The Valhalla Knights series has traditionally been on the PSP and Eldar Saga for Wii is the first game in the series to appear on home consoles. Eldar Saga is an action RPG in a similar vein to Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. Players begin the game as a human who must try to rebuild alliances among the dwarves, elves, and halflings.

Previous Valhalla Knights games have put players in control of four characters, but the focus of Eldar Saga is building up a personal character, so control is limited to that one character. The character is extremely customizable, not just including job class and equipment, but also specific clothing. Later in the game, players can choose a character from any of the four races. During the course of the game, players may hire out various secondary characters to fight for them, but control remains with the computer, and the hired character may not even be engaged in battle anywhere near the same screen as the primary character. Fallen party members will recover automatically after a given amount of time and rejoin the fight.

Eldar Saga features some fairly wide-open spaces filled with a variety of enemies and bosses. The game features quite a bit of level grinding, and despite its active hack-and-slash nature, is heavily stats-based. Battles occur in real-time, and even the menus are accessed while in the midst of battle. Since there is no pause screen for switching items around, players must take care in their fighting strategy. The game allows players to assign items to the D-pad on the Remote so critical items can be accessed immediately.

Eldar Saga features a two-player online co-op mode where players can explore and the world of Eldar together, battle, and find special items. The game also includes an unlockable gallery of the games enemies and items.

The latest game in the Valhalla Knights brings a long and serious fantasy adventure to the Wii. With intricate RPG details, vast environments, and online co-op, the game has the potential to fill a large gap in the Wii software library.

Be sure to watch our exclusive direct feed footage, found below. Due to the noise at the XSEED event, I didn't notice the extremely loud sound effects until I was reviewing the direct feed footage, so I'm not sure if the sound effects can be toned down, but I hope so.