I finished Valkyria Chronicles 4 last week and decided to quickly write down some of my thoughts on the game in a hope to start a general discussion about what everyone’s opinions are now that they’ve completed it.
Throughout this year I've played a bit of each mainline entry in the Valkyria Chronicles series, finishing Valkyria Chronicles 3 in the beginning of the year, replaying two thirds of the first game and about 10 hours of Valkyria Chronicles 2. So, with the whole series fresh in my mind I think I can safely say that Valkyria Chronicles 4 is one of the strongest entries in the franchise. I don't know exactly where I would rank it yet, still have to let it sit with me, but it is pretty much everything I've wanted in a Valkyria sequel since finishing the first game several years ago.
The Gameplay
While some people may say the game is very similar to the first Valkyria Chronicles, I feel that the small changes 4 brings to the series drastically changed how I played the game. The Grenadier may be the only new class, but its presence made it much harder to just bum-rush the enemy's base camp like in past titles since Scouts could now be easily taken out by the Grenadiers. New anti-tank gun placements, and the fact that Grenadiers could knock out your tank's treads, also made it a lot harder for me to just muscle my tank through maps. Unit transportation is also a lot more important since the maps are so much larger than past games and there are a lot of interesting options to get large numbers of troops across the battlefield, such as using the APC or Command skills. Valkyria Chronicles 4 also returns to the mission structure of the first game where ever mission has a unique story-based objective instead of the dozens of generic missions seen in the PSP games. Sometimes missions could feel a little too much like a puzzle, where the only way to advance is to figure out exactly what order the designer wanted you to do everything in, but for the most part I really liked this return to a traditional mission structure. VC4 even managed to surprise me with some of its mission stipulations such as when you try to use your medic in Chapter 13 only to see her get snipped down, leading to you having to take out the sniper before you can use your medic again. Thoughtful stuff like that and the small additions to Valkyria’s gameplay formula made VC4 one of my favorite entries in the series in terms of pure gameplay.
The Journey
Story wise, one of biggest things I liked about the narrative is how it was structured. Past games were far more episodic, especially the PSP titles, with each chapter setting up a new conflict that is resolved by the end of it and the protagonist’s overall goal often being kind of vague like "end the war" or "prove my innocence". Valkyria Chronicles 4 is specific. The characters are trying to get to the Imperial Capital and every chapter shows a progression towards that goal. While there are still tangents in the story, the characters always feel like they are laser focused on that one goal of getting to the capital and it is always exciting to see what new obstacle the team needs to overcome on their journey to their objective.
I also like how Claude's relationship with his childhood friends is complicated. Raz is more of a childhood bully than an old friend and Riley initially hates Claude for being a coward in the past. It is also interesting that Claude is not like Welkin in the first game where being brave and kind just comes naturally to him. He has to work hard to overcome his past cowardice, he has to work to gain people's trust, and he is always struggling with making the right choice. Even when it looks like he is making a great decision the story will almost always punish him for being so sure of himself, such as when he delays meeting up with Squad F to attack an enemy supply line which directly leads to Squad F being annihilated. Even during the game's ending, when he hears the broadcast for the cease fire right before detonating the bomb in the capital, he doesn't breathe a sign of relief like maybe Welkin would but initially gets angry, questions what all of his friends’ sacrifices were for and almost detonates the bomb anyway. Having a lead that has high-minded ideals but is constantly struggling and having to make compromising decisions made the story that much more intense and even relatable.
The addition of Squad Stories is also very welcome. The PSP titles had similar features where if you used a unit often enough in battle it would unlock a side mission that focused on them. However instead of focusing on one character, Valkyria Chronicles 4's Squad Stories focus on a group of three squad members. I liked this since it shows the camaraderie between your soldiers better and gives further insight into why certain units are friends with each other. The Squad Stories also make the suicide mission near the end of the game, where you pick one other unit to go with Raz, that much more tragic. I picked Aulard Abington to go with Raz since I thought I had already seen his side-story and I never used him much anyway but my heart was still broken when I watched him bravely sacrifice himself.
The Bad
Not everything about Valkyria Chronicle 4's story is perfect. My biggest problem is that I felt that some characters’ development happens a little too quickly, like how Riley gets over her pyrophobia and hatred towards Claude very quickly, and certain characters like Angelica just don't get enough screen time considering how important they are to the narrative. Scenes like when Forseti revealed why he betrayed the Federation are also kind of offhandedly explained when it felt like you could have had a whole chapter about that event. Unlike some games where the story drags in the middle it almost feels like Valkyria Chronicles 4 moves too quickly through its story during the middle chapters but, overall, I think the narrative is very strong.
Valkyria Chronicles 4's presentation is also kind of weak. The game still has that cool watercolor style like the first game did, which still holds up nicely even 10 years later, but reuses a lot of assets from the first game as well. I wouldn't be surprised if Valkyria Chronicles 4 was simply running on a modified version of the engine created for the PS4 remaster since so much of the game feels exactly like the first title. While there are plenty of new graphical effects and assets not present in the first game, and maps are much larger among other things, almost all of the generic animations that play during story sequences and many battle animations are all directly reused from VC1. Most of the soundtrack is comprised of reused tracks from VC1 as well and while the main characters' models all look good many of the side characters are pretty rough looking. There are also far less fully animated story sequences than the first game with a majority of the 4th game being presented through simple scenes consisting of text boxes and the character's animated heads. The game tries to make up for this by having a few diorama style images to emphasize certain scenes, but it is evident that Valkyria Chronicles 4 didn't have the same amount of budget and/or time put into it that the first game did. However, Valkyria Chronicles 3 was a great entry in the series and it is mostly entirely made up of reused maps and assets from Valkyria Chronicles 2. And just like 3, I think Valkyria Chronicles 4 uses its limited resources wisely and has a presentation that is still strong enough to properly convey the story it is trying to tell.
Conclusion
Anyway, there are plenty of other points I'd like to make about Valkyria Chronicles 4 such as how the story portrays that both sides mistreat the Valkyria, how much I liked Klaus or how much I like the game's Giant Robo style ending but I will stop here. What did you guys think of Valkyria Chronicles 4? I think in terms of gameplay it is even better than the first game but I'm still not sure where to rank it in the overall series, even after writing all this.
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