So is Valkyria Chronicles good?

[happyninja42]

So I've been seeing the random Let's Play live stream blips of the Escapist staff playing Valkyria Chronicles, and I gotta say, it looks pretty interesting. I haven't actually watched them play as I am usually at work when they are live streaming it, so I'm too busy, but the few moments of footage I see looks like it's pretty cool.

Disclaimer:

I'm not a huge anime/manga JRPG fan. I don't hate the genre or anything, but I also don't actively seek anything out in it the market either. I watch my share of anime from time to time, when they look interesting, but I haven't played a JRPG, or any other Japanese/Anime inspired game since probably FF 12.

So would you say the game is worth getting?

 

[Rylot]

Do you like squad, turn based strategy games set in WWII Europe with some JRPG ascetics? I only played the game over Christmas on a cousin's playstation so I never beat it, but I did enjoy the first dozen or so missions. It's like a mix between Brother's in Arms and Fire Emblem. I do have to say that it starts off more BiA and shifts more FE as the game progresses. That was one thing I didn't like, it started off with troopers, snipers, and tanks and then started adding magical girls with swords who could take out said tanks. If any of that is appealing, you'll like it.

Off-topic- Wow, I joined this site only a day after you! I've never seen someone so close to my join date, funny.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The gameplay is quite good, and unlike any JRPG out there.

The story however is the most anime that has ever animed -- There's a frikkin' Pokemon-esque mascotte and everything. So if your tolerance for thick, cheesy anime tropes and dialoge is low, best give this a pass.

 

[happyninja42]

Do you like squad, turn based strategy games set in WWII Europe with some JRPG ascetics? I only played the game over Christmas on a cousin's playstation so I never beat it, but I did enjoy the first dozen or so missions. It's like a mix between Brother's in Arms and Fire Emblem. I do have to say that it starts off more BiA and shifts more FE as the game progresses. That was one thing I didn't like, it started off with troopers, snipers, and tanks and then started adding magical girls with swords who could take out said tanks. If any of that is appealing, you'll like it.

Off-topic- Wow, I joined this site only a day after you! I've never seen someone so close to my join date, funny.

Never played either of those games, so I have no point of reference. As for the turned based strategy stuff, it's not my primary game genre of choice, but I dip my toes into it from time to time and find it fun. From the footage I saw, it seems like you do have some amount of free control? Like you switch from tactical, to direct control, and you can line up sniper shots and stuff. Is the sniper shot result based on pre-set stats? Or is it based on your ability to actually aim well?

As for the date of joining thing. HAH! You whipper snapper! Get out of here with your newb status as a forumite! Old timers like MYSELF have got ALL the knowledge on you!! ....isn't that how you young kids talk these days? I think that sounded hip...yeah, we'll go with that.

The gameplay is quite good, and unlike any JRPG out there.

The story however is the most anime that has ever animed -- There's a frikkin' Pokemon-esque mascotte and everything. So if your tolerance for thick, cheesy anime tropes and dialoge is low, best give this a pass.

Eh, it depends really. I mean are we talking about Oan Host Club anime tropes and dialogue? Or Attack on Titan anime tropes and dialogue? I might be able to stomach it, if I'm going in, pre-armored against the sacrine kawaii-ness of it all.

 

[Zhukov]

Not in my opinion.

The attempt to blend real-time and turn-based elements, while not terrible, is awkward at best.

Being able to give single units multiple turns in a row takes a great deal of the strategy out of it. Did your sniper just miss an important shot? No problem, just give them another turn and take the shot again. And again. And again.

The cutscene/gameplay ratio is horrible. You'll be slogging through a lot of painful anime dialogue to get to the actual levels.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

So would you say the game is worth getting?

Yes*

It's very much it's own thing. I can quite safely say that in thirty years of gaming I never played anything remotely like it before. That may be due to a lack of exposure to console gaming...the game might bear a passing resemblance to some of the Japanese flavored tactical titles that peppered those platforms. On PC there really isn't a comfortable comparable. I'd heard it compared to XCOM/Jagged Alliance, and that seems to be a comparison born of desperation more than anything. At best it does gross disservice to fans of both those two titles AND Valkyria Chronicles, as the games have little more than extreme superficial qualities in common.

I'll say that the gameplay is more of a "puzzle" than a true sandbox tactics experience, where there is a Right Way to proceed through the challenge in front of you, and after you become accustomed to the game's irregularities it is usually readily apparent what that right way is. This makes the game uncommonly vulnerable to cheesing, and also punishing of experimentation or creativity. These can be viewed as demerits. But it is also a reasonably bracing challenge at times, and the gameplay is atypical enough to feel fresh for the duration of the campaign.

There's also the question of the anime storyline, which is absolutely twee nonsense. If your tolerance level for twee nonsense is high, you might even enjoy it. I fully enjoyed it, but then I was expecting a dusty WW2 game, so discovering gloriously twee nonsense in its place was actually rather refreshing. Others, like our good friend Mr. Zhukov, will find it utterly intolerable from the first breathless exclamation.

Did your sniper just miss an important shot? No problem, just give them another turn and take the shot again. And again. And again.

Yes and no. You're limited by command points and ammunition, which is three for snipers, unless you want to burn another command point to reload them with an engineer. I found burning so much as a single command point on a miss could be potentially catastrophic, particularly if one's aim is gold completion. The game is actually ludicrously unforgiving at higher levels.

Which I suppose is another demerit, since it lends itself to heavy duty save scumming. I wouldn't even want to try playing it in Iron Man fashion.

 

[Rylot]

Never played either of those games, so I have no point of reference. As for the turned based strategy stuff, it's not my primary game genre of choice, but I dip my toes into it from time to time and find it fun. From the footage I saw, it seems like you do have some amount of free control? Like you switch from tactical, to direct control, and you can line up sniper shots and stuff. Is the sniper shot result based on pre-set stats? Or is it based on your ability to actually aim well?

Oh, balls. It's been a while but I think it's a combination of stats that you level up and manual aim, but I might be wrong. You do get to control each unit. You get a certain amount of movement per turn and can use it however you want. Scouts can move more than tanks and more often as well. Cover is very important, as is terrain. You move all of your guys and then your enemy moves all of their guys.

Each level is a battle field and each level is broken up by snippets back at base. The scenes are done in an anime style but I don't remember it getting too anime. I think you might be able to skip most of it. It does add bonuses and game play stuff if you go through all the vignettes with each squad member but it's not super important.

 

[happyninja42]

Hmm, I might get it for my wife then. If the dialogue is very much "highschool anime" -esque stuff, then I might have to eat my own entrails as a form of self defense. My wife however will probably find it absolutely delicious. xD But she's crazy like that.

 

[Zhukov]

There's also the question of the anime storyline, which is absolutely twee nonsense. If your tolerance level for twee nonsense is high, you might even enjoy it. I fully enjoyed it, but then I was expecting a dusty WW2 game, so discovering gloriously twee nonsense in its place was actually rather refreshing. Others, like our good friend Mr. Zhukov, will find it utterly intolerable from the first breathless exclamation.

Hey, that's not true!

I was going okay until the fucking winged pig showed up.

I kept imagining the voice actors drawing straws to decide who would do the "oink" noises.

 

[happyninja42]

There's also the question of the anime storyline, which is absolutely twee nonsense. If your tolerance level for twee nonsense is high, you might even enjoy it. I fully enjoyed it, but then I was expecting a dusty WW2 game, so discovering gloriously twee nonsense in its place was actually rather refreshing. Others, like our good friend Mr. Zhukov, will find it utterly intolerable from the first breathless exclamation.

Hey, that's not true!

I was going okay until the fucking winged pig showed up.

Was it, Flying Pig?!

 

[tilmoph]

It's definitely worth getting for the gameplay. The teeny-boper high school horseshit is heaviest at the start, and mellows the hell out later. Still no skip cutscene option, though. The difficulty likes to spike like an asshole at random points, but it averages out well. The co,bat system is fun balance of turn based tactics and real time movement, which adds a depth to defensive positioning (think overwatch from XCOM EU, but automatic) and selecting movement routes. each unit is an actual character with different abilities, some static, some triggered. The orders system is a cool idea, letting you trade in battle actions for a variety of bonuses. Lastly, Jane and Catherine are pure win and awesome. Neither get any cutscene time, but both are freaking sweet with fun backstories and battle quotes. Plus, when Jane's Sadist ability triggers, she basically has a low-level orgasm while machine gunning Russo-Nazis in the face for bonus damage. Yup, chick's orgasm makes her bullets murder better. Again, pure awesome.

The upgrade system for the character equipment is purely linear at the start, and only opens up later down the tree, letting you pick one of three specialized versions of the base weapon. The tree only unlocks via story missions. The Tank upgrading is more flexible, but has the same story lock upgrade restriction. lastly, the main tank you get is fun to play with, and can be used for for some fun strategies, but, at least on PC, it will occasionally get stuck on a random twig, so it'll a take a but to get used to handling the thing. Or just don't bother and let the infantry slaughter all that stands before them.

Overall, definitely worth a buy, since it peaks at $20, dunno how often it goes on sale, but it's beyond worth the $20 anyway.

I was going okay until the fucking winged pig showed up.

Oh god that pig was goddamn stupid . "MOOOINK!" FUCK YOU WHY AREN'T YOU BACON!?

 

[scotth266]

Snip.

If you enjoy most anime, and enjoy trial-and-error based games, you'll like Valkyria Chronicles. But if you have problems with running missions repeatedly to figure out the best way to do them, you're gonna have a bad time. This is a game that likes to pull the Fire Emblem tactic of "OH HEY GUESS WHAT FUCK YOU" by spawning a bunch of dudes in a location halfway through a mission, all of whom are perfectly positioned to flank you.

Additionally the "right" strategy for S-ranks is often counter-intuitive, like having one or two of your 10-man group blitz an objective while completely ignoring 3/4 of the enemy units. And some knowledge (like tossing grenades into the vents of the first mega-tank, which have been fairly useless up till that point) is so roundabout you'll only learn it out of frustration and looking it up. I personally ragequit because I loathe trial-and-error, but I can see why it got so popular.

 

[happyninja42]

Snip.

If you enjoy most anime, and enjoy trial-and-error based games, you'll like Valkyria Chronicles. But if you have problems with running missions repeatedly to figure out the best way to do them, you're gonna have a bad time. This is a game that likes to pull the Fire Emblem tactic of "OH HEY GUESS WHAT FUCK YOU" by spawning a bunch of dudes in a location halfway through a mission, all of whom are perfectly positioned to flank you.

Additionally the "right" strategy for S-ranks is often counter-intuitive, like having one or two of your 10-man group blitz an objective while completely ignoring 3/4 of the enemy units. And some knowledge (like tossing grenades into the vents of the first mega-tank, which have been fairly useless up till that point) is so roundabout you'll only learn it out of frustration and looking it up. I personally ragequit because I loathe trial-and-error, but I can see why it got so popular.

I don't mind trial and error stuff, as I really enjoy games like XCOM and Shadowrun Dragonfall. So having to strategize is perfectly fine with me. The anime stuff is probably my biggest hangup, but, like I said before, my wife loves that shit, so I might just buy it for her and watch. Thanks everyone for the input.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Its on my list of "best games ever that nobody else played". Or at least hardly anybody else played. I bought it upon release for the PS3 many moons ago and it remains one of my favourite games of all time. Was very pleased to see the Steam release bringing more people to it. There really is very little else truly like it out there.

I'd say go for it.

 

[Rayce Archer]

It's a very good looking game that was ported to PC quite adroitly, if that's where you want to play it. The voicework is quite good, and the music is inoffensive and forgettable.

The actual tactics in play are rather shallow- don't end your turn in front of stuff that can murder you, use the right weapons and attacks for the right targets, etc. Tanks and infantry with explosives can destroy a lot of obstacles for sneak-attack purposes. People who say that just scouts can win a battle single-handed are exaggerating a bit, but a lot of battles CAN be overcome just by rushing objectives. A lot of mechanics, like capturing enemy bases, seem kind of afterthought-ey- rushing down a camp usually doesn't matter much in the long term. Units also heal quite a bit between turns which sort of artificially slows down the action.

I didn't find the cutscenes irritating, and no character is particularly grating- the hero isn't a pouty asshole, the heroine isn't a horrid tsundere waifu, and the rest of the cast can be safely ignored.

Long and short: it's pretty, entertaining, and fun in a casual kind of way, but hardcore tactical stuff like Frozen Synapse or Jagged Alliance or Fallout Tactics make a mockery of it gameplay wise, and Mount and Blade makes it look like a kids' game. It's absolutely worth its dirt cheap price, though.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

The gameplay is quite good, and unlike any JRPG out there.

The story however is the most anime that has ever animed -- There's a frikkin' Pokemon-esque mascotte and everything. So if your tolerance for thick, cheesy anime tropes and dialoge is low, best give this a pass.

Pretty much this.

The game itself is pretty damn good; an intriguing mix of third-person action and strategy. The problem is that the cheesy, stereotypical anime-style story always finds a way to annoy me. To the game's credit, though, the game itself was good enough that I got most of the way through it before finally getting fed up with the storyline. Which says a lot.

Gorgeous artwork and good gameplay can only go so far, however.

 

[AT God]

My question about the game: is it like Advanced Wars? I have been considering getting the game for a while, I usually avoid JRPG games but from a brief moment of gameplay I saw (Which spoiled a character death because of YouTubers), it looked a lot like Advanced War's turn based style combat, albeit with some significant changes since its 3D and stuff. And looking at info like how the game grades you, it seems to have a similar scoring system.

Extra question: how rough is getting all of the achievements for it (sadly at this point and time, this sort of shit factors into my purchasing decisions)? I love Advanced Wars games but I am not very good at them, I barely beat AW1, Dual Strike, and Days of Ruin on normal difficulty. Still haven't beaten Black Hole Rising at all. Oh and if I got it, it would be the PC/Steam version, I don't have any consoles.

 

[BlackBark]

As others have states, it has great graphics and reasonable gameplay. It reminds me more of Worms or Hogs of War, not like a jrpg battle system at all.

I thought the game was really let down by the story and characters. I couldn't bring myself to finish it...the story was just too ridiculous and I thought the writing was really bad. It is a shame, because the premise and setting was interesting to begin with.

 

[Mutant1988]

Yes.

Very, very good. Absolutely beautiful game with novel and well done gameplay mechanics, a likeable cast and a fantastic world. There's really nothing else like Valkyria Chronicles and I'm sad that SEGA denied us the chance to play the third game in English.

A revival of the franchise for home consoles and PC would be amazing and would get all my moneys.

 

[Erttheking]

It didn't leave a very good impression on me. The gameplay is pretty clunky, it feels like it tried to combine X-COM with Gears of War and got the worst of both worlds. Also the story...look I've been in enough arguments over this, so let me just say the characters didn't impress me, the story didn't engage me, no one was charming (and I LIKE JRPGs) and I don't think it handled the subject matter of war, racism and genocide with the respect those topics deserve.

I'm in the minority on this but I'm sticking to that point.