Overall score: 10/10
OK so I never actually did a review of the original PS3 Valkyria Chronicles so I'm just going to do one big overall review. Since there's so much to talk about on this game, I'll break it up into several segments. The game's been out awhile, but since there's a bit of a drought in game releases that generally happen during the summer, this is as good as time as any to get this game if you haven't already.
First off, what is Valkyria Chronicles? It's a squad turn-based tactics/3rd person shooter, set in a world roughly equivalent to late 1930's Earth made by Sega for the PS3 and 4. Wait what? Turn-based 3rd person shooter? How does that work? Well I'll get to that in this first section.
Gameplay:
The game uses Sega's Blitz engine. The game is generally broken up into two sections not too unlike Rome: Total War. One section is where you handle all your squad management, and move the plot along. The second section is for actual battles.
So the first section, the first section's UI is modeled on a large book, with various tabs. I'll just call it Book mode. Here you can move along the story which is viewed though chapters, you can access the Headquarters which is where you do all the management work. Here you can research new infantry weapons, new tank equipment, learn new orders for battle, and train your infantry. Other tabs include a Skirmish tab where you can re-fight several previous battles for more experience and money. There are the Glossary tab where you can learn about the world of Valkyria Chronicles, and the Personnel tab where you can learn about the game's characters.
The second section of the game, is the combat section where the meat of the game is. So the game is kind of broken up in two ways. First, there is the overview map where you see all of your units and all of the enemy units that you have visual on, there is a fog of war of sorts. Here you can individually select units to control. Now where VC differs from something like Final Fantasy Tactics or Vandal Hearts, you don't just select a unit, tell them to go to Point B/Attack Target A/Cast Spell D, you take full control over them, 3rd person shooter style. You have an action meter at the bottom, which decrease with each step you take (naturally, the length depends on the infantry class, a light Scout will have a longer meter than your heavy anti-tank rocket Lancers), and each unit can take one action. Attacking is done in a similar manner though Resident Evil 5, you enter into an over the shoulder aim, where you see your gun crosshair and can aim for a target's body or their head, or you can equip grenades and see the arc path the grenade will travel. Snipers, naturally, have a scope view that you can zoom in. While you're in this aim mode, the action kind of stops, allowing you to take your time without getting killed while being unable to move. Your tanks work in the same manner.
You can see how it all works here:
While generally it all runs smoothly, things can get a little bit wonky here and there. The biggest annoyance being occasionally getting stuck on a sandbag barrier because the game can't tell if you're just running along or want to vault over because of the camera angle. You also lose the ability to look up and down when you're in the grenade target mode, making grenading enemies on a lower plain as you, a bit of blind guess work. The original PS3 version which runs at a lower frame rate, tends to get a little bit choppy during large explosions or when a character is crawling around in tall grass in certain places, though fortunately those place are rare and far between.
As mentioned you have several infantry classes, and they are:
Scout:
This is your typical light infantry/rifleman class. They are fast, got long range and have a long field of vision. But this comes at the expense of low Hit Points. Scouts also have intercept fire, where they'll automatically attack enemy units that come within gun range during the Enemy Turn, they won't use grenades.
Shocktrooper:
They're your machine gun armed heavy infantry class. They're moderately fast, moderately armored, have moderate range, but pack heavy firepower and high HP. They will also intercept fire like the Scouts.
Lancers:
Lancers are your anti-tank rocket troops. Big, slow, short ranged and durable is the way to describe them. They can be armed with anti-tank rockets (largely ineffective against infantry, expect to miss a lot if you attack infantry with them) or anti-infantry mortars, essentially making them human tanks. Being armed with explosives, they do not have intercept fire, and they only carry 3 rockets/mortar shells and no grenades.
Snipers:
Fast, but with low movement range. Heavy firepower, but fragile. Snipers are your long range support, they can one hit kill an infantry target from across the map, but this comes at the expenses of low movement range and low durability. Being armed with bolt-action rifles, they do not have intercept fire. Like the Lancers they carry only 3 rounds, and no grenades.
Engineers:
This class serves a multipurpose role of combat engineer, resupply unit, and field medic. They're about as durable as the Scouts, but has slightly shorter range, and move slightly slower, but they are armed with the same rifles. They can repair tanks and things such as towers and sandbag bunkers. They carry more potent medkits than the other units, and they can reload your Sniper's and Lancer's ammo, and your Scout's and Shocktrooper's grenades. They carry no grenades of their own, but being armed with the Scout's rifles they do have intercept fire.
Tanks.
Then you have your tanks. You start off with one medium main battle tank, then later on you have a light tank added to the squad. The tanks operate much the same way as infantry, but they are generally armed with an anti-tank gun, an anti-infantry mortar, and an anti-infantry machine gun this is capable of intercept fire. The light tank can have the main gun replaced with a large caliber gatling gun, or a flamethrower.
Also individual parts of the tank can be targeted to some extent. The tracks can be destroyed to keep it from moving. The main body can be hit for damage, or the weak point in the back can be hit for critical damage or a one hit kill, if the tank gets flanked by a Lancer or another tank. That's why it's important to keep infantry around the tank.
Leveling up:
This works much differently from FF Tactics. Since you have such a huge roster to chose from, leveling up is done though class training. Combat earns you experience points, that you can then spend on leveling up your different classes. So you can freely change out characters without worrying about losing experience.
While tanks don't level up, you also get money from combat and can spend that on upgrading your tank with various pieces of equipment, from more powerful or accurate guns, heavier armor, or better range.
The maps:
Now the combat maps. The maps are fully three dimensional, by that I mean you can move you infantry to elevated positions like towers, hills or ridge lines. You're not confined to just a flat horizontal plain of movement. Sending scouts up to hills and towers will increase their view and you can see more of the enemy. Or putting a Sniper up on one will let you potentially dominate a field. There are also patches of tall grass where you can crawl down in and hide your infantry in, but on the same token the enemy does the same to you. There are also hazards in the form of anti-infantry and anti-tank mines as well as cannon and machine gun emplacements.
Maps vary from urban combat, to desert terrain with sand storms, to open fields, to to rocky claustrophobic spaces to trench warfare.
The design and art style:
That's about it for the gameplay, now on to the design and art style. The designs in the game draw quite a bit from real world military technology. I had once read that originally this was going to be a WWII game, but got changed somewhere along the way. I don't know if that's true, but it would make sense in regards to the designs.
The Infantry weapons:
Many of the rifles designs, both the semi-auto infantry rifles and the bolt-action sniper rifles take inspiration from real world rifles, like the British Lee Enfield Mk.III, the American M-1 Garand, the Russian Mosin-Nagant/Finnish M39, SVT-40 and SKS, and the German Karabiner 98, Gewehr 43 and even the VG-2 in Imperial designs.
The Gallian-4 semi-automatic standard infantry rifle. You can see the influences from the M-1 Garand in the barrel and gas-tube. The SVT-40 or SKS-45 in the action and sights. The Gewehr 43 in the magazine, and the M39 in the stock.
The Imperial ZM SG 2 bolt action sniper rifles. This rifle takes cues from the Karabiner 98 in the action. The Gewehr 43 in the magazine. The M39 and Mosin-Nagant in the stock.
The machine guns used by the Shocktroopers also take cues from many real world designs. The Gallian designs have influence from the barrels of water and air cooled American Browning M-1917, the German STG-44 and Russian AK-47. While the Imperial designs take cues from the German MP-40 and G-3 and to some extent the American M-16.
The Gallian T-Mag 10 clearly has design influences from the AK-47. The over the barrel gas-tube protruding from the two-piece handguard is clearly from the AK-47. The flat sided receiver also appears to be influenced from the AK-47.
Appropriately enough, the Imperial ZM MP 5 takes it's cues from the AK-47's "nemesis" the M-16. The general silhoutette of the stock and reciver are similar to the M-16, and the barrel shroud is similar to the M-16A2's.
Lastly the Imperial Ruhm is heavily based on the German MG-34.
The only infantry weapons that have no real world parallel in terms of design are the anti-tank rocket lancers. However in terms of function they serve the same role as the American Bazooka and the German Panzerfaust and Panzershrek.
The Gallian Theimer M10 rocket lance.
The tanks:
The Gallian tanks especially take influence from designs used by the Wehrmacht where as the Imperial designs take some cues from American, French, British and Russian designs.
The main tank of the series, the Edelweiss. While it can be upgraded to near beyond recognition, the base model of the tank bears a strong resemblance to the German Panzer V "Panther". Upgrades include a new gun and schurtzen armor.
The second tank the player gets to command is the Shamrock, as slightly modified standard issue Gallian tank. The Shamrock bears a very strong resemblance to the Czech LT vz. 38, better known as the Panzer 38(t). The differences being additional armor plates mounted to the sides of the hull and turret and a larger caliber gun.
The first tank you encounter is the Imperial Light Tank. The Light, takes many cues from the American M3 Lee, with a larger cannon mounted in a side sponson. The wheels are also based on those on the M3.
The most common enemy tank, the Imperial Medium Tank, bears a strong resemblance to the British Medium Mk.III with it's mult-turret design. The turret seems to take some cues from the Russian T-34 with is more rounded look. Like the Light, the Medium takes cues from American tanks, with the wheels looking similar to those of the M4 Sherman.
More common in the later missions, the Imperial Heavy Tank takes some cues the French Char B1. Like the Char B1, the tank features a turret mounted gun, and a larger hull mounted gun. Though the Heavy is much larger than the Char B1.
The Infantry:
Gallian infantry uniforms use a horizon blue camo pattern with a few armor plates on the uniform. The uniforms are based on WWII era uniforms with variations between classes. Core member characters have more stylized uniforms.
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| Standard male Gallian Scout infantry, Noce Wordsworth |
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| Standard male Gallian Shocktrooper infantry, Vyse Ingelbard |
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| Standard female Gallian Scout infantry, Freesia York |
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| Standard female Gallian Shocktrooper infantry, Nina Streiss |
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| Core member Shocktrooper, Bridgette "Rosie" Stark |
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| Core member Scout, Alicia Melchiott |
Imperial uniforms on the other hand, have a more medieval look to them. Though this count be a case of the Empire being slow in modernizing their infantry combat gear, or them modernizing their gear and keeping a sort of armored knight styling with them.
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The art style:
Setting the game apart from other war games, rather than using realistic looking graphics, the game went more of a look like it was a water color painting in motion, making use of cell shading to achive this look. Along with the water color style the game also uses a pastel color pallet, with everything having a kind of soft look. Though instead of clashing with a war setting it instead gives it meshes well with it and gives it a unique look.
Adding to the colors, the game also has little bit of a comic book influence, you'll see sound effects "written" out, like "FOOM" will flash in stylized characters when a tank mortar is fired, or "ratatatata" when a Shocktrooper fires their machine gun.
The art style certainly sets Valkyria Chronicles apart from most other games. It stands out from other war games and makes the game instantly recognizable, even with tanks and weapons looking like real world vehicles.
The Music:
The game uses an orchestrated style of music. Tracks range from the military styled, slow tempo, Main Theme with Brass wind and drums taking the lead, giving way to strings, the more rousing, fast tempo Street Fighting, used as background music to urban combat levels. The music isn't just there as a sort of fill-in background noise as it is in some games. Rather it adds to the atmosphere. Some of the more difficult levels, such as the trench warfare mission, where the battle takes places in muddy WWI style trenches under dark, heavy overcast weather are accompanied by more slower subdued tracks.
The game's sound track has 54 tracks, so there is a wide variety of music in the game. While there are certain tracks serving as themes, you won't often hear the music constantly repeated, even during battles, as there are 9 tracks used for combat missions, not including the final battle, and the game does a good job of cycling them. In short, the music doesn't get old, repetitive or annoying.
The Plot:
The plot is a major part of the game, it centers around Squad 7 of the Gallian Militia's Third Regiment, and their efforts to liberate their homeland from foreign invasion. Their homeland, the Principality of Gallia is a small coastal nation that finds itself smack in the middle of two continental super-powers who as expected, do not like each other. On one side, to the Southwest is the NATO like economic superstate, the Atlantic Federation (the Federation). To the east is the East Europan Imperial Alliance (the Empire), a military super power that shares characteristics with Nazi German, the Soviet Union and Imperial Russia. It is an invasion by one of the Imperial princes into Gallia that draws the Principality into the larger continental war. At the time of the game's start the war between the Federation and the Empire is at a stalemate with the Federation's superior economy standing toe to toe with the Empire's superior military.
Squad 7 is made up of 57 members, both active and in reserve, and each of these characters has their own story that can be read in the Book's Personnel tab. Each character has their own personalities and their own individual voices. There aren't really any "generic" characters on your side, everyone has a face. And that's only counter Squad 7 itself, not including the supporting characters on your side and the villains. The villains also have their own personalities and motivations and they aren't cut and dry villains. In fact, a few of them would likely have been friends with the protagonists under different circumstances.
With such efforts going into making the characters, the story placed a lot of focus on them and how they develop from just an motley group of volunteers and conscripts into a veteran unit. One example is one member overcoming their racial prejudices though the course of the game.
The plot itself though is pretty straightforward, there aren't really any big plot twists that throw a wrench into the works. It's about what you would expect from a WWII themed game. There are a few pretty emotional moments in the plot, that I won't get into, since I can't without spoiling parts of the plot.
Final Verdict: 10/10
I have to give this one a perfect score. I literally never get tired of this game, and I've frequently popped it in and played it from start to finish during gaming dry spells. While it lacks multiplayer, the single player provides and exceptional experience. The game is available on PS3, PS4, and PC, if you own either of those platforms, there's no reason to not have this game.
Originally posted July 22, 2016
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