Sega recently released Valkyria Chronicles in Europe, and I just got my own Playstation 3 to use for capturing - how fitting! We put up tons of videos from the Japanese version of the game, but this game certainly need more spotlight - so here's the First 10 Minutes with English voices. With more to come tomorrow!
Update: Part 2 added.
What makes this game stand out is the interesting art och graphical style it uses. It looks like a painting, and it really looks fantastic.
The game itself is a mix of realism and fantasy. The war equipment is fitting to World War 2, but the world itself has nothing to do with ours. Basically the East invades the West for minerals, and the Empire (East) has stormed in to Welkin's country and his small home town. Welkin is the main character, son of a general and war legend.
The game is built around battles where you control several characters. A battle consists of phases (rounds) and you have Command Points to use in each phase. With one CP, you can move around with one character as long as the gauge isn't emptied, and you also have one combat opportunity to use with this. You can save up moves to use at a later phase, giving you the opportunity to attack several times with one character in the same phase.
Using your weapon doesn't end your CP spell, you can use the last bit in the gauge to find cover. When you're out of CP or if you want to save them for the next phase, you simply end it and let the enemy do his round. When it's back to you, you have a bunch of extra CP's. It's a great system!
I was surprised to see how realistic the cut-scenes look, knowing that the developers use a special graphical style. But don't judge the game from it's "cute" art - expect to see people getting shot down and killed. The cut-scenes can be pretty funny, and it's easy to like the characters. There are a lots of short interesting cut-scenes, often several between each mission.
I'll spend more time with the game and for now, since it's late, I'll only upload one video with more prepared for tomorrow. There's tons of cut-scenes in the game, so I had to remove one part in the first video. This is where you enter the town, and get arrested for suspicion of spying for the Empire. The cut-scene in our video after the big introduction, is the third one and starts up right after where you are arrested.
All comments (13)
Nice write up, btw.
anywayz, game looks creative enough.
And I am not an experience JRPG/SRPG player.
It's just a lot of fun, and really Like you said broman, I wish there was more quality put out like this.
The mission layouts are very stiff.
The same about the rating system which is based only on how many turns you need to accomplish the main objective of a mission. I find it kind of hard to beat the later missions on my own in the first attempt in a turn quantity that brings you an acceptable rating which makes it even frustrating as I don’t get that much bonus credits or xp and the bonuses are the major part of your rewards…
I don’t like replaying missions over and over again just to get better ratings by sorting it out with trial and error. I usually don’t care about ratings. If I beat a mission then it’s okay for me but in this game without a good rating you are fucked. You don’t have money to develop new tank parts or weapons and you don’t have exp to train your soldiers which makes beating later missions even harder unless you grind it off in skirmish missions which is replaying missions again.
A guide let you beat any mission in less than 5 turns pilling tons of credits and xp but that could hardly called playing the game.
The cover system is simply flawed. Any unit crouching behind sandbags gets a cover bonus regardless from which direction it is attacked. That makes flanking hiding enemies completely futile as covered units need a shit load of hits to be defeated. The only way is to blow up the cover undoing their defense bonus.
While enemies are always quick to shot at you while you are in the action mode your own units are fucking lame in doing the same. Even worse an enemy unit started shooting at you is allowed to finish this attack even if you entered aiming mode. Your own units attack however is cancelled the very moment the enemies starts an attack.
The weapon upgrades are strait forward and therefore shallow as a puddle offering not much verity, the same about the level system.
The “Tales of” like skit face dialogs are tiresome as you need to confirm every single sentence. The conversations are sometimes hard to bear and I even like animes.
The game sometimes tries to give the empire a human touch but generally it fails miserably and simply displays them as the inhuman villain you need to defeat in order to rescue your country from dictatorship.
The subtitles often differ from the Japanese voices when it comes to short sentences.
On the other hand the cutscenes are nicely done, the Japanese voices are okay, the tank upgrades allows your own combinations, the art style is unique and beautiful, the story is predictable but solid and keeps you going.
Well I’m not thru it yet (Mission 14 of 18 atm) but I have mixed feelings about this game. Consider that I’m not too good with SRPGs.
anywayz, game looks creative enough.
I'm still a little unsure on this game. I mean I enjoyed Final Fantasy tactics well enough, just wish these types of games would have some sort of overworld mode to add a little variety.
Please buy this game and support this kind of awesomeness!
Every mission is unique and has it's share of difficulty and twists and turns, you start the battle with one objective, and in the middle of the battle the objective changes, or an unexpected element appears and forces you to rethink all your strategy and adapt to the new situation.
And to top it all the story is very good... and I mean very good !