To confuse you further, the game even throws in a segment during the introductory sequence where you can control a character and walk around a town. Valkyrie Profile also has more of these scripted sequences than most other RPGs. Because the game has to introduce its playable characters to you at some length, you'll basically have to sit and button-press your way through scripted sequences every time you meet a new guy. Thankfully most of them aren't as lengthy as the hour plus introductory sequence, but they're still pretty long compared to sequences in most other RPGs. Because of their length, and because of the frequency with which they happen, playing Valkyrie Profile feels a lot like reading a book, except that you have to romp your way through a dungeon between every chapter.
Books are great, and can be quite enjoyable in their own right.
But books also tend to cost a lot less than video games, and if you want to spend most of your time reading you could get a stack of books for the price of one Valkyrie Profile. The disjointed feeling also carries over into the dungeons themselves. Both the character and dungeon art are done in strict 2D, so your movement is basically limited to what you would be able to do in a side view platformer game. Within the X and Y planes you can run around, jump, climb, and fall. The dungeons themselves are actually 3D structures, but they're built with a series of discrete 2D planes.