Game Discussion of The Week: Valkyria Chronicles

Added and stickied.

Valkyria Chronicles to me felt like a balanced position between Fire Emblem and XCOM: it caught a lot of the best parts of both, but still doesn't seem to be better than those.

I feel that the death mechanic in this game is the best one in any tactical strategy game, but unfortunately the enemy party rarely seems to try to take advantage of it. Turn actions are great, but unfortunately ruled by specific plot-relevant characters. The special units serving the enemy also shouldn't really drop their weapons automatically in the western version. And probably the worst for me is that the campaign doesn't feature difficulty settings.

As a positive, this game continued the trend of "hot warrior lady SpiderShinobi worships but can't play as" that Nintendo had been running in Fire Emblem.

I played the pc version, and it has both of these issues "fixed" by default (they're DLCs on PS3): there is a bonus mission to play as Selvaria and harder difficulty settings for the main campaign, though the mission is short and I think the harder difficulties are only accessed after finishing the game at least once.

What I like the most about it is that it has an interesting setting (World War I) and a nice gameplay system that mixes turn-based strategy and shooters; besides, the story and characters are very well done. The artistic choice for the graphics still stands up nowadays, even though the game is almost a decade old by now, and I wish more games used its "hand-painted" visual style. Sega itself sadly abandoned it (even the newest Valkyria game uses a different style).

As I said in the "What are you playing" thread, the only fault I see in the game is the ranking system: it gives you a better ranking for finishing battles fast, not for doing better on them, so the best strategy is to pick an overpowered scout unit and run towards the objective. It would be much preferable if the ranking also took into account killing all the enemies and preserving your own troops, which was the way I was playing the game as I mostly ignored the ranking system until my New Game+ playthrough. Besides that, I can't point any real flaw to the game.

Completely agree Cervantes.  The art style is a big hook.  It is up there with "Okami" special.  It is just so different that anything for the last generation and even this one.  I actually bought the art book that was release for it, which shows a lot of the concept art from the beginning of the game.  I usually don't care for any of that related to games, but this one struck me. 

The setting isn't WW1 though, it is an re-imagining of World War 2 (if you remember, Welkin's father was an important general in their WW1; developed the Edelwiss in the previous conflict; game starts in 1935 their time).  Gallia can be seen as Finland in 1940; stuck between a hostile Soviet Union and a could be issue Germany (or Allies, considering they were interested in helping the Fins against Soviet aggression, for a time).  Not many games take a chance with a creative alternative history.

The ranking system is the only fault I see, as well.  I can understand it; the whole game leaves subtle hints about wasting life, all life is sacred, etc.  So the game kinda wants you to run through it with a low kill count.  Similar to how Kojima sees Metal Gear (you can go through nearly all of those without killing, if you want).  I would rather have the option of getting a high rank if I destroyed all enemies on screen.  They are invading "your homeland," after all.  You get no points for killing the average foot soldier, only Aces and Tanks (sort of officers).

Playing the new one, Valkyria Revolution... it isn't the same.  It is a lot like the standard JRPG fare:  funny hair, inappropriate costumes (you are wearing THAT in a war?), etc.  That is something that VC is NOT.  I was unable to play 2 and 3 because I don't have a PSP.  I would kill for a re-mastered PS4 release of them though.

3 never made it out of Japan.

It does have a fan translation though, which I really need to get on checking out eventually.