Zero Punctuation: Valkyria Chronicles

Low Frost

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Nov 6, 2008
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Wow.
I can't get over how surprised I am that he did this game.
On that note, why does he keep doing obvious anime style jrpgs when everywhen and their dog knows he doesn't like their aesthetics?
Have him do Planetscape Torment if he wants to really ratchet up the nerd rage.
 

Autocracy

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Feb 25, 2009
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I was both surprised and full of dread when I saw Valkyria chronicles.

Personally, I enjoy JRPGs but I do understand that the genre isn't for everyone. I also understand that the same can be said about Western RPGs, First Person Shooters, and pretty much any other genre.

So, after considering that, you learn pretty quick--unless you're a retard--that a genre isn't bad because you don't like it. You don't like the genre because A.) You SUCK at it or B.) It just doesn't tickle your fancy.

Actually, I have a theory about why RPGs of that sort aren't popular with certain people. Short attention spans. Short attention spans, lack of patience (IE a need for instant gratification) and the strong desire to hit things with a metaphorical club. Story and plot seem to take a back seat to violence and super violence. Of course, this is me being jaded and I might be exaggerating a little.

As for why he wanted to review one, clearly someone wasn't paying attention. He did a RTS and a flight Sim, two genres he doesn't normally do so he decided to top it off with an RPG.
 

Kikosemmek

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Funny, as always, but it's been a while since ZP reviewed a game that actually mattered (with the exception of RE5). I mean this, HAWX, Riddick, Siren, 50 Cent... these are nothing-games that weren't going anywhere to begin with.

It's always much better if Yahtzee gives it to big/successful game. I'd have loved to see him rip up Dawn of War II or Empire: Total War, but sadly these are RTS games, and he isn't big on that.

---

Otherwise, his summary of JRPG's is equivalent to mine- eeeeaaagggh.
 

Word Salad

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Apr 21, 2009
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I loved Valkyria Chronicles. It's a great game. For the most part, Yahtzee made some very valid points, I was thinking the same thing. My only disagreement with him is with the micro-management, that's pretty much standard SRPG.
 

Autocracy

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TetsuoKaneda said:
Alien1375 said:
Putting your units at strategic parts of the map during your turn to attack the enemy, and letting the enemy do the same in his turn sounds like a turn-based strategy game to me...

Now walking with a group trough a landscape and being randomly attacked by monsters while the group sticks together to fight the enemy one at the time is closer to my definition of a RPG.
Wow...I'm...I'm sorry, but I have to buy you a beer...that made my day. I've never met anyone who's never played Eternal Poison, Disgaea 1, 2, or 3, Kartia, Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth, Fire Emblem, Vandal Hearts, Final Fantasy Tactics (in any of its incarnations), or any of the NUMEROUS other JRPGs with tactical elements. I know I'm missing a few.
Luminous Arc one and two. There are tons but many are made by small companies that would find it financially impossible to send it on over so we only see a relatively small number of them.
 

Autocracy

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Quiotu said:
It's always painful to watch Yahtzee review games that are good rather than ones that are universally bad. The bad ones we can all equally enjoy him ranting about, but only those that don't like that specific genre can enjoy him verbally asaulting a game with an average review score close to 90%.

I find him funny with pretty much every episode, and this one wasn't an exception; however, while I find his ranting really funny, without a lot of actual valid points about why the game is bad (instead of rambling about how he doesn't like the genre as a whole), the episode just boils down to a well thought out trolling.

People might argue that he's like that with every episode, but I'd have to disagree. Most of the games he digs into are mediocre at best, and if they're worse than that... he tends to be giddy as a schoolgirl, because he has lots to talk about. I swear he was pissed at this game half because he was playing a genre he hates, and half because he was running out of shit to make fun of.
I sympathize, I really do. He trashes a number of games that I enjoy but you need to understand that tastes differ. To some Halo is the greatest game ever made and to others it's generic trash. Some regard Final Fantasy as God's gift to the planet and others think of it, well, like Yahtzee thinks. You shouldn't have hard feelings because someone disagrees even to this extent. There's no point. He hasn't changed your mind and you probably won't change his mind.

As for his negative reviews of "popular" games, again, it's about tastes. You really ought to pay a visit to his mailbag showdown. He makes some great points about it in there. But there's something positive to come from his negative view. In a world where we all nod our heads and agree to throw a positive mark on something, it's good to have a dissenting voice. To compare and contrast, for one thing, and to help improve a game. If everyone is nodding their head and being yes men, how does a company know whether to improve or not? Or how to improve.

Besides. It's funny as hell.
 

nipsen

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Sep 20, 2008
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tkwelge said:
Yahtzee isn't an american, and I'm sure that he doesn't give a flying f**k in the first place. It was really more of a pop culture joke. The kind that Family Guy fans think is hilarious. Oh Scott McFarlan (sp?) keep cranking out those winners....
Mm. Sort of wondering if the review was meant to be irony over popular game- critics who have.. in some way become "balanced" and "fair" by ditching their first set of presumptions for another equally hilarious one, or something of that sort.

I mean, he obviously haven't played the game past the first chapter. The entire story revolves around glorification and demonizing of people, empires and government, war and ideology, and so on. The Japanese looking commanders are flat out evil, and they demonstrate the ideology of the empire and how it's used to justify cruelty philosophically. And that's really the only thing in the game that touches anything having to do with overworked tired clichés. Becauase from there on and in the game is pretty much unique. Never mind the artwork, the style and the combat.

In fact I know he didn't play the game beyond the first chapter, because early on in the game you find some kind of magical animal - I have no idea why this turns up in every Japanese game, but there you have it - and he could've made an entire episode on that magical winged pig that can't fly alone. Seriously, I was looking forward to hearing all the jokes about it - they practically make themselves - and there's just tired crap having a go at things that actually isn't in the game. And where are the digs about the armored tits and the huge lesbian with the lance, I ask. Or the naive girl's obsession with baked bread? Or the macho guy's confessed love for vegetables. Honestly, it's a treasure- trove for insensitive asshole digs, and where is it - nowhere. Instead there's jokes about everything else than the game.

It's not often, but this was disappointing.
 

jboking

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What I got out of this review was, "The menu screen kinda sucked, it's anime, I couldn't use the sniper class and it forced me to learn a new way to play a game." all of those things are negligible. However, as for the "learn a new way to play" thing, if you understand that your enemy will shoot at you if you get too close then this little thing called strategy gets involved. Sorry if strategy ruins your fun. Of course if it does then you probably shouldn't be playing a Tactical Role-Playing Game.
 

HotTubTony

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May 13, 2009
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hey republicans all=dick cheney.

Often, opinions expressed in humor reflect what the speaker really thinks, or in this case, has been told what to think by sensationalist easy-to-listen-to media. Media that expresses its personal bias as common knowledge (an effective way to convince people of things). Here's a news flash: big media is all owned by big companies! Survival of that company's product (aka the news) depends on them being right, hence, expressing the management's personal speculations as general fact. This makes for seemingly credible information, and therefore tons and tons of money for said management. For someone who claims to have a clear perspective, he can sure dismiss half of an entire country very easily (adding to the sensationalism and ignorance).

And I know he doesnt care, nor would I care to convince anybody of anything (God forbid). Its funny to be dismissive. It really is.

PS Dick Cheney is a crazy mamma jamma

Rant over.
 

Dartinin

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Apr 14, 2009
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If he wants to experiment with a turn based rts he should try fire emblem i would suggest the first in the series(at least the first for the gba I'm not sure just how far back it goes). It has all the turn based Rock/Paper/Scissors fighting he seemed to like without the unfair unit movement attack ability it even has the ability to speed through the cut scenes which came in handy during the 10+ paragraph cut scenes they seem to think you want to read which do little to nothing in adding to the game play(as in you don't get much if any useful info by watching them).
 

Autocracy

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harhol said:
Evil Tim said:
harhol said:
They're completely different genres. Valkyria Chronicles is no more a JRPG than Gears of War.
Yeah, it's just a Japanese game in which you take part in turn-based combat with a squad of oddball characters in silly costumes who talk a lot. Totally different to a JRPG, that. Not, for example, all the trappings of a JRPG stacked on top of a slightly different game.
You're talking about turn-based combat like it's some kind of unified entity. Devil May Cry and Half-Life have real-time combat, guess they must be the same huh? The country of its origin is irrelevant. The story tropes are derived from animé, not JRPGs. Not to mention that the gameplay is completely different, e.g. one of the main features of JRPGs is exploration, something which TRPGs never feature.
Okay. I tried. I really did. I tried to look away but I just can't let this rest.

You seem like a reasonable chap, you really do, but you reasoning is flawed as is your comparisons. Honestly, I hate the line of thinking and how common sense is abandoned by amateur fans of the genre. Of course, I never was a fan of the way gamers liked to try and classify things. What is Valkyria Chronicles. It's a turn-based Role Playing game that is from Japan, therefor it is a Japanese Role Playing Game. AKA a JRPG. It is very much relevant and I don't know why it wouldn't be.

Naturally, this doesn't mean all turn-based strategy RPG games are Japanese so this is more a case of rectangles and squares. A square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square.

And yes, you made mention of anime tropes but you forget that these same tropes are also applied to Japanese Role Playing Games (you could probably argue that the tropes are not exclusive to just anime and that anime merely draws from these tropes) and that a lot of them contain anime-style cut scenes and designs.

As I sit here and think about it, I wince at the term "Japanese Role Playing Game". It seems a little, well, racist. I don't know. Maybe that's just me.
 

McGee

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I have to agree with Yahtzee, but I also LOATHE JRPGs or games that have heavy anime themes. My best friend absolutely loves these games and it seems like every other week he has a new one for me to try. A few weeks ago it was this rubbish game. I sat through 3 hours of play before I absolutely couldn't take it any longer. The thing I agree with Yahtzee the most on is the menu system.
 

Autocracy

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cursedseishi said:
While I normally agree with Yahtzee, I have to disagree with this game being bad. The game does warn you to save before every battle. While the amount of menus can get annoying, after a few hours of playing it I don't mind it. The combat in the game is fun, and just cause they are only shooting at you doesn't mean everyone else is safe. You can run past someone on your team, and if they are shooting at you, can hit and kill that person.

If you scroll down in the R&D menu for weapons, they do branch off into different types, focusing on certain aspects, so the "singular path" part is a crock of bull for most weapons. The characters aren't the norm stereotypes, and if you read the backstory for Welkins, its not just cause of him owning a tank. He, like many youth, had to take some military training. He followed in his father's footsteps, as did his "sister" Isara, and took classes based on what he's doing now, same as her following her engineer father's footsteps.

If you decided not to get this game solely on what he has said, you are a tool, try the game out before-hand.
Who are you trying to convince? Who? Why? Honestly, the effort isn't worth it. Especially if you don't understand a key element. Taste. It's a matter of taste. What do you like? You like Valkyria Chronicles? Good. Keep liking it. Yahtzee doesn't. Move on.

You'll find that people have different tastes. Some people like chocolate, some people like Vanilla. Some people like Halo, some people like Half-Life. You can't just tell them they are wrong because you liked/hated the thing. They have every right to like whatever they want.

And you want to know the real funny thing? Yahtzee ain't telling you to like or dislike anything. All he is doing is sharing his opinion on the matter and making money while he does it. He even talked about it in the mailbag showdown. It's hilarious.

Why people have this kind of crusader mentality to defend whatever they like is beyond me. It doesn't do anything but cause great big and usually annoying arguments (although you have been well-behaved, thankfully, and courteous in your remarks; many people are not). The companies don't care and care less about the people defending them. But either way, you aren't changing the mind of the person (IE Yahtzee) or anyone that thinks like him. They are more or less set in their opinion as you are in yours.

So, in summary. Opinions are like a-holes. Everybody has one. No, no. People are different and will like different things so get use to it. The sooner you do, the more fun you'll have.
 

Autocracy

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McGee said:
I have to agree with Yahtzee, but I also LOATHE JRPGs or games that have heavy anime themes. My best friend absolutely loves these games and it seems like every other week he has a new one for me to try. A few weeks ago it was this rubbish game. I sat through 3 hours of play before I absolutely couldn't take it any longer. The thing I agree with Yahtzee the most on is the menu system.
Oh boy. Don't like menus? I hate to tell you this but it's not just Japanese RPGS that have great big menus. Eh, I suggest you not try any MMO. Especially not Eve Online. That gets complicated fast. Witcher? Yeah, don't go there. Some might argue that some of the Resident Evil Games get complicated but that's up for debate.
 

Grischna

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Jul 17, 2008
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LOOOL

"chestile walls" made me laugh freakin hard^^
and the comment on chess lol
yahtzee ure in godmode again that was one of ur best videos again, but if i think about it every single one of ur videos is one of ur best