VALKYRIE ELYSIUM

Valkyrie Elysium has four endings, and thankfully doesn’t require you to replay the whole game to reach them all. When you finish any ending, the game will prompt you to create “Clear Data,” and by loading that data, you’ll end up back in Valhalla, able to select missions as you please. The decisions for your ending primarily concern actions taken in Chapter 9, and the flags for those reset after making returning to Valhalla via the Clear Data, so you can’t be locked out of any of them.

The one that takes the most effort is the “True” Ending, since you’ll need to play the scavenger hunt and find all the Verdant Blossoms in the earlier Chapters prior to starting Chapter 9. Those are the little plant souls that, unlike the Hollow Blossoms, which give dialogue, have some kind of filter blocking the text. Each world area will tell you how many Verdant Blossoms you’ve collected. They’re all marked on the map, but something to be aware of is that some maps have different markers based on elevation and have “interior” maps when in some locations; to help find them, I recommend checking your map any time you change elevation or go through a door, scanning the entire map for the bright green dots. Chapter 3 is particularly troublesome in this regard.

Once you have all but 1, it’s time to start Chapter 9. The missing Blossom (which will, in turn, unlock what the others had to say; you can check them in the Collections tab of the pause menu.) The Blossom can be found to the left of the main path, in a small alcove; one of the wandering souls will lead you to it, or you can just go to the map marker. Step 1 of the True Ending is complete once you pick it up and watch the cutscene.

Then head to the north east corner of the map; you’ll see a little “person” icon up there. Armand will be waiting for you; talk to him, watch the cutscenes, and when prompted inform him that you have to remain a Valkyrie as there are still things to do.

After that, just follow the quest markers to the final area; you’ll have trash mobs to fight, but nothing too tough at this point in the game. You’ll eventually end up having to fight Odin, which starts off fairly simply (he’s weak against Light element and the Alfodr sword, so stack physical attacks and spam Kristoffer), but he quickly decides to go One Winged Angel and transform into Ragnarok Odin, who is more complicated. Ragnarok Odin does not have a set weakness, switching throughout the fight. Keep an eye on the weakness symbol in his health gauge, swap your Einherjar and Divine Arts as necessary, pop a Might Potion if you have one, and beat him down. True Ending unlocked!

The “Good” ending has less setup, but has a much more difficult string of fights. Ignore the Verdant Blossom, making a beeline for Armand in the north east corner. When prompted, again inform him that you must remain a Valkyrie, and continue as normal. When you get to the pit, rather than trash mobs, you’ll have a brief throwdown with Fenrir - she’s weak to Light, so again, Kristoffer is your friend - before heading to Valhalla once again. This is where it gets nasty. You’ll have to fight each of your Einherjar individually, and won’t have access to your summon skills during the fights. I strongly suggest opening with Nibelung Valesti II as soon as the fights start, since it will do heavy damage - though for some reason, sometimes it doesn’t do any damage despite connecting and playing the animation - as well as give you a fairly long-lasting offense and defense buff.

Eyghon is up first. He’s pretty tanky, and hits fairly hard, but he’s also slow and not great at dodging or blocking. Sidgrani does additional damage to him, so equip it and slap a Physical Defense and Physical Attack rune on it, and get to work. He has three primary attacks, all of which are telegraphed fairly extensively: he’ll charge towards you, make two swings with his sword, then a pause, then a third swing. You can parry any of the strikes, but the third will do a guard break, which he’ll almost immediately follow by repeating the combo again, so if you miss the parry on the first two, it’s better to dodge away than risk trying to parry the third hit. If he flashes red, he’s about to do a Spartan kick, which hurts a lot and stuns you, opening you up to his combo; dodge rolling backwards will usually get you away from it. The third attack is when he jabs his sword into the ground and starts gathering energy. A moment later, multiple lightning strikes will start raining down. Just continually dodge to one side and when the lightning stops, grapple to him and punish him.

Cypher is much simpler to deal with. His primary attacks are either shooting straight at you three times, shooting three arrows in a spread attack, or firing into the air, which summons a rain of arrows on your location. For the first two, I advise just blocking; even if the third arrow in the volley guard breaks you, you’ll come out of it before his animation ends and he can make his way over to you. For the rain of arrows, just dodge in any direction or grapple him. Occasionally he will charge you and try to slice you, but this can easily be avoided by dodging at him; you’ll end up rolling past him and can stab him in the back. I recommend using a faster weapon, like Alfodr or Bolverkr, with two Physical Attack runes if you have them, as he likes to dodge and a lot of your strikes will be missed, but he doesn’t have much HP or defense. Keep the pressure on and he’ll fall fairly quickly.

Kristoffer is the third match, and easily the worst. She’s fast, she’s tanky, she hits hard, and she’s unpredictable. Making it worse is that the tracking on Lightning spells is terrible, and the Baleygr spear is painfully slow and unwieldy, making her weaknesses difficult to exploit. I recommend playing this one heavily defensively, putting two Physical Defense runes on your weapon of choice and trying to keep her at a distance. Up close, she does a combo consisting of a slash, several quick stabs, a pause, then a final thrust; if you catch the timing and can parry the initial slash or the first stab, you can cause some decent damage and leave her vulnerable for a moment, but if you mistime it, you’re either going to suffer huge damage or get guard broken and suffer huge damage. Keeping her away results in one of several attacks: she’ll “charge up” and fling a beam of light at you, which is easily dodged, she’ll charge up and throw a disc of light at you, which is also easily dodged (but she usually does it twice in a row, so keep rolling), she’ll blink red and charge at you, intending to impale and throw you; dodge is your friend, again, but you’ll want to do it just before she reaches you. She will chase you as far as she has to, so you want to roll away when she starts her “lunge” animation, otherwise she’ll just tag you as you come out of the roll. Her last two attacks at range are the ones you want to see: she’ll either do a rapid spear lunge at you, or leap into the air and do a rapid spear lunge at you. The response to either is the same. Hit that block button. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a parry and a chance to punish. If you go too early, she’ll rebound off you (and then usually start her normal combo.) If you’re too late, she’ll do some decent damage, but usually will back off a bit, giving you time to get back up and get away from her. I recommend hitting and holding block the second you see her start to move; you’ll usually catch the parry this way, and if not, you’ll still be safe enough. Punish her when you can, hit her with Nibelung Valesti whenever the opportunity presents itself, and keep her at a distance, and she’ll go down.

Taika’s your breather, and chance to just go nuts. Slap a pair of Magic Defense runes on your weapon of choice, and repeatedly grapple to her and combo away. Most of her attacks do piddling damage, and sticking close usually stops her from doing her one decent common attack (launching three Flame Spears at you in quick succession, which can be avoided by just mashing dodge to one side or the other, or you can try to parry them to feel stylish.) When she slams her hand down on the ground and conjures a ring of flame around herself, though, run away. She has two attacks she’ll do from this stance - and likes to do them one after the other, too - and both of them are devastating. In one, where you only see the ring of fire, she’ll conjure a flame wall around herself that will then vanish. Do not rush her, though; about 2 seconds after the fire vanishes, there’s a giant explosion around her that can easily strip off half your health, depending on your Skill and Rune setup. If you see something like a sun floating above her when she does the ring of fire, she’s about to launch 4-6 Flame Spears at you. Their tracking seems a little better than the “normal” ones, so dodge rolling them is difficult - though certainly possible; dodge late, just as the first one is about to hit, then keep dodging in the same direction. Towards her, if possible. They can easily be parried - hit the first one just as it’s about to impact, then mash the block button and you’ll catch the rest, most of the time. You can just block, but depending on how many come at you, you’re likely to be guard broken and take at least one or two hits from them. Once she’s done that, get back in her face and keep slashing.

Once all of them are down, your Einherjar return to your side and you take on Odin. This is a fairly basic fight; use Alfodr with Physical Attack runes, make sure Kristoffer is always by your side, and keep the pressure on. He likes to teleport to break your target lock, but other than that he’s nothing special. Once he falls, you’re done with this branch.

Time for the “Normal” ending! This one’s easy; ignore both the Verdant Blossom and Armand, just making a beeline to the pit. You’ll have a multi-stage fight with Fenrir and Hilde, but they’re nothing you haven’t seen before; use whatever equipment you feel suits you best, keep Kristoffer on the field and just punch their faces in. Things change when Fenrir goes berserk for her final phase, and I recommend swapping your runes to a Magic Defense and a Physical Defense, hanging back and letting Kristoffer and whoever you decide to back her up (I used Eyghon, but it really doesn’t matter) do the majority of the work. Fenrir likes to do big “blast” attacks that knock you back or stun you, so getting close to her is a bad idea; smack her when she finishes one of those type of attacks (grapple + Triangle is recommended, for the mana regen) or if you can get behind her during one of her melee combos, then run away again. When she goes down, you’re finished here.

Last one! The “Bad” ending. And, man, it’s a terrible slog. Easily the most painful of the bunch. Possibly the worst set of requirements ever seen. Ignore the Verdant Blossom, and go to Armand. When asked, accept his offer, choosing to become Human again. You’re done. (For the record, I recommend his ending if you’re just trying to get the S-Rank for “All-Father’s Right Hand,” or if you’re doing Hard and struggling; you get to skip a lot of troublesome trash mobs, and don’t have to deal with any of the final bosses, but it still counts.)

Once you’ve seen all four on the same save, you’re golden, and your trophy will pop. You’ll also pick up “Twilight of the All-Father” for beating Odin the first time, “Twilight of the Great Wolf” when you beat down Fenrir’s berserk form, and “A Momentary Escape” for accepting Armand’s offer. Your trophy/trophies earned will pop on the results screen, which comes up after the credits roll, so don’t stress if you don’t see the ding right when you do the thing.