The History of Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth
Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth is the PlayStation Portable port of the 1999 original, developed by Tose and published by Square Enix. It was released in Japan on March 2, 2006, in North America on July 18, 2006, in Europe on April 27, 2007, and in Australia on May 3, 2007, arriving alongside Silmeria in the series' 2006 return.
A port is a set of choices, and Lenneth's are documented and unusual. The port was made from the Japanese PlayStation version, so the gameplay improvements and changes made for the original English release are not in it. The additional cinematics created for the English version are in it. And the original's anime story scenes are gone entirely, replaced by full motion video.
HOW IT WAS MADE
Tose, 2006Square Enix cleaned up the original game's English script for the port, and the English version reuses the original English voiceover track. The new CG movies needed new dialogue, and that additional voice work was recorded by New Generation Pictures rather than the original company, TAJ Productions. One naming detail survived from the first localization and is documented on the version comparison page in this archive: the names Frei and Freya sit reversed against both Norse mythology and the Japanese version.
The port kept travelling. In 2018 Lenneth came to iOS and Android with enhanced graphics for portraits, text, and interface elements, the option to skip cutscenes, and automated combat encounters. In December 2022 it was re released for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 by software emulation, in the same season as Valkyrie Elysium.
THE TWO COVERS
The painting, and the replacement
HOW IT WAS RECEIVED
The scoresTHE SALES
Documented figuresJapan GameCharts reports 168,515 copies of Lenneth sold in Japan as of November 2008. Square Enix reported 60,000 copies sold abroad as of November 2007, and the series' combined tally for the port stands at 248,000. For a handheld port of a seven year old game, that is a second commercial life, and it is why the original, not any of its sequels, is the version Square Enix keeps reissuing.