Valkyria Chronicles

Upon its release in 2008, I felt Valkyria Chronicles would be the closest we’d ever come to having an XCOM sequel. And now, with an honest-to-goodness X-Com reboot, I wish we were getting a full-fledged Valkyria Chronicles sequel for consoles. Though both games are masterpieces in their own right, Valkyria’s world and potential continue to excite me in a way that marines battling space men doesn't.

In every aspect, Valkyria is a game that stands out within its publisher’s catalog, genre, and even medium. What other game blends action and strategy as fluidly as Valkyria? What other game has a female protagonist and antagonist, both of which are non-sexualized, well-realized characters? With a visual look that’s all its own and art direction that breathes much-needed life into the tired World War II setting, Valkyria is a game that will remain as timeless as X-Com. I just think I’d prefer to play another Valkyria is all.

The year is 1935 and war has broken out in Europe Europa. The world's primary energy source, ragnite, is becoming increasingly hard to come by and the Imperial Alliance is growing increasingly greedy. The small neutral nation of Gallia, which happens to sit upon a pile of ragnite, is thrown into the conflict between two much larger nations. Intense strategical combat follows, naturally.

Don’t be fooled by the pastel colors and jovial characters, war is hell in Valkyria Chronicles. You adapt or you die in battle. In most strategy games, you face the same conflicts with only slightly altered enemies and locations. But, in Valkyria, a wrench is constantly being thrown into your plans. What worked one mission before may never work in your favor again.

In Chapter 5, your team must infiltrate a fortress in the woods, taking down enemies that are blocking your tank from progressing before moving forward. Doing some recon work with your scouts is the key to success in this mission. The map is full of sharp turns and shrubbery, where enemy gunners remain hidden. Jump one mission later and you’ll have to completely alter your strategy.

In Chapter 6, your team must progress through a wide-open desert with few spots for cover. Due to the map’s layout and the group of enemy snipers above, sending in scouts for recon will only end in tears. Instead, you’ll need to use your tank as cover and deploy your own army of snipers to fight from afar. It’s not the most enjoyable mission, but I love how it demanded a new approach to combat.

Later missions introduce new enemies, new gear, new environmental factors, and other obstacles that constantly force you to change your strategy. It can be admittingly frustrating at times. Valkyira is no cakewalk, in this respect, but being a thoughtful commander, instead of using brute force, can be greatly rewarding in this game. By challenging players in new ways, you'll feel an equal amount of dread and curiosity creep upon you before each mission.

Sometimes I wonder whether every game should be cel-shaded. Jet Set Radio [ジェットセットラジオ] still looks amazing for a Dreamcast game. Has any Gamecube game aged better than The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker [ゼルダの伝説 風のタクト]? Is there a current-gen game I enjoy looking at more than Valkyria Chronicles? No, not really. Yet, there are many cel-shaded games that are easily forgotten despite riding on this trend (my apologies to the one Drake of the 99 Dragons fan out there!) To say Valkyria’s timeless visuals come from simply adopting a cel-shaded look would ignore all the work that went into creating the game’s world.

Though Sega’s CANVAS engine gave Valkyria a striking, painterly look through its filters and shading tech, it wouldn’t matter much if the art direction wasn’t so deserving. The first thing that drew me into Valkyria were the characters and their incredible costumes. Artist Raita Honjou walks a thin line, presenting an innocent version of war without completely forgoing the human element. You can see the Studio Ghibli influence all over Valkyria, but the art direction reaches beyond the world of anime for some of its most striking details.

Taking part in an interpretation of Europe – imaginatively called Europa -- Valkyria builds its cities upon scenic early-20th century European country towns. The starting town of Bruhl is a quaint area, surrounded by small farms, with a tall windmill being its centerpiece. Anthold on the other hand is a sleepy port town that wouldn’t be out of place in Porco Rosso. Though most of Valkyria takes place on battlefields far from the city, these deserts, woodlands, and fortresses have their own attractive landscapes and artistic touches that make them memorable locations in their own right.

Soldiers are unified by their uniform. It's kind of in the name, right? While this serves a practical purpose on the battlefield and a psychological one when off it, it makes telling characters apart very difficult in war stories. It took me a good three or so episodes to start recognizing characters in Band of Brothers, for instance. Yet, every character and faction in Valkyira are so stylized that I never had this problem. Each member of Gallia’s Squad 7 has their own stand-out features: Largo’s amazing sideburns, Rosie’s weird, stylish haircut, Welkin’s cap, and so on. I especially love how some of the enemies uniforms are modeled after German uniforms in World War II. Every character is so well designed, as if it was adapted from a popular manga/anime. Instead, it's the other way around!

Valkyria doesn’t entirely shy away from the melodrama and absurdity that you expect from Japan, but flying pigs seem to be the exception to the game’s grounded yet compelling story, not the rule.

For the most part, Valkyria tells a story of unrest across a country and a brave, unlikely bunch of heroes that stand up against a suppressive empire. This is the stuff boring epics are made out of, yet Valkyria retains a personal touch throughout that brings heart and soul out of the characters and world. Between boardroom and battlefield conflicts, the game contains numerous scenes of the day-to-day life of Gallia’s Squad 7. These scenes give background to characters, establish their relationships, and present more information on what is going on politically in Europa.

These scenes don’t always hit the mark, but -- in a stroke of brilliance -- the game doesn’t force them on the player. Instead, much of the game’s cutscenes are optional and often independent from the main plot. If you are enjoying the game’s world, you’ll likely appreciate the depth that these vignettes give to the plot. And if you don’t, you can easily skip them and still be able to follow the main plot.

Vignettes and optional cutscenes are something we don’t see often enough in games. Then again, not too many games have a world as rich and imaginative as Europa. I can’t imagine vignettes working in Max Payne, but they’d be a perfect fit for an adventure game. As Valkyria proves, when this style of storytelling is successfully pulled off it can give the plot and characters more depth, all while altering the tone of the adventure. Don’t fret: Hans , the winged pig that Alicia watches over, keeps the game from ever being too smart and not-at-all embarrassing. So, thank God for that!

Here’s my problem with strategy games: I like battles to feel out of control while I feel completely in control as the player. Here’s my other problem with strategy games: pathfinding. Valkyria ’s brilliant battle system -- called BLiTZ or Battle of Live Tactical Zones because every Japanese developer needs a stupid term to put in press releases -- manages to walk a fine line between real-time and turn-based combat. Even stranger, it is as much an action game as it a strategy game. But, above all, it’s a strategy game that immerses you and makes you feel completely in control at all times.

While Valkyria is a game with great strategic depth, it is also an easily accessible game for people not into strategy games. At the start of every battle and in-between every turn, you are shown a map displaying the battlefield's parameter, your troops positioning, and positions of known enemies. From this view, you choose individuals and control them on the battlefield for as long as their action gauge will allow.

It’s in these moments that the game ceases being turn-based. You can freely move with the thumbstick, enemies can fire at you, and you can return fire. Once you pull out your weapon, you enter target mode in which enemies cease fire and you get to take aim with your crosshair. Sounds kind of nuts, right? But it works seamlessly and maintains a terrific flow that most strategy games lack. More importantly, it gives you a level of control rarely seen in strategy games. Though movement can be awkward at times, at least you’ll never deal with troublesome pathfinding during the entirety of Valkyria . You feel you are on the battlefield, but you also get to play God from above.

I’ve always loved Secret of Mana [聖剣伝説2], but building an appreciation for The Legend of Zelda [ゼルダの伝説] series took some effort and time for me. The main factor that separates the two is the group dynamic. In Zelda, you are almost always alone, seeing friendly faces only briefly outside dungeons with a couple exceptions. However, in Secret of Mana you always have two buddies – whether they are controlled by your friends on the couch or the game’s capable AI – which makes your journey feel a bit more lighthearted, even when you are up against some devilish enemies in some unsavory palace while creepy-ass music plays.

The group dynamic of RPGs is a huge draw for me. I love adventure films like Stars Wars and The Goonies. These films wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t for the group of heroes at the center. Likewise, going through Valkyria Chronicles with your squadmates is part of the appeal. Whenever I lost one on the field, I forced myself to restart a mission. Getting to know each character’s likes, dislikes, friends, enemies, and skills makes the members of Squad 7 feel real. There are conflicts built between squadmates in cutscenes, and you’ll make up your own stories between characters when you pair two together on the battlefield. Having good company can make a long, dangerous trek a lot less lonely.

I want my old Sega back and, no, I’m not talking about Sonic. I want that Dreamcast-era Sega that gave us colorful, original gems like Jet Set Radio and Skies of Arcadia [エターナルアルカディア]. In 2008, we got one last gem out of the increasingly misguided, disappointing developer. Shuntaro Tanaka, director of Skies of Arcadia and Valkyria Chronicles, is now limited to making PSP Valkyria sequels with a quarter of the orginal’s budget, if even that.

From what I played of VC2, he’s making the most of the hardware and budget but it just isn’t the same as seeing an epic come to life in HD. Even the battles are smaller and needlessly complicated by adding in a new melee-based class. I’m not complaining, though. I’m happy to have any new Valkyria , even an anime series I will in all likelihood never watch.

In addition to being one of greatest strategy games of all-time, Valkyria Chronicles is one of the few inspired and welcoming worlds to come out of the past decade. I’m happy to see the world of Valkyria expanded despite the platform and medium chosen. Though, for me, the world of Valkyria will always live within the original that continues to impress me years later.

This game is basically a turn-based tactical game (like XCOM) set in a fantasy WWII setting with an anime artstyle. Got that? It certainly is a quite unique mix of usually very different things, but I think that this is its big strength.

The gameplay works similar to XCOM, except you can move your units freely instead of on a grid. This gives you more freedom, but also makes it more difficult to plan your moves, since it's hard to tell how far your units can go. Also, tank and anti-tank combat plays a big role in this game. Overall it's fun, however the difficulty between levels varies greatly. At one time the AI can be forgiving, while in other levels it will attack you ruthlessly.

The story and characters are very anime-like. Whether that's a pro or a con is up to you. I enjoyed the story overall, but I think that by any standard it has some weaknesses (why are the characters overall so unfazed by the, you know, war going on around them?) and there is A LOT of dialogue going on. If you're used to jRPGs, this might not be a huge problem for you, but for me it became overwhelming after some time.

Overall, if you're looking for a good tactical game or a good jRPG-style game (this is not really an RPG though), or even both, you should check this one out.

I wanted to like Valkyria Chronicles [戦場のヴァルキュリア -Gallian Chronicles-]; I love the art style, premise and setting. Its unnecessarily brutal trial and error nature, questionably-balanced unit types and gameplay which rewards exploitation of its brokenness over true strategy killed it for me.

2.0 stars / Poor

It’s been ten years since the original release of Valkyria Chronicles on the PlayStation 3. With a new game in the franchise on the way, I figured there was no better time than now to hop in

Valkyria Chronicles on the PlayStation 4 is impressive on almost every level. A unique JRPG that blends turn-based strategy with third-person shooting is complimented by creative and interactive maps. The story combines themes of war with fantasy in a surprisingly respectful way. Add a cast of likable characters to the equation, and you have a gaming experience that begs to be had.

The game starts you off in the small town of Bruhl where our three main heroes live. Welkin and his sister Isara first meet Alicia here and they quickly find themselves under the attack of the Europan Imperial Alliance. The destruction of their hometown prompts them to join the Gallian army where they form Squad 7.

The characters are one of Valkyria Chronicles’ greatest strengths. Each member of the main squad is interesting, but it’s the two main characters, Alicia and Welkin, who shine the brightest. What seems like a simple friendship at the beginning of the game, blossoms into something special by the end. Their love for each other and their inability to lose who they are in the face of war is very admirable.

There are several other characters you can recruit to your party. None of them outside of the on-screen cast get a lot of time, but they each have back stories that update frequently. Detailed profiles and distinguishable character designs make it that much sadder when they fall permanently in battle.
The game handles the setting of war with a surprising amount of maturity. It touches upon themes of death and prejudice with a fair amount of respect. The only thing that seems out of place are the victory poses the characters do when they kill enemy soldiers. With all their talk of wanting the war to be over, and wishing for peace, it seems odd to have someone shout “yes!” when they kill an enemy.

Combat is slow, giving the player ample amount of time to plot out where they want their units to go. You get a certain amount of command points to spend for each turn. Foot soldiers take up one point, while the heavy- hitting tanks take two. Scouts have more movement, allowing them to travel farther across the map to take enemy bases. Lancers have a small amount of movement, but a lot of firepower making them better for taking down tanks and large weaponry.

Each character has a set of likes that affect the way combat plays out. Some characters work better with others, and some have certain environmental strengths and weaknesses. This adds an extra layer of strategy to think of when picking which units to place in your squad. With five different classes, the game gives you plenty of options, and plenty to think about.

The maps themselves get very creative as the game goes along. At first, you’ll be moving from a simple point A to point B, taking down enemies as you go. Later on, you’ll be placing your units strategically to figure out how best to blow up a train to collapse a bridge.

There’s a lot of room to get creative with every decision you make. A mission that seems impossibly long can be over quickly if you have the right crazy idea to do it. I took down one boss by using a smoke bomb and five different snipers instead of taking the game’s suggested route.

The only issue I have with the slow combat is when you’re on your second or third try and you have to sit through the enemies’ turns as well. When they have a lot of them, it can get boring waiting around. I found this to only be a problem in skirmish mode. Since that’s there for practice and grinding, I felt like a button to speed up combat would have been a nice addition. But it is useful to be able to watch the entire play by play of the enemy team. It gives you a lot of time to think and plan out where you want your soldiers to go. The game also gives you a lot of freedom with the ability to save during combat. If you save after every turn, you can reload when you mess up.

The experience system is also a little odd. You get a grade based on how many turns you took to complete the mission. The higher the grade, the more experience you get. This is unfair for new players who want to take a lot of time experimenting and figuring out how the game works. Although, to be fair, it does feel rewarding when you beat a mission on your first try in such a short amount of time.

The cutscenes also feel like a reward. In a lot of games, long cutscenes can seem like a chore to watch when you want to be playing the game. But the characters in Valkyria Chronicles are so strong that getting a glimpse into their lives is a nice way to kick back after completing a mission.

Valkyria Chronicles also provides a ton of extra content. You can buy reports which add insight into the lives of the characters through cutscenes. They also provide bonus side missions which are often as fun as the ones from the main game.

This is all presented in a jam-packed interface that comes in the shape of a book called “On the Gallian Front.” In it, you can find a ton of different pages that show you where to level up, buy and upgrade new weapons, choose the units for your army, and plenty more. Even more extras are added when you complete the game and go into New Game Plus mode. You can view your stats from every combat encounter, and you can check out the soundtrack as well. Valkyria Chronicles definitely doesn’t hold back on content.

With all the DLC included, and the new trophy support, the remaster of Valkyria Chronicles for the PS4 is the ideal way to play this excellent game. Despite the couple of minor complaints I had, my time with it was an absolute blast all around. The clever combat and the beautifully told story make for one of the greatest JRPG’s of the last decade. This is a must-play for fans of strategy games, and video games in general. With the option to get it now on PS4 and PC, there’s no excuse to skip this amazing video game.

Valkyria Chronicles had been hailed as an original strategy game upon its release due to its refreshing "BLiTZ" (Battle of Live Tactical Zone) gameplay, which worked as a system to put the player in three different modes of gameplay per player-action: Command Mode (choosing units/player-characters), Action Mode (re-positioning said units/player-characters), and Target Mode (essentially 3rd-person shooter combat). It was hailed because the BLiTZ system enabled players to partake in the pleasure of mapping out a plot against the enemy (like a strategy game) and then actually let the player perform the plan they'd just premeditated (like an action game). And so the marketers advertised that Valkyria Chronicles offers the catharsis of seeing through the success of your own battle plan as well as capturing the thrill of a soldier in combat carrying out said plan; all through the fancy 3-D visual design of anime filtered into and appearance of pencil sketches and watercolor paint.
So much potential was in Valkyria Chronicles that could have made it go from a simple game to a true DIA experience centered around the glory of winning a truly difficult war by strategy (mind) and action(body), but alas, the makers threw away this potential to make room for showcasing a painful batch of anime clichés instead.
The list of clichés the player must endure includes: sickishly sweet speeches about why you should appreciate nature and people; terribly dull protagonists (made to be so boring and ridiculously good-natured to ensure no players would be alienated from them) coupled with terribly dull antagonists (made to be so boring and ridiculously bad-natured to ensure players would be alienated from them); cheesy and pointless scenes of mirth as story filler; repetitive gestures or sayings as you select the same characters in combat over and over again; a forced romance between the two main characters; an indulgence about the story's fictional history (including an extensive glossary of story-related terms and other in-depths texts available on Castlefront St); people of royalty flamboyantly dressed like the middle ages; and -- of course -- ridiculous weapons (a battleship that sails on land) and superpowers (the Valkyria) clashing on both sides.
One can at least appreciate the BLiTZ system, which potentially lets lovers of the strategy genre and lovers of the action genre to come together; but I really do wonder how many players have been turned off (or even scared away) by the sheer discomfort these cheesy anime clichés in the campaign of Valkyria Chronicles instead of some genuinely ambitious storytelling to properly fit the refreshing style of gameplay.

Valkyria Chronicles is one of the best turn based strategy games, and just plainly one of my favourite games i have played.

The story is centered around the nation of Gallia, and how it was invaded by the tyranical opposing nation. The fiction is just one inch to the left of being full WW2, but it still leaves enough room for fantasy elements. You follow the missions of an odd set of members that will be pivotal in the turning of the tide of the year. Now the writing falls into everysingle JRPG cliche, from the teenage protagonists falling in love and a they even include a beach party. That said, its still convincing and hard not to empathize with these characters, and at the same time the game manages to convey some of the harsh realities of war in a manner that really surprised me.

Visually the game offers a cell shaded style, that is quite timely, and still looked beautiful when i played the game in 2014. The soundtrack is most passable, but it isnt bad per se.

Gameplaywise the game offers a battle system that i have never seen in any other game. effectively combining turn based with third person shooting mechanics. It manages to make the game much more immersive and action focused than other top down turn based strategy games. Its also different in the sense that you are given a number of moves per turn, and you can use them as you feel like, including using them all on the same soldier. This adds a lot to the amount of tactics available in battle. There are 5 soldier classes, each with their own strenghs in battle. The non plot relevant soldiers all have unique abilities, but are susceptible to perma death.

There arent many missions on the game, but each can take quite a long time with beat and with multiple objectives. They all manage to do something new, and none feel like timewasters. One major flaw with the game is the rating system, which effectively only grades you in the amount of turns to win. Unfortunatly, the scouting class has a huge advantage when it comes to this due to their huge move distances when compared to the other classes. Its a clear case when a reward system doesnt encourage knowing the game mechanics, quite the contrary. Fortunatly there is a mod available that goes great ways to fixing the rating system.

Overal i really enjoyed this game. I usually dislike JRPG like plots, but this one managed to have enough grit in it to be emotional and the characters have great character arcs. I also love its take on turn based strategy. Its challenging, but fair, and offers a huge amount of tactics in order to beat a level.