An Unbiased Review: Valkyria Chronicles - Good, but is it worth it?
There is nothing you need to truly know before reading, so let's get down to the review.
First off the story is quite interesting, I'll admit that it pulls out quite a few turns and twists to the story, but all in all you are severely outnumbered, and overpowered by a vast Empire that can always throw an even deadlier and stronger weapon at you than the last weapon they threw at you, and that gets old really quick. Plus, add in the fact of an ancient race with near mystic abilities via a "bloodline" and the perfection of the mysterious energy known as "ragnite" (which is never fully dived into and thus just used as an explanation of "why things work") and you've got yourself an interesting story... but is it good?
Well the story is undoubtedly interesting as I stated earlier, but coupled with the game-play itself, there is truly no essential DRIVE to continue playing or to unveil the final secrets of the mystery.
Second, is the gameplay, and it is an interesting style to give commands to soldiers and then send them out while trying to defeat larger forces than yours and somehow succeeding... but it gets old fast, especially when the vast numbers defeat you at most turns, or some special mission or boss-mission is just overdone and poorly balanced and incredibly repetitive... like most missions.
There's even a mission with a girl-boss who has a chain-gun sniper rifle who shoots everyone the entire game and even when you get to her, due to the dodge mechanic, avoid mechanic and her healing and overdone life despite a tank round firing into her, she can kill most of your guys if you don't perform a special technique to kill her.
In terms of difficulty the game is not wisely designed, as many things are imbalanced, and as such the desire to continue playing was testing with me at least 5 times, and that isn't a good thing seeing as how I am generally very generous in terms of playing games, and I rarely want to stop playing them if they have a moderately interesting story.
Third, the realism of said story is an issue. As I stated earlier the enemy will keep sending even larger gigantic fortresses, weapons, and vehicles at you that are all referred to as the top pinnacle of their technology, and obviously ahead of their time, based on the timeline and research data you get for everything you fight against and how the world has worked before these events. I think what blew it over the top was that they somehow made a man-made "INTENSELY PLOT-BASED WEAPON" after they had designed all their other weapons and technologies, but they never used and instead focused all their efforts on getting the "INTENSELY PLOT-BASED WEAPON" that you had, or you wanted.
Obviously if they had all these technologies and weapons, they could have won easily if they had used them before the player's forces had become experienced and upgraded... but no, they didn't, and that destroys some of the immersion of the game (what little it had) as well as making it hard to believe that they had all these weapons in the first place.
Some parts of the levels are just redo's of previous levels, and some are obviously thrown in at the last second and that does not speak well for a game of this style.
Finally, the last parts of this game include that the story is actually memorable if you go through to the end (which is hard based on difficulty and repetition) and it is a well designed cast of characters, each with uniquely designed plots and stories, and although some may be considered over the top, they are still emotional and touching. In addition to this there is an interesting medal and trophy system that is both fun and tiresome, while there is also the ability to upgrade, enhance, and learn new skills for all your characters and vehicles and weapons, which is also a nice add-on, but does get tedious eventually. Lastly, there is a journal type mission selector which based on choices in the game and logs you can buy from a reporter, will also include special bonus missions that will reveal more details about the characters and the world itself, which is helpful in the backstory department.
Conclusion:
While it is a good story with a well designed selection of characters, the drive to finish it is not always there, and several very repetitive, tedious, and incredibly annoying missions exist that will test your patience and may make you drop the game, and while the story itself doesn't really contain a lot of realism based on the information and technological capabilities of the empire's and nations themselves, it still is an interesting plot.
I'd say to try it... but don't expect this JRPG to be "all that", as it will appeal to very few, despite its current rarity.
Sidenote:
I find that there are no good PS3 rpgs... and Playstation has always been known as the RPG center in its lifetime, but now the 360 is taking that mantle... and it hurts me... as I really want to play some good graphically intense non ported rpgs on the PS3, since that is why I bought it... a pity.
- Cere.
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