Always Right Reviews - Valkyria Chronicles 4 (A flawed gem that still shines bright)

SonicMTD

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Oct 21, 2008
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The original Valkyria Chronicles is one of my favourite games of the PS3 era. Does the new iteration hold up compared to it? Find out in my review of Valkyria Chronicles 4...


What is your favourite game in the franchise? let me know in the comments below.
 

Chimpzy

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My favorite? Probably still the original. The first game just has a special place in my heart, tho I concur VC4 has the best overall gameplay. VC2 has that insufferable high school theme, throws in too many mechanics that don't really add much, and is off course badly hamstrung by the limitations of the PSP. VC3 pairs back most of the problems of 2, and is arguably what 2 should've been, but still suffers from the platform it's on. It does have my favorite storyline of the four games. All in all, if I had to rank them, it'd go 1-4-3-2. Never bothered with Revolution.

I wonder if Sega sees much of a future for this franchise. I remember reading that VC4 initially did not sell well at all, tho it apparently eventually eked out 1 mil copies, indicating that much like the first game, it might be the kind of game that relies on the long tail. 1 mil across four platforms is decent for a niche title, but only a little over half the sales of VC1, while afaik the other games did considerably less. From Sega's pov that's probably not a glowing recommendation for continued investment.
 
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SonicMTD

Intergalactic Sex Demon
Oct 21, 2008
107
19
23
Toronto, Ontario.
Country
Canada
Gender
Male
My favorite? Probably still the original. The first game just has a special place in my heart, tho I concur VC4 has the best overall gameplay. VC2 has that insufferable high school theme, throws in too many mechanics that don't really add much, and is off course badly hamstrung by the limitations of the PSP. VC3 pairs back most of the problems of 2, and is arguably what 2 should've been, but still suffers from the platform it's on. It does have my favorite storyline of the four games. All in all, if I had to rank them, it'd go 1-4-3-2. Never bothered with Revolution.

I wonder if Sega sees much of a future for this franchise. I remember reading that VC4 initially did not sell well at all, tho it apparently eventually eked out 1 mil copies, indicating that much like the first game, it might be the kind of game that relies on the long tail. 1 mil across four platforms is decent for a niche title, but only a little over half the sales of VC1, while afaik the other games did considerably less. From Sega's pov that's probably not a glowing recommendation for continued investment.
The upgrade system was too convoluted in Valkyria Chronicles 2 for me to continue the game. I tried, but the mobile game market never really appealed to me. All in all the PSP was a horrible platform to move Valkyria chronicles to. Japanese devs tend to think about domestic markets as opposed to the international community. Since Japan favored mobile gaming they thought the PSP would be a contender against Nintendo.

In regards to SEGA I think they were surprised that Valkyria Chronicles took off. When you build a franchise there comes a point where you might expect diminishing returns on investment. With the bungling of VC2 and 3 on mobile I think a lot of people who weren’t aware of the franchise were put off because they didn’t play the 3 previous games.

As for Valkyria Revolution, I recommend you skip it. Here I’ll include my review of it so you can get an understanding. (Also skip the intro, I used to think I needed to have a big intro like Jim Sterling and it just didn’t work)

 

Chimpzy

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The upgrade system was too convoluted in Valkyria Chronicles 2 for me to continue the game. I tried, but the mobile game market never really appealed to me. All in all the PSP was a horrible platform to move Valkyria chronicles to. Japanese devs tend to think about domestic markets as opposed to the international community. Since Japan favored mobile gaming they thought the PSP would be a contender against Nintendo.
That is true, tho in all fairness, the PSP was the only handheld that ever put up a decent fight against Nintendo, and for a time did serve as a home for a lot of more niche subgenres that weren't doing well on the home consoles. In that sense, I can understand Sega's decision to put it on handheld, while also not agreeing with the result.

In regards to SEGA I think they were surprised that Valkyria Chronicles took off. When you build a franchise there comes a point where you might expect diminishing returns on investment. With the bungling of VC2 and 3 on mobile I think a lot of people who weren’t aware of the franchise were put off because they didn’t play the 3 previous games.
Possible, yes. Near as I can tell, all the games sold poorly on release, and VC1 didn't reach any real numbers until years after, and almost half of them from the PC port post 2014. More or a sleeper hit, or maybe cult classic, and that port's sales are probably a major reason we got VC4. So maybe we'll see a repeat, with the long tail convincing Sega to give it another go. Or maybe not, since both 1 and 4 basically already are on all the relevant platforms, so nowhere to port to reinvigorate interest in the franchise.

As for Valkyria Revolution, I recommend you skip it. Here I’ll include my review of it so you can get an understanding. (Also skip the intro, I used to think I needed to have a big intro like Jim Sterling and it just didn’t work)

Already watched it, but thanks. Also, wasn't planning on getting Revolution, mostly because I don't own any of the platforms it's on.
 

meiam

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Dec 9, 2010
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I couldn't even finish it, got maybe 80% of the way trough the game but it felt like all the worse aspect of VC1 and none of the improvement of VC2/3.

I really like VC1 until I tried to play it again and realize that playing the game by carefully and strategically deploying troops and taking key position on the map was by far the worse way to play the game and the real winning strategy was to just grab one scout and re use them over and over again to rush the objective. That seemed like a very easy thing to fix, remove the ability to re use character and make it impossible to rush objective. But VC4 doubled down on this aspect of the game, the grouping system made everything worse since you can use it to just have a scout carry character who are supposed to have low movement across the battlefield. I just couldn't enjoy any of the maps and later level made this even worse since a couple of them seem to be built around the assumption that the player will finish them on their first turn (which it turn out is shockingly easy).

Story wise, like you said, it was just so predictable I couldn't get invest in any of it and now I barely remember anything that happened other than apparently the entire military you're part of is completely incompetent.
 
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