When I first read about this game I got really excited, first because strategy games are definitely my favorite genre and second the art of the game looked very impressive, almost like a moving canvas.
The first thing that you will notice is that the game has a fantastic visual. It looks amazing. The chapters are thoughtfully organized in the pages of a diary where you can browse through the story and progressively unlock new chapters and some complementary narratives like side stories. The menus are presented as tabs of the book when you press the triangle button to call the Menu you'll be presented with with a tab containing the menu with it's options. The Menu which you will use the most is the "Tab Select" that contains the option Headquarters and Skirmishes that are the two most important thingson this menu because it is there that you are able to upgrade your personnel and earn exp. point, respectively.
Keeping the book theme aesthetic the whole game looks like a canvas in motion. The scenarios are most of the time very convincent and they do a a good job setting the feeling of a 1930's fictional Europe at war. The characters follow a japanese manga style and although I have nothing against these particular drawing style I have to say that sometimes the scenarios looks better than than characters itself.
It is not only the japanese manga aesthetic that the characters hold, they are also the japanese stereotype of characters. For example Welkins is the main charcater who doesn't like the war but is dragged in this whole situation and proves to be a brilliant and brave hero who fights for his beloved friends but still have a human side and is a easily distracted guy, you also have Selvaria a super serious and loyal soldier who fights only for the sake of her master. It is difficult to overlook all these anime/manga clichê in a game that focus so much in it's story and unless you are a real fan of all these anime/manga niche you'll probably be disappointed and sometimes annoyed with the characters.
As already said before one of the most important aspect of this kind of game is the story. This is a delicate part to review and I intend to keep the spoiler free road so I'll basically leave my impression of the story which is not that good. The story takes a safe course and it won't surprise you at all there are few turning points but nothing really interesting and sometimes the plot looks very silly. A winged pig also does not contribute to set the seious mood that a war game should have. There are several moments when the games tries to go through a more comical approach which I have to say is completely pointless and the way they picture it is something absolutely illogical when you put it in a war context. Although it is also fair to say that the game tries to touch delicate subjects as racial termination and discrimination.
As you might have already heard the gameplay in Valkyria Chronicles it is quite unique it consist on a superior view of the map where yours and also the enemy's troops are represented by colored buttons which once selected will shift to a third person view of the character which will have a limited range of movement and one avaiable action that ranges from heal to attack. It is a very interesting gameplay scheme and it works very well but unfortunately some games mechanics are broken and they end up ruining the fun of the game. The first problem is the fact that you can save and load your game in the middle of a battle, that doesn't look like a real problem for most part of the gamers but anyone who already played a turn based game knows that this ruins the game difficulty because it allows you to cheat, you can save every time before an attack so you will never miss, you'll just have reload until you get a critical or make an impossible hit. The second and the biggest problem for me it is the rating system, the rating system scores your performance taking on account solely the number of turns spent to clear the stage. Yes, it is a pretty dumb system because that means that it doesn't matter if you let all your squad members die or if you killed or not your enemies it is not even a matter of time because you can take your time as much as you want, you just have to make it in fewer turns as possible. This kind of mechanic is ridiculous, I got the highest rank on almost every mission because I didn't care if my troops were dead, I knew that I could complete the mission fast enough so it wouldn't be necessary to rescue them because they would be back in the next chapter as long as they didn't stayed down for more than 3 turns. There are more problems in the game mechanic like infinite amount of time to aim at your opponent, lack of sensibility of the left stick, taking lots of head shots to take down an enemy and not being damaged by being rolled over by a tank but these are minor problems when you compare to the score system.
The sound in the game is good. The soundtrack is decent but easily forgettable.
The sound effects are very simple but get the job done. The voice acting is very well executed giving life to each character although by the end of the game you will get pretty bored of hearing the characters talking over and over again the same thing.
Valkyria Chronicles is a game that had lots of potential but because of a poor game mechanic and inconsistent story, turned out to be a frustrating experience.