Warning: This review may contain minor spoilers/game-ruining strategies. Images from IGN.com and Google Images
Valkyria Chronicles
Platform: PlayStation 3
Developer: Sega WOW
Publisher: Sega
Nov. 4th, 2008
Reviewed by:LobsterFang, The Gaming Monolith
What's Hot:
Beautiful Graphics and Art Design
Well Paced and Well Told Story
Interesting and Detailed World
Unique Strategic Gameplay
A Nice Cast of Characters with Distinct Personalities
What's Not:
Some disappointing cutscenes
Enemy phases drag on
No auto-save
Orders are kind of overpowered
Can be VERY frustrating at times
Don't be surprised if you've never heard of Valkyria Chronicles. Not only is it a PS3 exclusive, but it came out during the huge holiday sale back in 2008. A midst huge titles like Fallout 3, Fable 2, and Gears of War 2, it can be kind of hard for little titles like this to stand out. Which is a shame, because Valkyria Chronicles is quite honestly one of the greatest games I've ever played.
Story
Valkyria Chronicles takes place in a fictional nation called Europa in 1935. (Europa is supposed to be like an alternate Europe in case you couldn't tell...just checking.) Europa depends on this valuable mineral called "Ragnite" which they use to fuel their cars, electricity, medical treatments, basically everything. So I guess when your entire existence depends on one resource, then tensions could arise between the nations when this resource becomes limited...
Europa is comprised mainly of two big powers. There's the autocratic East Europan Imperial Alliance to the east, and then there's the allied democratic Atlantic Federation in the west. These to powers are currently engaged in war over said Ragnite from above. Your story, however, begins in this peaceful little nation called Galia. Galia has managed to remain neutral between the two powers for a long time, but since the recent war is being fought over Ragnite, the Empire realized that they probably have nothing to lose and invaded Galia because their rich deposits of Ragnite proved to tempting.
The game's protagonist is Welkin Gunther. He's the son of a decorated war hero, General Belgen Gunther. Despite his prestige, Welkin isn't interested in the army life at all. He's more interested in studying biology at university, and one day hopes to become a teacher. (Ah, the old "when this war is over I hope to be a teacher" trope. It's hard not to sympathize with that.) This all changes of course when the evil Empire pops out of nowhere and starts shooting up his town.
Thankfully, Welkin's dad happened to leave behind his tank the "Edelweiss" lying around in Welkin's barn, so Welkin, together with the town watch Alicia, and his younger sister Isara, managed to stall the Imperial troops long enough for the townspeople to evacuate.
Seeing the things the way they are, Welkin decides to join the Militia. Because of his prestige, he is immediately promoted to Lieutenant. (I guess having your own tank helps a little too.) Alicia is placed as his Sergeant, and Isara as his Tank Operator. And this is pretty much how the rest of the story plays out.
Now I think a lot of people will think this story is really cliche, or that they won't be able to take the whole anime/JRPG-yness seriously. These are both points that I can totally understand. But overall I really liked the story. There's a surprising amount of detail in the world, the story is well paced with even one or two nice twists, and the characters have very real personalities and are easily lovable.
Graphics
You'll notice that Valkyria Chronicles is, indeed, a very pretty game. It uses an interesting style of anime and watercolor and it looks quite gorgeous.
There's a good attention to detail on all of the characters. It might not matter to all, but I really like the little details on everyone's uniform and such. Not only that, but on the battlefield, everyone is rendered the same. The game features a huge cast of side characters that you only use in combat, but even the side characters look just as cool and distinct as the main characters. I just wish the same can be said of the Imperial soldiers. (But since they all wear masks I guess it's okay.)
The biggest issue I have is the fully rendered cutscenes, while very beautiful, are kind of rare to see. You'll get about one or two fully rendered cutscenes for each chapter, but a lot of the story is told through those...well I'll explain it like this. Remember in MGS2, how a large portion of the story was told through those codec segments? Yeah, it's kind of the same deal here. A lot of the cutscenes are like...codec segments. (I seriously can't think of a better way to describe this.) While it's not too horrible, I mean all cutscenes are still fully voiced, even the codec ones, it's just kind of annoying to see how much of the story is told when you only get to see the heads of the characters while pressing X to scroll through the dialogue.
Gameplay
Okay, finally, we're at the best part of the game now. So in case you've been suppressing a massive giggle attack this whole time (or have even managed to make it this far) this is where I get all up in your face and tell you why this game is so special to me.
Valkyria Chronicles plays like an RTS of sorts, with some third-person shooting and a little bit of turn base JRPG-ing thrown in too. First, you start out with a squad. Like I said earlier, you were promoted to a Lieutenant just by joining the militia, which means you get to choose the members of your very own squad. This is probably the coolest part of the game, you get a big list of individuals to choose from, each with their own personality, class, likes and dislikes, and so forth. Now if you're anything like me, you'll probably fill your squad with mostly the hot anime chicks, because you find the idea of taking down a huge military superpower with your Sailor Moon squad funny.
Aside from the 4 or 5 main characters, everyone has the potential to die on the battlefield. I find this another really cool aspect of the game, your squad's life is in your hands and if you're not careful you could lose soldiers out there. I can't think of any other game that does this, so bravo to Sega.
I should probably explain how playing the game works now, let's start with classes. There are 5 classes to work with here:
Scouts-The most useful class in my opinion. They don't have a lot of firepower or health, but they can cover more ground than any other class. And they can be quite handy if you know how to use them right. Their default weapon is a rifle.
Shocktroopers-Basically, these guys are meant for taking out enemy guys. They can't walk very far, nor do they have far range, but their high health and firepower ensures that if you're in close proximity of one, you're probably going to lose. Their default weapon is a machine gun.
Lancers-My personal least favorite, these are the anti-tank units. They're slow, they only carry 3 rounds per turn, and they can't walk very far. But they also have a lot of health, a high resistance to explosives, and the equivalent of what I assume to be a steam punk bazooka. So if you get once close enough to a tank, you can take tanks out with ease. Their default weapon is an Anti-Tank Lance.
Engineers-These guys are kind of like Scouts with a twist. They have the same firepower as a Scout, and can almost cover as much distance as one, but they weren't really meant for combat. You use engineers to restore the health of your tanks, replenish grenades, lancer and sniper ammo to fellow units, and dismantle enemy mines and barricades. Their default weapon is a rifle.
Snipers-Snipers, obviously, are meant for taking out enemy units from a great range. They have the least amount of health of all the classes, as well as the shortest walking distance. And like the Lancers, they only carry 3 rounds per turn. But the fact that they can take out an enemy unit with one shot from across the map arguably makes them the most powerful class around.
Before you begin an "Operation", you get a map of the area you'll be working in. From this point you can choose where to position your units and which ones you want to use, you then "Deploy" and the Operation starts. The basic objective to almost every Operation is to eliminate all enemy units or to capture the enemy base. Although every Operation is different, and will make you think differently each time.
From here you begin your "Phase". You get a detailed map of the area you're working with, with blue icons representing your units, and red icons representing the enemy units. You have what are called "Command Points", which are basically what you use to move your units around. Selecting a ground unit costs one Command Point, and selecting a tank costs two Command Points.
Once you select the unit you want to move, you zoom into the map and you're able to move around the map with a view like a third person shooter. You have a movement gauge at the bottom of the screen that tells you how much distance you can cover. (Like I explained above, Scouts can move the furthest, Snipers move the least, etc.)
While moving the enemy units can shoot back at you, and will continue doing so until you press R1 to enter "Target Mode." You can't move during Target Mode, but you're allowed to aim and shoot at whatever you want. Once you've performed an action in Target Mode, you can't enter it again until you've ended that unit's Phase. (You can use the same unit more than once each Phase but it will cost a Command Point each time you use him/her.)
Once all of your Command Points are depleted, your Phase ends and the Enemy Phase begins. During the Enemy Phase the roles are switched so you watch them move units across the map and you can shoot back at them while they're moving and so on. There's no way to skip or pause during the Enemy Phase, which is annoying because sometimes the computer likes to take it's sweet time, but it's only annoyed me a couple of times during the game.
As the game progresses you'll earn exp which you can use to upgrade your classes to make them stronger, and money which you can use to buy better weapons, make you tank's armor stronger, etc.
A single operation can take a very long time, as a lot of strategy is required. While you can open the menu and save at any time, the fact that there's no auto-save function can be troubling when you lose an operation (and trust me, you will lose some) and have to start the whole thing over. I can't tell you how frustrating some of the Operations are, but at the same time it's kind of like that "hard in a good way" sort of thing, so I'll let you decide if that sounds appealing to you.
Now I haven't mentioned something until this point, and please be noted that the strategy I'm about to cover makes the game hilariously easy at some points, which I find a pretty big flaw in the design.
There's these things called "Orders", which are basically stat boosts that you can issue to a single or all of your units for the cost of Command Points. If you know how to use Orders right, they can be pretty overpowered, I'll give you an example right now in this video below:
(credit to miemiexpxp)
What you just saw there was a bunch of Defense boosting Orders used on a single Scout (remember, these are the ones that can cover a lot of distance) and then said Scout charging through the enemy ranks, soaking up bullets like a sponge, taking out the only two enemies in the enemy base, and then taking over the enemy base, in one turn.
The game rewards you based on how fast you've accomplished the Operation, and how many enemy tanks and leaders you took out with a rank and exp. So what that means is you can get the highest rank, an A, which is supposed to be the hardest rank to get, using this hilariously easy strategy.
Now don't think this is too game breaking or anything, like I said above every Operation is different and you have to think different each time. So don't think this strategy works on every Operation, because it doesn't. There are some Operations that don't even allow you to use Orders, so if you're the person that bases all of your strategies around Orders, you'll probably be like "Oh...I can't use Orders...WHAT NOW?!" So while it's not too game breaking, I think it is sad that you can use this on a lot of the Operations.
Sound
The voice acting isn't the best, but I've definitely heard worst when it comes to English dubs. There are some good voice actors in here, I was very happy to hear Steve Blum. You may know him from roles such as Jamie from Megas XLR, or Tank Dempsey from Call of Duty Black Ops. Other than Steve I didn't recognize any other voices.
I didn't have a problem with any of the main character voices, but some of the side characters in your squad have cringe worthy voices, nothing too bad though, again I've heard worse. But the good news is if the English dub bugs you too much, then you can listen to the original Japanese voices with English subtitles.
The music in Valkyria Chronicles is very beautiful and fitting. Nothing much more to say about the music, I really liked it.
Final Score
Story-9.0
It's full of JRPG and Anime cliches, which not everyone may like, but I found that the characters were lovable enough and the world filled with enough detail to overlook those things.
Graphics-9.5
It looks like an 3D Anime painted with watercolor, quite gorgeous. There's also an impressive amount of detail in the world as well as character models. The amount of "codec" cutscenes are disappointing, but are still passable.
Gameplay-9.0
Very unique, and very fun. I haven't played a game quite like it before. There may be some flaws in the overall design, but it's still doesn't keep the game from being highly enjoyable.
Sound-8.5 There's some good voice work, but also some bad. The music is very pretty. Overall, nothing to complain about, but nothing really to praise either.
Overall-9.5
Valkyria Chronicles is unique, gorgeous, highly entertaining, and sadly underrated. Like I said I haven't played anything like it before, and it does things that I really wish more developers would try. If you have a Playstation 3, then it comes highly recommended. In fact, I'll even say that if you have a Playstation 3, then you owe it to yourself to at least try it.
Valkyria Chronicles
Platform: PlayStation 3
Developer: Sega WOW
Publisher: Sega
Nov. 4th, 2008
Reviewed by:LobsterFang, The Gaming Monolith
What's Hot:
Beautiful Graphics and Art Design
Well Paced and Well Told Story
Interesting and Detailed World
Unique Strategic Gameplay
A Nice Cast of Characters with Distinct Personalities
What's Not:
Some disappointing cutscenes
Enemy phases drag on
No auto-save
Orders are kind of overpowered
Can be VERY frustrating at times
Don't be surprised if you've never heard of Valkyria Chronicles. Not only is it a PS3 exclusive, but it came out during the huge holiday sale back in 2008. A midst huge titles like Fallout 3, Fable 2, and Gears of War 2, it can be kind of hard for little titles like this to stand out. Which is a shame, because Valkyria Chronicles is quite honestly one of the greatest games I've ever played.
Story
Valkyria Chronicles takes place in a fictional nation called Europa in 1935. (Europa is supposed to be like an alternate Europe in case you couldn't tell...just checking.) Europa depends on this valuable mineral called "Ragnite" which they use to fuel their cars, electricity, medical treatments, basically everything. So I guess when your entire existence depends on one resource, then tensions could arise between the nations when this resource becomes limited...
Europa is comprised mainly of two big powers. There's the autocratic East Europan Imperial Alliance to the east, and then there's the allied democratic Atlantic Federation in the west. These to powers are currently engaged in war over said Ragnite from above. Your story, however, begins in this peaceful little nation called Galia. Galia has managed to remain neutral between the two powers for a long time, but since the recent war is being fought over Ragnite, the Empire realized that they probably have nothing to lose and invaded Galia because their rich deposits of Ragnite proved to tempting.
The game's protagonist is Welkin Gunther. He's the son of a decorated war hero, General Belgen Gunther. Despite his prestige, Welkin isn't interested in the army life at all. He's more interested in studying biology at university, and one day hopes to become a teacher. (Ah, the old "when this war is over I hope to be a teacher" trope. It's hard not to sympathize with that.) This all changes of course when the evil Empire pops out of nowhere and starts shooting up his town.
Thankfully, Welkin's dad happened to leave behind his tank the "Edelweiss" lying around in Welkin's barn, so Welkin, together with the town watch Alicia, and his younger sister Isara, managed to stall the Imperial troops long enough for the townspeople to evacuate.
Seeing the things the way they are, Welkin decides to join the Militia. Because of his prestige, he is immediately promoted to Lieutenant. (I guess having your own tank helps a little too.) Alicia is placed as his Sergeant, and Isara as his Tank Operator. And this is pretty much how the rest of the story plays out.
Now I think a lot of people will think this story is really cliche, or that they won't be able to take the whole anime/JRPG-yness seriously. These are both points that I can totally understand. But overall I really liked the story. There's a surprising amount of detail in the world, the story is well paced with even one or two nice twists, and the characters have very real personalities and are easily lovable.
Graphics
You'll notice that Valkyria Chronicles is, indeed, a very pretty game. It uses an interesting style of anime and watercolor and it looks quite gorgeous.
There's a good attention to detail on all of the characters. It might not matter to all, but I really like the little details on everyone's uniform and such. Not only that, but on the battlefield, everyone is rendered the same. The game features a huge cast of side characters that you only use in combat, but even the side characters look just as cool and distinct as the main characters. I just wish the same can be said of the Imperial soldiers. (But since they all wear masks I guess it's okay.)
The biggest issue I have is the fully rendered cutscenes, while very beautiful, are kind of rare to see. You'll get about one or two fully rendered cutscenes for each chapter, but a lot of the story is told through those...well I'll explain it like this. Remember in MGS2, how a large portion of the story was told through those codec segments? Yeah, it's kind of the same deal here. A lot of the cutscenes are like...codec segments. (I seriously can't think of a better way to describe this.) While it's not too horrible, I mean all cutscenes are still fully voiced, even the codec ones, it's just kind of annoying to see how much of the story is told when you only get to see the heads of the characters while pressing X to scroll through the dialogue.
Gameplay
Okay, finally, we're at the best part of the game now. So in case you've been suppressing a massive giggle attack this whole time (or have even managed to make it this far) this is where I get all up in your face and tell you why this game is so special to me.
Valkyria Chronicles plays like an RTS of sorts, with some third-person shooting and a little bit of turn base JRPG-ing thrown in too. First, you start out with a squad. Like I said earlier, you were promoted to a Lieutenant just by joining the militia, which means you get to choose the members of your very own squad. This is probably the coolest part of the game, you get a big list of individuals to choose from, each with their own personality, class, likes and dislikes, and so forth. Now if you're anything like me, you'll probably fill your squad with mostly the hot anime chicks, because you find the idea of taking down a huge military superpower with your Sailor Moon squad funny.
Aside from the 4 or 5 main characters, everyone has the potential to die on the battlefield. I find this another really cool aspect of the game, your squad's life is in your hands and if you're not careful you could lose soldiers out there. I can't think of any other game that does this, so bravo to Sega.
I should probably explain how playing the game works now, let's start with classes. There are 5 classes to work with here:
Scouts-The most useful class in my opinion. They don't have a lot of firepower or health, but they can cover more ground than any other class. And they can be quite handy if you know how to use them right. Their default weapon is a rifle.
Shocktroopers-Basically, these guys are meant for taking out enemy guys. They can't walk very far, nor do they have far range, but their high health and firepower ensures that if you're in close proximity of one, you're probably going to lose. Their default weapon is a machine gun.
Lancers-My personal least favorite, these are the anti-tank units. They're slow, they only carry 3 rounds per turn, and they can't walk very far. But they also have a lot of health, a high resistance to explosives, and the equivalent of what I assume to be a steam punk bazooka. So if you get once close enough to a tank, you can take tanks out with ease. Their default weapon is an Anti-Tank Lance.
Engineers-These guys are kind of like Scouts with a twist. They have the same firepower as a Scout, and can almost cover as much distance as one, but they weren't really meant for combat. You use engineers to restore the health of your tanks, replenish grenades, lancer and sniper ammo to fellow units, and dismantle enemy mines and barricades. Their default weapon is a rifle.
Snipers-Snipers, obviously, are meant for taking out enemy units from a great range. They have the least amount of health of all the classes, as well as the shortest walking distance. And like the Lancers, they only carry 3 rounds per turn. But the fact that they can take out an enemy unit with one shot from across the map arguably makes them the most powerful class around.
Before you begin an "Operation", you get a map of the area you'll be working in. From this point you can choose where to position your units and which ones you want to use, you then "Deploy" and the Operation starts. The basic objective to almost every Operation is to eliminate all enemy units or to capture the enemy base. Although every Operation is different, and will make you think differently each time.
From here you begin your "Phase". You get a detailed map of the area you're working with, with blue icons representing your units, and red icons representing the enemy units. You have what are called "Command Points", which are basically what you use to move your units around. Selecting a ground unit costs one Command Point, and selecting a tank costs two Command Points.
Once you select the unit you want to move, you zoom into the map and you're able to move around the map with a view like a third person shooter. You have a movement gauge at the bottom of the screen that tells you how much distance you can cover. (Like I explained above, Scouts can move the furthest, Snipers move the least, etc.)
While moving the enemy units can shoot back at you, and will continue doing so until you press R1 to enter "Target Mode." You can't move during Target Mode, but you're allowed to aim and shoot at whatever you want. Once you've performed an action in Target Mode, you can't enter it again until you've ended that unit's Phase. (You can use the same unit more than once each Phase but it will cost a Command Point each time you use him/her.)
Once all of your Command Points are depleted, your Phase ends and the Enemy Phase begins. During the Enemy Phase the roles are switched so you watch them move units across the map and you can shoot back at them while they're moving and so on. There's no way to skip or pause during the Enemy Phase, which is annoying because sometimes the computer likes to take it's sweet time, but it's only annoyed me a couple of times during the game.
As the game progresses you'll earn exp which you can use to upgrade your classes to make them stronger, and money which you can use to buy better weapons, make you tank's armor stronger, etc.
A single operation can take a very long time, as a lot of strategy is required. While you can open the menu and save at any time, the fact that there's no auto-save function can be troubling when you lose an operation (and trust me, you will lose some) and have to start the whole thing over. I can't tell you how frustrating some of the Operations are, but at the same time it's kind of like that "hard in a good way" sort of thing, so I'll let you decide if that sounds appealing to you.
Now I haven't mentioned something until this point, and please be noted that the strategy I'm about to cover makes the game hilariously easy at some points, which I find a pretty big flaw in the design.
There's these things called "Orders", which are basically stat boosts that you can issue to a single or all of your units for the cost of Command Points. If you know how to use Orders right, they can be pretty overpowered, I'll give you an example right now in this video below:
(credit to miemiexpxp)
What you just saw there was a bunch of Defense boosting Orders used on a single Scout (remember, these are the ones that can cover a lot of distance) and then said Scout charging through the enemy ranks, soaking up bullets like a sponge, taking out the only two enemies in the enemy base, and then taking over the enemy base, in one turn.
The game rewards you based on how fast you've accomplished the Operation, and how many enemy tanks and leaders you took out with a rank and exp. So what that means is you can get the highest rank, an A, which is supposed to be the hardest rank to get, using this hilariously easy strategy.
Now don't think this is too game breaking or anything, like I said above every Operation is different and you have to think different each time. So don't think this strategy works on every Operation, because it doesn't. There are some Operations that don't even allow you to use Orders, so if you're the person that bases all of your strategies around Orders, you'll probably be like "Oh...I can't use Orders...WHAT NOW?!" So while it's not too game breaking, I think it is sad that you can use this on a lot of the Operations.
Sound
The voice acting isn't the best, but I've definitely heard worst when it comes to English dubs. There are some good voice actors in here, I was very happy to hear Steve Blum. You may know him from roles such as Jamie from Megas XLR, or Tank Dempsey from Call of Duty Black Ops. Other than Steve I didn't recognize any other voices.
I didn't have a problem with any of the main character voices, but some of the side characters in your squad have cringe worthy voices, nothing too bad though, again I've heard worse. But the good news is if the English dub bugs you too much, then you can listen to the original Japanese voices with English subtitles.
The music in Valkyria Chronicles is very beautiful and fitting. Nothing much more to say about the music, I really liked it.
Final Score
Story-9.0
It's full of JRPG and Anime cliches, which not everyone may like, but I found that the characters were lovable enough and the world filled with enough detail to overlook those things.
Graphics-9.5
It looks like an 3D Anime painted with watercolor, quite gorgeous. There's also an impressive amount of detail in the world as well as character models. The amount of "codec" cutscenes are disappointing, but are still passable.
Gameplay-9.0
Very unique, and very fun. I haven't played a game quite like it before. There may be some flaws in the overall design, but it's still doesn't keep the game from being highly enjoyable.
Sound-8.5 There's some good voice work, but also some bad. The music is very pretty. Overall, nothing to complain about, but nothing really to praise either.
Overall-9.5
Valkyria Chronicles is unique, gorgeous, highly entertaining, and sadly underrated. Like I said I haven't played anything like it before, and it does things that I really wish more developers would try. If you have a Playstation 3, then it comes highly recommended. In fact, I'll even say that if you have a Playstation 3, then you owe it to yourself to at least try it.
