Valkyria Chronicles

This is an interesting game, every magazine online and off gives it huge scores and yet apparently it hasn’t sold well at all outside of Japan. I have to admit, I played the demo and wasn’t that impressed.  I can tell Sega exactly what went wrong though, the demo was not focused on what should have been the main selling point – the phenomenal story. I haven’t got to sleep before 3am since getting this… This is a Japanese Strategy RPG and even describing the story doesn’t do it justice.

“Valkyria Chronicles is set in a fictitious continent reminiscent of 1930s Europe – divided in two and ruled by the Empire and the Federation. The Empire has set its sights on invading a small neutral country called Gallia, which is situated in the middle of the two great empires. The game follows a hero named Welkin and his fellow soldiers of the Federation’s 7th Platoon as they engage in a series of epic battles”

See, not interesting.  But between the amazing graphics engine it runs on, the glorious cut scenes and the cast of characters that you have available to build your squad, this is actually a really compelling game. Especially once the story gets onto the Valkyrur of the game’s title.

Style

There is nothing ordinary about this game, for a start, the entire game is contained within the fictitious book entitled “On the Gallian Front” by Irene Koller, with each chapter of the story being a double page spread of the book.

Everything shares the same style from menus to in-game action and it works tremendously well.  You can buy additional story from the journalist as well as access character and weaponry information which is all set under different tabs in the book.
Don’t think it’s all style and no substance though. The characters have plenty to offer the gameplay and story as well.

Characters

Characters gain abilities as the classes level up and you don’t need to use a character for them to level up – as long as you level their class they level up.  Which means they don’t matter right? wrong.  Sega can still make characters even if they can’t make Sonic games it seems.

The game will reward you for picking your squad according to terrain and punish you for sticking to your favourites.  Characters like and dislike other members of the squad and dust & pollen allergies lower accuracy, other phobias eat away at HP and selecting troops raised in the country gives them a boost.  Sure you can get away without making use of the boost and deal with the handicap but that’s like driving with the handbrake on.

Characters have some great sayings and abilities.  From the randomness of Veggie-maniac to the hilarity of seeing Jane’s Sadist ability flashing up on screen shortly before she despatches someone to an untimely demise while absolutely loving it. I could do without dust allergies affecting key troops but that’s part of the character and it works and  I find they make the game far more enjoyable.

You can choose which classes to upgrade and which weapons to upgrade, my sniper’s are unlucky in that it’s not my style to use them unless absolutely necessary whereas my shocktroopers have the nice life

Gameplay

This is what the demo set out to show, how you basically deploy a small team and then have a certain amount of CP with which to move your characters. For one CP you get to move one solder or issue one order (with the exceptions of tanks and higher level orders like Sniper Support – a personal favourite of mine to have one soldier assassinated by a sniper team. Those take 2 or more CP).  Once you select a soldier it switches to 3rd person mode and you have a set amount of action to move them.  This is where some people will HATE it.  Remember, this is an RPG at heart, it is stingy unless you are a scout, Shock Troopers and Snipers can barely walk anywhere which for a sniper carrying one gun makes no sense at all seeing how far an engineer can go carrying more equipment than any other class.  It’s all about balancing the classes which is done pretty well.  You can move the same soldier more than once per turn but you get progressively less and less action bar.  After you end your turn, the computer has it’s turn and the AI is never too tough although if you bunch up a group of troops, it won’t hesitate to grenade your squad to death.

Rather forgivingly, if your troops go down, you can evacuate them as long as you touch them with another member of your squad within 3 goes and before the computer touches them.  This is great and you can even recall them to th front lines in the same mission or replace them with a member of the squad from the reserves.  I love this, early on it lets you take risks with your soldiers safe in the knowledge that you have got to be a real plank to get them permanently killed, things get a little more fatal in chapter 7 and later but so far I’ve only once had to restart because I lost a team member I didn’t want to lose.

The Verdict

Strategy has never been my thing, I didn’t get the nickname Great Destroyer for thinking (actuallly it was breaking the lane while bowling).  Anyway for me to love a strategy game it has to be pretty special. An indication of how good is that they are making an anime of it.  That will be awesome and you can bet your Millenium Falcon I’ll be downloading and buying that as soon as it’s available.

I am mad for anything anime it is true, but there is an awful lot to like and recommend about this game. While it may not be for people like Binny as he certainly doesn’t have the time (some missions can take close to an hour) it is definitely worthy of far more attention than it received.  Anyone who likes a good story and/or likes a  good RPG or strategy game MUST get his.  So it isn’t realtime in a Command & Conquor style, I wouldn’t trade this for the new Red Alert if it came with a signed picture of Tim Curry, well maybe if he signed it in front of me…  Left4Dead is one of the most hyped games of 2008 and is good online multiplayer but, I have played it just once for an hour since I got Valkyria Chronicles and that was just because a friend wanted to see it. As soon as he left, I went straight back to VC. Yup, VC is killing my social life and my eyesight and I couldn’t be happier.