Valkyrie Profile problem...

....hmmmm... this is strange. Since you have activated the hex codes, the spiritual concentration should work just fine... the only spiritual concentration that crashes VGS (hence the need for bleem or ePSXe) is the very first one, when Freia is with Valkyrie.

...are you sure that you have the correct hex code enabled ? ...remember that PEC should be running, as well as VGS to make this work. Also : did you use the correct version of VGS (1.41) to apply the patch ?

I suggest that you take a look at this thread just in case.

If all else fails, attach your VGS memcard file in this thread. I will pass the trouble spot, (don't worry, you won't miss much - the next save point is inside the Artolian Mountains, VERY close - storywise) and from then on, you will be able to save on the world map by using the "face the sky" trick. If, when you clear the Artolian Mountains, the next spiritual concentration gives you trouble again, then there is definately something wrong with your patching procedure...

...err, when I first played Valkyrie Profile, PEC 1.2 was the newest version, if I'm not mistaken - that's why I didn't mention anything about it - I didn't know that the newer versions had issues with VP - whew !! ...good thing I did'nt download a newer version since then - lucky me !!

Now about the "black terrain" part : YES, this is normal (as normal as a pitch black terrain can be ). This is the only nasty side-effect of the patch - there is no other way around this, except maybe using another emulator, but as you already know they all have problems with the 2D battle sequences. One more thing : there is also a hex code that makes the mountains of the terrain "half black" - meaning that you get to see SOME terrain, but after some testing I found out that this code may -crash- VGS after a while, so use at your own risk...

---update---

aaah, Shiori beat me to it, yet once more I'm sooo slow when I type some times (probably because I visit other sites at the same time...)