Valkyrie Anatomia Guide

Q: What is Valkyrie Anatomia?

A: Valkyrie Anatomia is a mobile game that acts as a prequel to the Valkyrie Profile series, it contains an all new story written by the original writer of the series, it’s not developed by Tri-Ace, instead it’s developed internally by Square Enix. The music is still composed by Motoi Sakuraba, with the game reusing some very classic songs and some original ones too.

Q: How the game works?

A: The game follows the F2P (Free to Play) Game Design with the Gacha Mechanism. Basically you play for free, with content updates available for free with an option to purchase in-game currency/bundles, by the use of the in-game currency (Gems) you can use the summon option that will give you special Weapons with a chance for Artifacts exclusive to Summon.

Q: Does this game have PVP, Co-Op or Guild content?

A: The game does have PVP, but it’s automatic and you don’t even need to see the actual fight, you send your Heroes to PVP and after some time they comeback with the results. You can add friends in the game and user their Weapon Skills and later down the road even use them in your party, but there’s no Co-Op or any Guild related content as of now in the JP release, the game is more designed towards providing a good single player experience.

Q: Is this game F2P Friendly? Can I play without making in-app purchases?

A: Yes, you can play without making in-app purchases, for my time with the game in JP version, I never spent a dime, and I was only very behind at the first/second month, after that I was clearing all hard content with my free Characters from Story mode, there was only 2 times I had a hard time and couldn’t clear content (but I was close enough) I didn’t had much luck and it took me 6+ months to get my first Artifact Hero, I was also not very luck with Weapon Summons, but I worked my way around what I had and manage to beat most content and got the Event Heroes just fine. It’s very important to point out that you can use other Players Characters and their Weapon’s Skills, and this can even out sometimes. Before I quit I had All event Heroes at my disposal. Only the  PVP aspect can be unforgiven when you’re facing P2W players, but this happens in most games with this monetizing model.  PVP can even be skipped too if you don’t like it, I hardly used this fucion in JP.

For Global I intend to release videos on how I play the game as a F2P, I hope this can help some players. However, you can’t expect to get all your favorite Characters from Artifacts if you don’t make purchases, it’s how the game is kept alive after all. Another thing is, don’t trust all players when they say that the game is not F2P friendly, the competitive environment of the Japanese version was very intense at start, and the way they invest in the game can be very different to the way the Global players will invest. Try the game for yourself, and see what you think.

Q: How do The Summon option works?

A: You can either summon a single time with the cost of 500 gems, or you can perform a 11x summon for the cost of 5000 gems, saving you 500 gems in the process. Weapons have different rarities and quality, with the better ones being rarier. In Japan there’s also been many events with Step-Up Summons, these special events will grant good discounts and usually have a better chance at 6★ Weapons on the higher steps, Example:

1, 2, 3 Step Gacha Example:

Step 1: 2.000 Gems for 11 Summons, common chances
Step 2: 3.500 Gems for 11 Summons, higher chances
Step 3: 5.000 Gems for 11 Summons, even higher chances, sometimes guarantees, or higher chances to get Artifacts.

Saving to Summon at these special events may be a good idea. Also, all your Weapons are Summoned at Lv1, the exception are:

3★ Weapons come at Lv 20, their base Max level.
6★ Artifacts come at Lv 40, ready to be sent to Odin in exchange for a new Character.

Additionally, sometimes there are Special Summoning Events where some Weapons may come at max Level, such as 4★ and 5★ ones.

Valkyrie Anatomia was initially launched in Japan with a Weapon Gacha only system, and with that you could only summon new Weapons, new Characters were only obtainable via story or events. But 2 months after launch, artifacts were introduced, you summon them in the same Summon Menu. 

Artifacts are also weapons, and you could even equip them, but here they are used in a similar vein to Valkyrie Profile, you can offer them to Odin, and the reward is to receive the Character the artifact is related to.

Q: Which Weapon should I aim when starting?

The best weapon to start the game is the Schveltight (Light Sword), the Blue Triangular Sword, this Weapon has a Skill that Raise all Character Stats for strong values and Heal for a medium amount that can be cast up to 2 times in battles, still useful after more than 1 year in the Japanese version.

Other Good Weapons after the Schveltight are: 

Apocalypse (Staff), a strong weapon with the best magic damage for early game, can be cast up to 3 times, hits all Enemies.

Randgrid (Light Sword): Deals Small Damage but cast a strong Debuff to all Enemies, in the future most bosses will start to resist the Debuff, but the weapon may work for a good amount of time.

Q: Which Artifact should I aim when starting?

At launch there’s only 4 Artifact Characters released. They are: Alicia, Rufus, Armgrin and Sadamitsu. 

There’s also an Alicia and Rufus Rates Up, and If you’re aiming for the Schveltight, Alicia is the best option for first Artifact (against Rufus). Sadamitsu is a cool Character to play with, and Armgrin is based on his Valkyrie Profile 2 appearance, he is very strong at first, but just as Rufus, he can be skipped, but take note that they are still stronger than the Free Characters, Rufus is awesome to keep a combo chain and Armgrin does a lot of damage for the Heavy Sword class. 

Note: When Freya comes, she definitely takes priority over other Artifact Characters, she is a Staff user with 3 Attacks, and a very powerful one.

Q: I heard there’s a VIP system, How does it work?

The VIP system (Premium) adds some commodities to players that purchase some special monthly packages. This system gives you access to Premium Quests that gives some good XP to your Characters. The VIP system also provide you with 2 other things: 

Faster, 2x Auto Battles: Just turn it on and battles will be 2x faster.

Added Functionality to Auto Battle: Now you can activate this option so your Characters keep attacking the enemies even after Overkill, granting an automatic way of raising the Battle XP acquired.

This feature is generating a lot of confusion between players, the only real exclusivity the VIP grants you, are the Premium Quests, you won’t need that much XP it provides, but it’s a nice feature for those players that want to collect all Characters and raise them to Level Max the earlier as possible. Also good for players that want to be ready for PVP, as every week has a Bonus Character to be used, having access to this feature will help you have most Characters ready anytime (at least speaking about XP). 

It’s still important to note that this system is not game breaking, and you can build your Characters just fine with what the game gives you (XP Items and Battle XP). And the added functionalities are just a commodity, when you reach endgame you’ll burn energy so quick that you don’t need 2x Auto Speed, specially because it becomes harder to chain your combos too.

Q: How Weapon Works? What’s the difference between them?

A: Weapons have a Rarity (Star) system, they go from 1★ to 6★, in the Summon option you may only acquire 3★, 4★, 5★ and 6★ Weapons. The higher the rarity, the higher the stats and the damage. Some 5★ Weapons are usable, Klaus, one of the good free story Characters can use a specific 5★ Heavy Sword very well without any problem. Also, 5★ Weapons are easier to Limit Break and raise the Skill Level, they can help you a lot for a long time.  Besides the Summon option, you can also get Weapons by other means, like drops, chest and rewards for events and stages.

Q: How do I Level Up my Weapons?

A: You can either use the specific weapon upgrade material the Hammers or use 1-3★ (called fodder) weapons. Hammers give way more XP. A Weapon is just like your Characters, it also has a Level Limit, that you can break past by increments of 5 levels each, that you can break by using a Special Item that can drop from daily dungeons (4★ and 5★) or from events (6★), or by using a duplicate. It’s not recommended to use a duplicate, as duplicates are better used for raising the Skill Level of your Weapon.

The Max Level for Weapons are as follow:

4★: Base Lv. 25 > Max Lv. 45
5★: Base Lv. 30 > Max Lv. 50.
6★: Base Lv. 40 > Max Lv. 60.

The additional levels raise more stats than the previous ones:
A Lv 41 -> Lv 42 upgrade gives more stats than a Lv 1 -> Lv 2 upgrade, so Limit Break is a very important feature.

Q: How many Weapons can a Character Equip?

A: All Heroes can equip up to 3 Weapons, you have access to 1 Main Slot and 2 Sub Slots, but only the Main Weapon will have an Active Skill to use in battle, the other weapon slots will only account for 50% of each Weapon stats when you Equip them. Starting out, it’s easy to recommend a 6★ weapon as first slot and eventually 5★ Maxed Weapons in the Sub Slots, up till the moment you can equip only 6★ Weapons (this can take quite some time).

Q: So Weapons have Skills? How do I upgrade them?

A: All Weapons (even of 1★ rarity) have Active Skills that you can use in Battle, simple push upwards on your Character Picture while in battle to use it. Weapon Skills can be used from 1 to 3 times, depending on the Weapon. The better the effect, it’s more likely the weapon will have less Skill uses. The Skills can be anything like Buffs, Debuffs, Support, Cleanse, Heals, Single or Multi-Target Damage or even a combination of these effects. To raise your Weapon Skill Level, raising the damage/effects it has, your only option is to fuse a duplicate.

Q: Can I play All Day? How the Stamina Cost works?

A: You can’t exactly play the game all day, story, side-stories and event content costs Stamina, Stamina regenerates from time to time, and for each Level Up you’ll refill your energy to Max (but it can’t overflow by it), there’s also items that regenerates Stamina by a specific amount, there’s 3 different ones and we will receive a package with the Pre-Register campaign, it’s recommended to only use the Stamina Items when you’re far from a Level Up, as you won’t possible lose Stamina due to Overflow. You can also recharge your energy by using gems.

Q: Are there other Equipment besides Weapons?

A: Yes! You can also equip accessories, here called “Orbs” that will grant you defensive stats and boost the effects for your Character Skills if their Crystal Color match your Character Skill Color.

Q: How do the Orbs System Works?

All Characters have 3 Colors they are attached to. There are 7 Different Colors: White, Black, Purple, Green, Blue, Yellow and Red. Each orb can contain up to 2 colors.

Besides the color, the orb has a potency number attached to each color. Example:

Klaus Orb of Atonement: 20 Potency for Red and 10 Potency for Purple.

Klaus has the Red, Purple and White Colors attached to his Skills, so by equipping this Orb, the Red and Purple Skill may get a boost to their effects. Skills can reach up to Lv 5. If No orb is equipped with a color of your Character’s Skill, this Skill will be disabled. By equipping matching Colored Runes to Your Character’s Skills is key to a good build.

Additionally, when Doing Character Side Quests, you’ll receive Special Orbs with Special Effects called Unique Orbs, they are not exclusive to the Character the Side Quest belongs to but are designed after them, you can get 2 for each Character, one for each Side Quest. Don’t sell these Orbs, they are unique and can’t be acquired in any other way.

There’s also Exclusive Orbs that you can get by getting a duplicate Artifact and sending it to Odin a second time. They are usually very strong.

Orbs, just like your Characters and Equips can level Up by using other Orbs as a material. Their rarity goes from 1★ to 7★, the higher the rarity, the better stats and potency it will have, and better potency means Better Skill levels for your Characters, remember that.

Q: How do the Battle System works?

A: The battle system is very similar to the original Valkyrie Profile, but with added mechanics, the graphics and aesthetic resemble more Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria as they are fully 3D.

Number of Attacks

• Heroes have up to 3 different attacks, you can not change the order of the attacks.
• Physical-Type Heroes (Light Sword, Heavy Sword and Bow) have 3 different attacks.
• Most Magical-Type Heroes (Staff) have 2 attacks, some have 3 different attacks.

Skills:

All Heroes have 3 Different Passive Skill that may have a huge diversity of effects like, be it defensive/offensive. Making a good squad with skill synergy is optimal to the game. The Skills are activation and effects are dependent on Orbs being equipped on your Characters.

Party HP:

In Valkyrie Anatomia, each of your individual Characters HP are accounted for your Party HP, and when any of your Heroes is hit, the damage is then reduced from the Party HP, it’s a different system but works well, because of it you’ll want your Defensive Heroes (Heavy Sword Users) to take the hit more often, when enemies target your Mages per example, the damage will be way higher. This is why the Guard function becomes so important as time goes on.

Party Positioning:

You can position your Characters in the same vein as the original games:

1 at front row; 2 at middle; 1 at back row. 

Positioning do affect the like hood of being attacked and you’re better placing your Heroes with Guard at the front, if you aren’t using one, just use your Lenneth (or any Character with a When Attacked effect) at the front as she has a skill that raise Special Attack Bar when being attacked.

Guard:

Both your Characters and your Enemies can potentially use Guard at a chance (%) rate, that can be increased by skills or other means, there’s both Physical Guard and Magical Guard and a Character has only one option attached to him/her. When someone performs a successful Guard, the damage will be reduced by half. Additionally, if your enemy is Guarding, you can wait a little between attacks to try to force the guard to get down. 

Special Attack:

Just like Purify Weird Soul in Valkyrie Profile or Soul Crush in Valkyrie Profile Silmeria/Covenant of the Plume, once your Special Gauge reaches 100, you’ll get access to perform a special attack, but a little different than before, this Bar can be filed up to 4 times (400%) so you can unleash up to 4 Special Attacks at a turn. The order of the Special Attacks is based on the order of your Heroes, the first will unleash the first Special Attack and consecutively, each Special Attack will then reduce one Bar from the Gauge.

Character Levels:

Initially your Character can only reach Lv 25. But you can break past this level by using Books, these books can be acquired in Story Mode/Side Quests/Events. You have 2 options to perform what we call Limit Break (choose only 1):

Use Specific Books related to your Character Type:

Light Sword Users: Light Sword Books and Generic Level Books.
Heavy Sword Users: Heavy Sword Books and Generic Level Books.
Staff Users: Staff Books and Generic Level Books.
Bow Users: Bow Books and Generic Level Books.
Deity/Valkyries: Valkyrie Books and Generic Level Books.

You’ll need more Generic Books than Specific Weapon Books in numbers, also, Specific Weapon Books are rarer to find, so this balances it out. I would recommend using the Specific Weapon Books with Characters you’ve been using the most as soon as you get enough and leave the Generic Level ones to Limit Break the remaining. The Limit Breaks are needed once you reach certain levels, these are:

Lv 25 > Lv 40 > Lv 55 > Lv 70 > Lv 85 > Lv 100
For each step you’ll need books of a different color/rarity.

Building Squads:

When building squads your priority will change within time. First focus on building an all-purpose squad, then I recommend building at least 2 Characters for each Element, then finally you can focus on building full single-element squads for the future.  

Why Element matter:

Most events have enemies of 2 specific elements, which means you can use Characters that are of the opposite element to counter them, remember, you’ll both deal more damage while also receive less damage.

Q: Which free Characters are worth Investing Early on?

A: All characters are useful in some manner in the start, as element is very important when deciding which Hero to use for certain content. 

Lenneth (and by extension Lenneth F) are Valkyries, and Valkyries/Deities can be used as your main Character and you can’t use other Characters in this position. In earlier months for the JP version, you could only bring one Valkyrie/Deity to your party, this restriction was later removed. For now, it’s uncertain if we will get the restriction on launch.

Lenneth and Lenneth F: Both versions of Lenneth do lose their uses in the future because:

1: They don’t have Element to take advantage.

2: both versions are pretty basic when regarding to their skills.

3: Some Artifact/Event Heroes that can be used in their places perform better.

Besides, early on, if you’re using Sennah, use Lenneth F, otherwise use starter Lenneth.

Some of the best free Characters to use at start are:
Sennah: https://valkyrie-anatomia.fandom.com/wiki/Sennah

She has a good ATK and heal when performing Critical Hits, Senna and Klaus are the best source of healing during Boss fights. Healing is not something a Mage can do with normal commands, outside of Weapon Skills that can Heal, a Character that can heal while also attacking is very important, first great event is also weak to Lightning (her element) IIRC. You can get her at the very beginning in Story Mode. Her attacks are very easy to chain too.

Klaus: https://valkyrie-anatomia.fandom.com/wiki/Klaus

He is one of the only true tanks in the beginning and he can also heal when he successfully guard. Healing is what keeps you alive at long fights. At first you may not need him because Guard is not needed at early stages, but his use becomes higher and higher as the time goes. Klaus attack pattern is easy to chain, as long as he is not the one starting it.

Valvalois: https://valkyrie-anatomia.fandom.com/wiki/Valvalois

His first and most important role is to reduce your stamina cost when performing explorations, saving you lots of stamina to use on other things. Besides this he acts as a support for Senna with his Critical Hit/Damage focused Skills. One problem about Valvalois is that his attack pattern is diagonal, and if your enemy body is too thin or light, it can miss a lot.

Ranvald: https://valkyrie-anatomia.fandom.com/wiki/Ranvald

Your Lezard Valeth replacement. He can cause very strong Debuffs like Paralize that can even work against some early Bosses.

The problem with these recommended Characters is that besides Vavalois being from Ice Element, both Sennah, Valvalois and Ranvald are from the same Lightning Element, you’ll lack Elemental diversity, you can change your attack element by the use of Elemental Weapons, but most are Elemental Weapons at start are 5★ max. Besides you changing your attack element, you’ll still be hit by elemental disadvantage. 

Q: How the Story Mode works?

A: Story mode is the Hearth of the Valkyrie Profile franchise, and doing it will grant you more Characters, and some of them are useful even if you’re aiming to use only the premium Characters from Artifacts. Story mode is also the best source of free Gems earlier and it takes some time to finish all content. It’s quite possible that an event will start at the first week after Launch, so having more Characters will give you more squad building options to clear content. 

For each Story Mission you’ll have a story content and a dungeon to clear.

Choosing the best Story Mode route

The Story Mode is somewhat similar to the original Valkyrie Profile, as you progress you unlock new chapters, and a chapter has different “episodes” most of these episodes unlock new Characters for you to use, so choosing which one to do first can help, but you’ll need to finish all the episodes to unlock the next chapter anyway.

Source: https://valkyrie-anatomia.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Story

Tutorial: Jeanne

Chapter 1 Awakening of the Valkyrie
Characters: Senna -> Lucia

Chapter 2: Goddess of Fate
Characters: Kurt ; Valvalois -> Cloe -> Anelian; Ranvald -> Ingrid -> Caradoc

Chapter 3: Father and Child
Characters: Klaus -> Daline -> Maximilien ; Malvina -> Kachina -> Altveer

Chapter 4: The Land of Delusions
Characters: Virgo.

Again, the most useful Characters you get from story are: Senna, Klaus, Valvalois and Ranvald. Senna is the best source of Healing if you can get her to perform Critical Hits, especially against Bosses, focusing on Critical Hits also make her a good Damage Dealer. Klaus is the best Tank, with Healing at his disposal he can serve two roles, tank and heal. Ranvald can inflict a good number of debuffs with his Prismatic Missile attack and Skill, while also being a good source of Magic Damage. Valvalois is the guy that reduces stamina consumption when using the search mechanism, always useful, he can also raise Critical Hit Chance and Critical Damage, supporting Senna in her role. All the remaining Characters serve other purposes, but those 4 are the ones I used the most when I played the JP version.

Finish Story Mode up till you get Virgo as soon as possible. The more Characters you get earlier, the best.