Despite its very slow-to-start storyline, this tactical RPG has an amazing graphical style and an awesome battle system.
The Bad: Some spotty voice acting; lip-syncing is broken; cheesy anime is not my style; AI is pretty stupid
The Ugly: Story (even disregarding anime qualities) is literally laughable for about the first half of the game
Valkyria Chronicles was recommended to me by two of my friends who found its battle system very solid, to say the least, and after completing it, I can wholeheartedly agree. And that's going to be the main draw for most gamers interested in this title. While the games features a fresh art style, a great musical score to accompany it, and a solid battle system, frankly, the cliche, immature story takes way too long to get interesting.
The graphical style of Valkyria Chronicles will be what will initially impress you off the bat. The game's textures feel very "drawn," and the resulting shimmer effect is very soothing and pleasant to view. Visuals are bright, and although you won't see huge variety in locales throughout the course of this near 20 hour experience, the unique style which is used in crafting these environments never seems to feel recycled. Because of the art style, also, the game's technical graphics are not really worth mentioning; they don't particularly stand out, mainly because they don't need to. This is clearly not the focus of the game, and it works best this way. Animations are clear cut and mostly well executed, but always keep in mind that this basically anime. The movie scenes look spectacular if you're into the flashy only-happen-in-your-wildest-fantasies action sequences, but these high production videos are more often than not interrupted by incredibly lame slideshow conversation scenes between characters. I wish I could say more about the shine of the full scale cutscenes, but I have trouble getting around the dominating blots that are these supremely disappointing in-between dialogues. They are especially distracting in the latter half of the game, when the story has moved into its "decent" stage, but before that, I had an excruciating time forcing myself to even skim through them.
The gameplay will be one of the key points with which you will find yourself consumed throughout the course of this game, and like any quality SRPG, it will be very enjoyable to experience most of the time. It functions surprisingly similarly to a tabletop RPG such as Warhammer 40k: after forming your squad (generally around ten characters), your men are deployed onto one of many battlefield scenarios. You will be pitted against any number of enemies anywhere from your standard shocktrooper to giant tanks a hundred times your size! Your objectives also vary, but not to the same degree; most of the time you will be charged with defeating a key enemy or capturing the enemy's main base. What really makes these battles unique are the nearly endless possibilities that arise from the combinations of members in your deployment at the onset of that particular battle. There are of course recommended setups and strategies that are graded based on the speed of completion and rewarded with experience and money, but this is left completely up to the player to discover. An immense amount of intra-squad coordination and planning are required to achieve a good score at the closing of each battle. Each character is assigned a varying distance they can move with each Command Point (how many actions you can perform in a turn), and this is determined by that character's class and that class's level. Yes, that's right, one of my favorite concepts from this game is the universal class level up system. Leveling up is a one time deal for all units of that class, meaning you won't be limited to using the same characters for every battle or grind to get new squad members up to par with veterans. Great concept. Simple design. Applause.
The game takes place over 18 episodes that are arranged in chapter format, like reading a book. Each episode will be composed of noninteractive preset cutscenes or dialogues and one or two interactive battle encounters. Also available from the book mode are multiple other sometimes-useful tabs like Weaponry and Personnel. But by far the most useful non-campaign mode is the Headquarters, where you can level up your classes, upgrade your weapons and tanks, choose the members of your squad and their equipment, among other things. Especially once your characters become very powerful toward the end of the game, dividing up unique equipment and configuring your squad will be a blast. And seeing all of these little features come together on the battlefield and make a much bigger difference is very rewarding in the end. However, it is somewhat disheartening that the AI isn't more intelligent, although in retrospect, the game might nearly be impossible to achieve high grades in (much less win) if the AI behaved like a regular tabletop RPGer.
The music is one of the game's dark horse singularly all-around awesome elements, continually impressing from beginning to end. Its stirring score and excellently paced moods are easily one of the most impressive aspects to the game. The sound effects are average but well-fitting. The voice acting could have been better, but it's not all bad, just keep in mind it is essentially anime. The lip-syncing, on the other hand, is all-around bad; in fact, I would normally be hesitant to just say it wasn't synced for Japan and dubbed in English, save for a few singular (and I mean singular) lines that do match the mouth's movements. The presentation is further blemished by the almost consistently, disgracefully cheesy scriptwriting. Honestly, this is simply another contributing factor to my dislike of anime, but it is simultaneously the cause of the blatant laughableness of the dialogue scenes (and even some movie sequences).
And what obvious aspect in a game suffers the most from bad writing? The story, of course. The plot line to Valkyria Chronicles actually wouldn't be half bad... If the first ten hours to it were truncated. There might have been about 15 minutes total from this first half that I would not have been embarrassed to listen to with someone else in the room with me. Nevertheless, we're introduced to an incredibly typical protagonist, Welkin, who (despite being on the verge of homosexual at first impression) likes to study insects and draw in his journal (and, yes, it's been over ten years since I've used the words "his" and "journal" together). Subsequently, we're introduced to our initially very flat second protagonist, Alicia, who will inevitably fall in love in the midst of her suspiciously FFX-esque character development (needless to say it doesn't make near as much of an impact; it doesn't even really pan out). A few other characters are introduced shortly after, and their backgrounds and personalities are equally as dull. There is of course a little bit of tension between a few characters, but it's also very unoriginal. The best way to describe the story in Valkyria Chronicles is utterly predictable. In fact, I was able to predict the majority of the plot twists in the game, and trust me, I didn't spend hours dwelling on what I had just seen -- I might have done the opposite. The fact of the matter is that the story is so uninventive that I self-threatened to stop early and call it quits. Thankfully, though, it does become at least bearable after you reach about the midway point, even though it's still no high production layer cake. The conclusion is also fitting, it expectedly being a very standard good vs. evil approach to a finale.
Graphics: 9/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Story: 6.5/10
Sound: 8.5/10
Presentation: 7/10
Value: 8/10
Tilt: 8.5/10
Overall Impression: 8.0/10
You can plainly see that I was very displeased with the story and delivery of this RPG, but casting these flaws aside, you will find a strategically solid and beautifully designed (in both audio and video) role-playing title. It is a fresh take on two genres that have been ground into our minds since the dawn of the modern video game. And past the flashy anime, gamers will find a robust tabletop RPG for their Playstation 3, an innovative art direction, and a moving musical soundtrack all in one. It is, quite simply put, disappointing that the story couldn't live up to the bar that the rest of the game set.