A suprisingly good game held back by a handful of oversights and buggy AI.
Firstly: the good parts. Valkyria Chronicles uses a unique and impressive graphical style which is immediately and consistently stunning in it's hand drawn appearance. Although the models are for the most part low on detail and the graphics on the whole are somewhat poor, the game manages to stand out. The music in the game is very good; despite a highly limited number of tracks, the soundtrack is never intrusive or irritatingly repetitive. The sound effects, while far from realistic, suit the anime style well; the headshot sound effect is particularly satisfying. From a technical standpoint I have no complaints with Valkyria Chronicles , and was thoroughly impressed by the very original style which it utilised. As for the game itself, my impressions were a bit more varied.
Valkyria Chronicles tells the story of Welkin Gunther and Squad 7 of the Gallian Militia in the Second Europan War. Effectively, it's a World War Two game in a fantasy universe, complete with a not so subtle nod to the holocaust. There's a few major characters with significant roles in the story who are supported by a number of characters who don't appear in the story scenes (but do have personalities and back stories). There are a number of subplots which run throughout the game, with the stand out being about the Valkyrer, an ancient and mysterious race who's decedents are gifted with mysterious powers, which acts to add a fantasy element to the game. Other subplots are less interesting, but most of the characters are good enough to make them entertaining, and as such, the copious story remains engaging and enticing across the 25-30 hour campaign (as well as the purchasable side-chapters)
The game has quite distinct gameplay and story segments, with every chapter consisting of a combination of cut scenes and battles. These segments are organised into a book about the war, which fits well with the drawn aesthetic of the game. However, on several occasions, the plot of a chapter is spoiled by being able to see black and white images of cut scenes to come. While this may seem to be a rather odd complaint or an exercise in nit-picking, on my behalf, it is quite frustrating to have what is already a fairly predictable story ruined on several occasions. This seems to be a major oversight by the developer, and better image selection or a less revealing style of blanking out the images would have easily remedied the problem. All in all, the story is solid and generally entertaining despite being occasionally predictable it was good enough to keep me interested.
Although the graphics and story in Valkyria Chronicles are solid, where the game truly shines is in it's original, addictive and, most importantly, fun gameplay. Valkyria Chronicles uses a combination of turn based strategy with control of individual units in which the game becomes somewhat of a real time shooter. In each mission, a squad is chosen (by the player) consisting of scouts, shock troopers, lancers, engineers and snipers. Scouts are fast and can move large distances in single turns, shock troopers can deal significant damage to infantry and take reduced damage, lancers are anti tank units who are highly resistant to explosive attacks, engineers can repair sand-bags, disable mines and heal tanks and snipers are, well, snipers. Additionally, most missions involve the use and destruction of tanks, which can only easily be taken down by other tanks or lancers. Most missions require a combination of these units, and fortunately units can be changed during the mission. Each turn the player (and the enemy) receives a certain number of Command Points (CP), which can be used to move units, issue orders (which act as buffs for individual units or the all units) or request reinforcements for empty places in the squad roster. Units can be moved more than once, but have a reduced movement distance each time they are used per turn.
While a unit is being moved, they are attacked by units who they are in range of (and aren't snipers or lancers). This does a number of things. Firstly, it encourages careful planning and rapid execution of unit movements and attacks to minimise damage taken. Secondly, it makes the game feel much more dynamic and, finally, it increases the importance of class selection, as scouts, snipers and engineers will die rapidly when being shot at like this. While in this movement phase (at any time) aiming mode can be activated by pressing R1. In aiming mode, enemy units stop attacking and the game becomes more of a turn based combat game, attacks are aimed similarly to a shooter, with an aiming reticule directing the shot(s). Headshots predictably cause a significant damage increase, but can be mitigated by couching in grass or behind sandbags. If a unit attacks an enemy unit directly (not with a grenade or from stray shots) that unit, provided that they are in range and not a sniper or lancer counterattacks with their default weapon. The gameplay of Valkyria Chronicles is, at a mechanics level, very good and extremely enjoyable. It isn't the deepest strategy game ever, but it is one of the more engaging and fun of those I've seen.
Thus far into the review, I have been mostly positive about Valkyria Chronicles. Unfortunately, the greatness which I have described thus far is blemished by a number of problems and oversights which make the game unnecessarily frustrating - often to the point where I was inclined to stop playing. The foremost and most irritating of these frustrations is the absolute lack of any sort of auto-save feature, and the maddeningly rapid failures which some missions can impose. Given that most of the game's scenarios last upwards of an hour and a half, suddenly losing because, for example, you failed to see a lancer in a patch of grass behind your tank (which for some reason, is the only unit which imposes immediate failure upon it's defeat) is downright infuriating. This would not be an issue if the game automatically saved every couple of turns, but rather it leaves it to the player to save their game. I learnt this lesson the hard way on several occasions. A further frustration is the somewhat bizarrely necessary and severely understated mechanic of calling reinforcements. I'll admit that it was partially my fault for overlooking it when the game explains it, but it only becomes necessary to use the function several missions later. It also trivialises the loss of units as provided that they are reached by another unit within 3 turns, they can be quickly brought back into the battle a turn later. This is not a big problem, but it makes the game ridiculously difficult (probably impossible) without reinforcements and far too easy with them. Another issue which has been raised by some players is the over-specificity of the scenarios, and the lack of general strategy which can be developed. While some more standard strategy scenarios could have helped the game somewhat, the upside of variety keeps the game interesting, and strategy comes more from dealing with individual situations than building overarching strategies.
Contributing by far the most to the problems in Valkyria Chronicles is the bone-headedly stupid AI which does things such as move units forward out of cover to check if they can shoot anything several times each turn, turn weak spots towards player units in boss battles (might sound reasonable, but the idea here is meant to be getting behind them) or passing turns completely because there are no player units in line of sight, despite the fact that they are apparently aware that there are 8 just around the corner. Due to AI bugs, two of the three major boss fights in the game are trivialised, and the third is made ridiculously difficult. For non-boss missions, many don't suffer from noticeably bad AI, but they do often do things like attempt to rush shock troopers with snipers (try it, it doesn't work too well) or make bizarre choices of weapons to attack with. Making this worse is the contrasting unreasonably good moves by the AI at certain times such as pulling of ridiculous shots that don't seem to obey accuracy limitations from vast distances with tanks and lancers.
While I do have some reservations about Valkyria Chronicles, my overall experience of the game was of an enjoyable, addictive and original strategy game. It could well have been somewhat of a masterpiece, but it is held back by being unnecessarily frustrating, somewhat buggy and lacking in challenge. If you have a PS3, Valkyria Chronicles is well worth playing; just be prepared to get a little bit frustrated and learn a few lessons about saving your game.
(Review originally from my blog, http://expect-little.blogspot.com/ )