Jumplion said:
Jeez, I don't know wether or not to buy Valkyria Chronicles. I played the demo and it was alright (I'm probably going to redownload it), but the reviews have said it's pretty average but nice, but then everyone is loving it.
Plus, I havn't played an RPG in a while.
Some help on that, please?
It's certainly worth buying. It's one of the best SRPGs around, managing to avert the normal problem of "making sure everyone gets a turn to get some XP even though it's completely tactically unsound", make units unique on the battlefield as well as in the fluff (unit personalities are modelled by "potentials" which give conditional bonuses in certain cases, like making team attacks stronger when attacking alongside close friends, or being afraid of heights, or having a major crush on another character, and they all have unique and distinctive character designs and voice performances), and also include a command point system and at least slightly avoid the problem of that system in tabletop games like Infinity (find the best thing to do and then do it repeatedly until it works) with things like ammo limits and AP movement limits.
The story is effective and generally well scripted and voice acting in the cutscenes is good (also, the main villain is Lelouch, Jun Fukuyama putting on his full on evil prince voice).
Also, the main character manages not to be a dick at any point, which is more than you can say for many RPG heroes, and actually comes across as genuinely very intelligent and able to use his knowledge and education to the best effect (for example, in an early battle, he figures out that a river will be shallow enough for his tank to ford because it has a certain type of reed growing across it that only grows in shallow water).