What Are Valkyrie Profile's Three Endings?
Valkyrie Profile has three endings, lettered C, B, and A. The C ending is a failure state. The B ending is the ending the game leads you toward. The A ending completes the entire story, including Lenneth's origins, and the game's own director has said on record that reaching it means questioning the very system the game trains you to obey. What follows separates the documented design from the walkthrough derived specifics, which are labeled as such.
THE THREE ENDINGS
Documented designWHAT THE DIRECTOR SAID
Gotanda, 1999, on the recordGotanda discussed the endings directly in his 1999 developer interview. To get the A ending, he said, you cannot send too many einherjar to Valhalla; it is important to send only the most exceptional ones. The A ending was conceived, in his words, for players who wanted to do things their own way and defy Odin: thinking things through for yourself, questioning what the Seal Rate is all about, and wanting to explore your past are what lead there. He admitted the conditions are really strict and called the design a big gamble, since every in game message leads the player toward the B ending.
His one deliberate hint sits on the game's own logo, the line also printed around it on the Japanese box: Should Deny The Divine Destiny of The Destinies, which he glossed as reject your fate. That hint, he said, is extremely important, because it is the only one he gave.
THE A ENDING, STEP BY STEP
Walkthrough derived, attributedThe specific requirements below come from the fan written Valkyrie Profile Endings FAQ by triAce Fanboy (version 1.3, August 31, 2006), a walkthrough document rather than a publisher source, and they are printed here with that attribution. The hidden variable is Lenneth's Seal Rating, found on her status screen where other characters show a Hero Value. It runs from 0 to 100, and lower is better.
Per the FAQ, the required sequence is: meet Brahms in his castle; defeat Lezard in Chapter 4; recruit Mystina in Chapter 5; recruit Lucian in Chapter 5; send Lucian to Valhalla before Chapter 7, trained well enough to survive there; and bring the Seal Rating below 38 during Chapter 7, which triggers a cutscene with Lucian. In Chapter 8, a new location appears at the end of the Spiritual Concentration, the Weeping Lily Meadow, and going there begins the A ending sequence.
The FAQ's Seal arithmetic shows why this is a planning puzzle: sending a character to Odin raises the Seal by 12 and wearing the Nibelungen Ring through a Sacred Phase raises it by 2, while recruiting characters lowers it by 2 and the required story events lower it sharply, 10 for meeting Brahms, 15 for defeating Lezard, 15 for recruiting Mystina, and 20 for recruiting Lucian. Obedience is literally what the number measures, which is exactly the point Gotanda said he designed.
THE GAME ON THE SHELF
Valkyrie Profile, the first game