems pretty hard to have characters that are not cliché lately however, seen as how most characters are no matter how you have them be. I believe the brothers are cliché however, so this won't get such a good rating.
Characters Rating: 6/10 (Average)

Mapping:
The mapping was pretty decent, however I noticed a few mapping errors on the exterior maps such as forests, etc. The perspectives for mountains and the like were really incredible however, so that makes up for small mapping errors.
Honestly though, some of the maps seemed messed-up and pretty jumbled, as the maps had loads of trees together which did not seem like such a nice sight in my opinion, as they all seemed pretty squashed together, and there were many things that were just too close to each other which shows that they had been parallaxed together. The parallaxes were pretty good baring those points though.
Mapping Rating: 7/10. (Good)

Battles:
The battles proved to be a good aspect of this game too, as it seemed fully customized as if it were a whole new battle system and it featured a nice 'Lifeline System' implemented to show the heart beat of a character. The lifelines didn't really seem all that important however, since we only had to look at their health, though it was still nice to look at visually. The backgrounds were custom too, and there was a skill available to all usable characters so there was no spamming the attack choice.
Battles Rating: 8/10 (Good)

Dialogue:
The dialogue was the worst part of this game in my opinion, as I noticed a lot of spelling errors and mistakes in the messages, especially in the Tutorials. Some of the sentences when reading did not make much sense unless you already had an estimate close to it on what to do already, so it wasn't so good there.
Dialogue Rating: 4/10 (Satisfactory)

Graphics and Font:
The Graphics were incredible - to say the least! Most were fully custom, including new battlers, Menu background and much more too. All the graphics were really nice though, and they looked like what you'd expect to see out of a commercial game. The team must have had a really talented graphics artist(s) to pull it off, and this was definitely my most favourite part of the game.
However, there were some tiles I recognised being Macks which seemed to stick out compared to the other tiles, such as the town shown in the beginning, however that was not much of a bother since there was no real important clash there. The Equipment scene was by far my favourite graphics image, as the scene was just amazing, and it showed a fantastic display of a character related to the sex of the character you was viewing, where a Male would show a Male portrait, etc.
The font fitted nicely too, and I didn't really find any problems with it. The text was easy to read and it was different in the Menus and the Title which shows a nice vary available.
Graphics and Font Rating: 10/10 (Outstanding)

Audio:
I didn't seem to find an interest with the Audio, as it seemed quiet(?) and average, though at times I did find it fitting relevantly with the scenes that were happening.
The characters had sound effects attached to them when they attacked an enemy which seemed custom, which was really nice to see implemented.
Audio Rating: 7/10 (Good)

Overall:
Overall, this is a pretty good game with some nice qualities, however it shows some lacking with certain aspects. I would recommend a playthrough but not to expect too much of the game since its still a small demo.
Overall Rating: 3.5/5. (Good)