Awesome story and tactical game with pretty anime style graphics. A must buy for anyone who has even the slighest interest in RPGS and action games.

Pros

Storyline
Innovative battle system with perma death elements
Music
Characters
Cel shaded goodness

Cons

Battle system targeting mechanics
Perma death :(


When I first saw Valkyria Chronicles on the Ps3, I remember thinking how lovely the artwork was. I remember passing this many times when I went into the shop, telling myself one day I would buy this game, often picking it up and just re examining the cover and blurb at the back, as I did with all games I considered bringing into my collection at some point.

A fun combo of the Sakura Wars series, Fire Emblem mercilessness, Skies of Arcadia and third person element gameplay – Valkyria Chronicles delivers to its audience a refreshing experience and take on RPG action – and even spawned an Anime based on the game.

For lovers of emotional, involving story games, Valkyria Chronicles will not disappoint. With many allusions to the second world war, your main character and his forces start off in a tiny nation known as Gallia. As much as this nation would like to remain neutral in the erupting war between two superpowers around them – because Gallia is rich in the precious mineral that sparked the war in the first place – it gets invaded by the main antagonist nation: the East European Imperial Alliance.

Through the exploits of Squad 7, you will follow an well constructed emotional story that hints to darker elements of history.

Spoiler text
Without spoiling too much, (but just in case so blank blank blankity blank) you have the Darscens, hated and reviled by everyone around them. You have the mysterious legend of the Valkyries, who have not been seen for decades, who wielded incredibly advanced tools, thousands of years ahead of the nations around them. So you have the small nation resisting a superpower through the incredible luck, skill and tight knit troops of Squad 7, and you follow their story into mortal peril. I will say that this game made me cry. There are small side stories too where you can learn more about the supporting characters. Combined with the game-play, it will take you a good length of time to complete the main story.

The Gameplay is a nice spin on normal tactical elements. The system used is referred to as BLiTZ, or Battle of Live Tactical Zones. Once you've gotten past the cut scenes you control a set amount of troops on the field, each with different abilities. You get to select your own troops in the recruiting menu. Each individual troop has strengths and weaknesses which add a nice personal element to the game, as you will actually end up being attached to some of your troops, despite their minor impact on the main story. In your Action Phase, where you can control the troops on the field, they have a movement phase and targeting phase. Your movement is determined by your AP (Action Point) Gauge. Once it runs out, the unit will no longer be able to move. So you will spend your precious AP trying to position your units in the best way possible, and take out the most targets. Positioning is absolutely vital because after you've finished moving all your troops, the enemy gets to do the same in return. So an out of position troop could get out maneuvered and targeted by several enemy units, and die because it was too far isolated, or unable to receive supporting fire from your nearby troops due to a bad location. Surveying the terrain and deciding which unit is best placed where will work to your advantage. You have: Scouts who are able to move very far, but are weak and lacking fire power. Shocktroopers who have less movement but more damage. Lancers who are slow, but can take hits and deal chunks of damage to tanks. Snipers who are also limited in movement, but have long range and can nitpick targets from towers. You also have tanks which are devastating to infantry and can knock down walls, but can't roll over certain terrain and have restricted controls. Engineers who can repair damage, barricades, disarm traps and replenish ammunition. These are just a few of the units mentioned.

Although the system is turn based, it does require a lot of forethought in what you do with your turn. The bad thing about the third person camera viewpoint is that even what should be dead accurate shots can miss, due to the awkward angles it can sometimes present the character in. I personally really like the tactical elements behind this – especially as wrong mistakes will punish you in permanent unit death, like Fire Emblem.

That's right. Start resetting those levels every time you lose someone you like. (Unless you play with a heart of iron and accept each unit death that occurs.) I don't have a heart of iron. So resets did indeed occur. :(

Graphics wise, I love the animations. Cel shaded games can be a bit hit and miss in my opinion, but this one has beautiful artwork, smooth and polished graphics with watercolour style backgrounds, with enough detail to keep you moving along. Although they're not stunning, they're well presented.

I find the music of the game great. There are sad melodic piano tracks, uplifting battle themes and tense tunes in moments of great strife. I loved sitting around and listening to certain tracks loop, because they were so well crafted. The voice acting isn't particularly memorable in my opinion, but bearable and good enough for what we're presented with. You have the option (At least on my U.K version) to have it both with the English voice actors or the Japanese voice actors. I actually did it with the Japanese voice actors.

Honestly, I loved this game. I would happily recommend it to anyone that I could, especially as it combines the best of both worlds – a strong story, characters you become attached to, and an innovative battle system that will have you planning out your moves as best as you can, sometimes with the odds horrifically stacked against you.

Definitely get. Like, seriously. What are you waiting for?

Want moar? Click here to join my steam group and Click here to follow my curator page!

[h1]TL;DR[/h1] Awesome story and tactical game with pretty anime style graphics. A must buy for anyone who has even the slighest interest in RPGS and action games. [b]Pros[/b] Storyline Innovative battle system with perma death elements Music Characters Cel shaded goodness [b]Cons[/b] Battle system targeting mechanics Perma death :( [h1]Gameplay[/h1] When I first saw Valkyria Chronicles on the Ps3, I remember thinking how lovely the artwork was. I remember passing this many times when I went into the shop, telling myself one day I would buy this game, often picking it up and just re examining the cover and blurb at the back, as I did with all games I considered bringing into my collection at some point. A fun combo of the Sakura Wars series, Fire Emblem mercilessness, Skies of Arcadia and third person element gameplay – Valkyria Chronicles delivers to its audience a refreshing experience and take on RPG action – and even spawned an Anime based on the game. For lovers of emotional, involving story games, Valkyria Chronicles will not disappoint. With many allusions to the second world war, your main character and his forces start off in a tiny nation known as Gallia. As much as this nation would like to remain neutral in the erupting war between two superpowers around them – because Gallia is rich in the precious mineral that sparked the war in the first place – it gets invaded by the main antagonist nation: the East European Imperial Alliance. Through the exploits of Squad 7, you will follow an well constructed emotional story that hints to darker elements of history. [spoiler] Spoiler text Without spoiling too much, (but just in case so blank blank blankity blank) you have the Darscens, hated and reviled by everyone around them. You have the mysterious legend of the Valkyries, who have not been seen for decades, who wielded incredibly advanced tools, thousands of years ahead of the nations around them. So you have the small nation resisting a superpower through the incredible luck, skill and tight knit troops of Squad 7, and you follow their story into mortal peril. I will say that this game made me cry. There are small side stories too where you can learn more about the supporting characters. Combined with the game-play, it will take you a good length of time to complete the main story. [/spoiler] The Gameplay is a nice spin on normal tactical elements. The system used is referred to as BLiTZ, or Battle of Live Tactical Zones. Once you've gotten past the cut scenes you control a set amount of troops on the field, each with different abilities. You get to select your own troops in the recruiting menu. Each individual troop has strengths and weaknesses which add a nice personal element to the game, as you will actually end up being attached to some of your troops, despite their minor impact on the main story. In your Action Phase, where you can control the troops on the field, they have a movement phase and targeting phase. Your movement is determined by your AP (Action Point) Gauge. Once it runs out, the unit will no longer be able to move. So you will spend your precious AP trying to position your units in the best way possible, and take out the most targets. Positioning is absolutely vital because after you've finished moving all your troops, the enemy gets to do the same in return. So an out of position troop could get out maneuvered and targeted by several enemy units, and die because it was too far isolated, or unable to receive supporting fire from your nearby troops due to a bad location. Surveying the terrain and deciding which unit is best placed where will work to your advantage. You have: Scouts who are able to move very far, but are weak and lacking fire power. Shocktroopers who have less movement but more damage. Lancers who are slow, but can take hits and deal chunks of damage to tanks. Snipers who are also limited in movement, but have long range and can nitpick targets from towers. You also have tanks which are devastating to infantry and can knock down walls, but can't roll over certain terrain and have restricted controls. Engineers who can repair damage, barricades, disarm traps and replenish ammunition. These are just a few of the units mentioned. Although the system is turn based, it does require a lot of forethought in what you do with your turn. The bad thing about the third person camera viewpoint is that even what should be dead accurate shots can miss, due to the awkward angles it can sometimes present the character in. I personally really like the tactical elements behind this – especially as wrong mistakes will punish you in permanent unit death, like Fire Emblem. That's right. Start resetting those levels every time you lose someone you like. (Unless you play with a heart of iron and accept each unit death that occurs.) I don't have a heart of iron. So resets did indeed occur. :( Graphics wise, I love the animations. Cel shaded games can be a bit hit and miss in my opinion, but this one has beautiful artwork, smooth and polished graphics with watercolour style backgrounds, with enough detail to keep you moving along. Although they're not stunning, they're well presented. I find the music of the game great. There are sad melodic piano tracks, uplifting battle themes and tense tunes in moments of great strife. I loved sitting around and listening to certain tracks loop, because they were so well crafted. The voice acting isn't particularly memorable in my opinion, but bearable and good enough for what we're presented with. You have the option (At least on my U.K version) to have it both with the English voice actors or the Japanese voice actors. I actually did it with the Japanese voice actors. Honestly, I loved this game. I would happily recommend it to anyone that I could, especially as it combines the best of both worlds – a strong story, characters you become attached to, and an innovative battle system that will have you planning out your moves as best as you can, sometimes with the odds horrifically stacked against you. Definitely get. Like, seriously. What are you waiting for? Want moar? [url=http://steamproxy.net/groups/jigglesandgiggles]Click here to join my steam group[/url] and [url=http://steamproxy.net/groups/jigglesandgiggles#curation]Click here to follow my curator page![/url]