Well, now… this is really cool news on an otherwise crappy shutdown filled day. TO celebrate the October 15 launch of Valhalla Knights 3, Xseed Games is giving fans a REAL treat in the form of a 100% FREE download of the first game in the series. Valhalla Knights is now available on PSN for nothing at all until October 21, 2013. In other words, if you’ve a PSP or Vita handy (it’ll work on either handheld) and a PlayStation Network account you can get downloading NOW and check out where it all began.And nope, you DON’T need a PlayStation Plus account to take advantage of this awesome freebie!

I’ve already played this one a few years ago, but it was the UK version and those saves aren’t compatible with the North American version. That comes into play here as I recently scored a bunch of used Memory Stick Duo cards and one card had a VK save file I couldn’t access. Now I can hop into those old saves and see if the former owner had a decent party setup (before overwriting them with my own saves, of course)…

Anyway, the original game has a completely different party setup and battle system, simpler visuals (it was released back in 2006 in Japan and 2007 here), is pretty unforgiving and requires a LOT of patience and effort. But warts and all, it’s a surprisingly addictive game that will suck you in once you get into it. It’s possible to lose dozens of hours in the game, but you may want to stop playing and set some time aside for Valhalla Knights 3 in less than two weeks. I’m just saying… Xseed has a great thing going here, but there’s very slim chance their freebie plan may backfire if people are too occupied with the first installment to buy up the third. Of course, that’s highly doubtful, as VK3 has a ton of changes and based on what I’m hearing is a better game on a number of aesthetic and gameplay fronts.

All that and you get some NSFW M-rated content that’s going to make some players get a bit grinny in that otaku way while others cringe and do double takes at what’s on display in one area of the game. Eh, what’s life without a little excitement, right? Hey! Stop reading this babbling and go get your FREE game already!