Valkyria Chronicles 4 demo

[Catfood220]

So the demo for Valkyria Chronicles 4 turned up on the PS4 store yesterday, so after struggling with my shit internet to get it download, letting it download overnight, I finally got around to playing it tonight.

I like it. This is one of my most anticipated games this year, Valkyria Chronicles being one of my favourite games of all time. It was the one I was most worried about because of last years Valkyria Revolution which I hate with a fiery passion that I usually reserve for My Chemical Romance singles.

I only played the first couple of chapters, even though it looked like it might go on for longer, but I didn't want to spoil any more of the game for myself. The first thing you'll notice is that is that it plays almost identically to the first game, which is at the same time reassuring and disappointing at the same time. Its good because it means they haven't tried anything drastic like they did with Revolution. But its disappointing because it feels like it hasn't moved forward. But you start playing it and you realise its the good stuff that made the first game so enjoyable. The games painted story book look still looks gorgeous. The new grenadier class unit could be useful and I'm glad they made put an action point on one of the snipers so you have to use her all the time. I think I used the snipers maybe 3 times total in the first game.

So now the bad. The characters don't seem as immediately likable as Welkin and gang, they seem kind of irritating. But I have a feeling that could change by the end of the game, as it seems to be going for a "young people growing up through the trials of war" theme going for it. The fact that tank movement only uses up one action point I think is a bit of a cop out. In the first game, you used 2 if you wanted to use your tank and that was the price you paid for using your big guns to discourage steamrolling everything. Reducing it to one just makes it feel like another unit.

But yeah, looking forward to this now. I hope that the Squad 7 dlc they have tied to the collectors edition will be available on the store to buy. So, has anyone else played the demo? What do you think? Do you actually care? Or will this thread sink like a stone?

 

[Erttheking]

So now the bad. The characters don't seem as immediately likable as Welkin and gang, they seem kind of irritating. But I have a feeling that could change by the end of the game, as it seems to be going for a "young people growing up through the trials of war" theme going for it. The fact that tank movement only uses up one action point I think is a bit of a cop out. In the first game, you used 2 if you wanted to use your tank and that was the price you paid for using your big guns to discourage steamrolling everything. Reducing it to one just makes it feel like another unit.

*Spits over wall*

The writing is WORSE than in the original game? I could barely stand that game! I suppose I really should try out the demo for myself, I have an odd curiosity for the series, but it's never really grabbed me.

 

[SupahEwok]

In regards to the gameplay not evolving: can you still win most maps in 2 turns by rushing a scout to capture the enemy base?

Cuz once I figured that trick out, it kind of ruined the tactical part of 80% of the original game.

If you put that aside, I quite liked snipers in the early and mid game. Would usually bring one or two. Could give them multiple turns to one shot kill enemies that were suppressing your short range units. But by the second half of the game scouts start getting a lot of range and killing potential on their rifles, snipers couldn't move enough to keep up enough with your army, and enemies start getting abilities that give them a free dodge no matter how well you aimed.

 

[Bobular]

Theres a demo!

Downloading now...

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

If you put that aside, I quite liked snipers in the early and mid game. Would usually bring one or two. Could give them multiple turns to one shot kill enemies that were suppressing your short range units. But by the second half of the game scouts start getting a lot of range and killing potential on their rifles, snipers couldn't move enough to keep up enough with your army, and enemies start getting abilities that give them a free dodge no matter how well you aimed.

People like to rag on the Sniper class because it tends to get outshined by the sheer versatility of Scouts in the late game, especially once you unlock the more powerful and accurate rifles, but I'd say the first game's true scrappy is the Engineer.

The only thing they bring to the table is fixing your tanks, but once you learn how to manouvre your tanks to minimize return fire, the chances they'll take too much damage before you finish the mission are pretty much nill. That just leaves the class as a terrible version of the scout. When I replayed the game on PC a year ago, I regularly brought along one sniper. Didn't bring an Engineer once.

 

[ChupathingyX]

People like to rag on the Sniper class because it tends to get outshined by the sheer versatility of Scouts in the late game, especially once you unlock the more powerful and accurate rifles, but I'd say the first game's true scrappy is the Engineer.

The only thing they bring to the table is fixing your tanks, but once you learn how to manouvre your tanks to minimize return fire, the chances they'll take too much damage before you finish the mission are pretty much nill. That just leaves the class as a terrible version of the scout. When I replayed the game on PC a year ago, I regularly brought along one sniper. Didn't bring an Engineer once.

The sequels did a pretty decent job at making both classes more useful. For snipers the increased prevalence of heavy units and bosses made their powerful rifles (especially the later game auto-snipers) incredibly useful and engineers could eventually unlock the ability to revive fallen soldiers on the field (though they still suck in combat).

 

[SupahEwok]

If you put that aside, I quite liked snipers in the early and mid game. Would usually bring one or two. Could give them multiple turns to one shot kill enemies that were suppressing your short range units. But by the second half of the game scouts start getting a lot of range and killing potential on their rifles, snipers couldn't move enough to keep up enough with your army, and enemies start getting abilities that give them a free dodge no matter how well you aimed.

People like to rag on the Sniper class because it tends to get outshined by the sheer versatility of Scouts in the late game, especially once you unlock the more powerful and accurate rifles, but I'd say the first game's true scrappy is the Engineer.

The only thing they bring to the table is fixing your tanks, but once you learn how to manouvre your tanks to minimize return fire, the chances they'll take too much damage before you finish the mission are pretty much nill. That just leaves the class as a terrible version of the scout. When I replayed the game on PC a year ago, I regularly brought along one sniper. Didn't bring an Engineer once.

There's a couple levels where they're useful for disabling mines. And I think they had some sort of bonus to the healing item.

Doesn't really matter. Once you figure out how to use the right Orders, Scout rushing breaks the game compared to anything else.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

*Spits over wall*

The writing is WORSE than in the original game? I could barely stand that game! I suppose I really should try out the demo for myself, I have an odd curiosity for the series, but it's never really grabbed me.

The only character that bugged me was Minerva and that's because she acts like a haughty asshole way too much. Other than that it's fine; it definitely helps that they cut down on the series' habit of getting into syrupy monologues. It could change later (the demo is only three missions) but for now it's fine.

As for the demo, the game is definitely taking from VC1 more than 2 and 3 what with going back to the original classes and far bigger maps. The Grenadier is definitely a game changer what with being able to bombard targets from halfway across the map at the cost of being very fragile and slow to set up their mortars. The game also seems to have balanced things better with making the tank more usable, Scout Rush being more difficult to use, and varying the maps a lot better. It also seems like they're more lenient with grading, thus lowering the efficiency of said Scout Rush or at the very least letting the player just do what they want. Definitely looking forward to it

 

[meiam]

In regards to the gameplay not evolving: can you still win most maps in 2 turns by rushing a scout to capture the enemy base?

Cuz once I figured that trick out, it kind of ruined the tactical part of 80% of the original game.

If you put that aside, I quite liked snipers in the early and mid game. Would usually bring one or two. Could give them multiple turns to one shot kill enemies that were suppressing your short range units. But by the second half of the game scouts start getting a lot of range and killing potential on their rifles, snipers couldn't move enough to keep up enough with your army, and enemies start getting abilities that give them a free dodge no matter how well you aimed.

Yeah that completely ruined the game for me, especially since if you care about rating you have to do this, I can't believe the dev were aware of this and yet did nothing to fix this and in fact incentivised it.

From what I understand most missions in 4 have multiple objectives with a few having mid mission surprise.

 

[Dalisclock]

I played the first game and enjoyed it(though not without flaws), but I've also heard the sequels weren't nearly as good. I'm curious if this game has more of what I liked about the first one (WW2 with an anime twist, not so much the weird anime superhumans the Valkyria are).

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I played the first game and enjoyed it(though not without flaws), but I've also heard the sequels weren't nearly as good. I'm curious if this game has more of what I liked about the first one (WW2 with an anime twist, not so much the weird anime superhumans the Valkyria are).

In terms of gameplay 2 and 3 were arguably better in spite of the PSP's limitations what with the branching class system, more customization options, and great map design. Where VC2 failed was in the writing what with the main character being a complete idiot. VC3 on the other hand was return to form and did some interesting stuff by having it be about a penal unit. Pity VC3 was never released outside Japan

 

[meiam]

I played the first game and enjoyed it(though not without flaws), but I've also heard the sequels weren't nearly as good. I'm curious if this game has more of what I liked about the first one (WW2 with an anime twist, not so much the weird anime superhumans the Valkyria are).

In terms of gameplay 2 and 3 were arguably better in spite of the PSP's limitations what with the branching class system, more customization options, and great map design. Where VC2 failed was in the writing what with the main character being a complete idiot. VC3 on the other hand was return to form and did some interesting stuff by having it be about a penal unit. Pity VC3 was never released outside Japan

Map were worst, instead of one large map you had multiple small one, meaning it really didn't matter what you did in one part of the map, it had no impact on the rest if it (iirc enemy also couldn't cross from one part to another, so rushing was even more effective since enemy literally couldn't pursue). The class were also horribly imbalanced, with more than half being straight up useless compared to the rest and you needed a stupid amount of grinding to switch class (you needed item but those were luck based and non transferable between character, so have fun running the same map a bajillion time)