Valkyria Chronicles Review
Valkyria Chronicles is a game that is hard to put into just one genre. There are strategy elements to the game, there's RPG elements, there's turned based and real time elements, there's just so much complexity to this game. You will be fighting in the Militia for the Country of Gallia. You'll have to successfully win each battle, trying to win back your land, and try to put a stop to the invasion.
Graphically this game is unique. It looks artistically hand drawn. The entire game appears as if it was out of a book. Well it is as you'll see once you actually start the game. The unique look of how they section off different parts of the game through a book interface will have you both saying, "hmm, what an interesting idea", and why the hell can't I just string all these scenes together. The cut scenes are either going to contain action, or they're just going to have a pop up background with message bubbles and the picture of the person who is talking. Personally when I see the later it saddened me that I wasn't going to get the whole cut scene effect.
The music and sound of the game fit for a fantasy/realistic war game. I say realistic because there are some weapons that you'll see that have probably been used at some point during history.
The controls are pretty easy to grasp after a battle or two. You're going to be utilizing the main buttons and the analog stick throughout whatever you are doing in the game. The controls for the tank can sometimes be disorienting and will have you wasting your movement to try to correctly move the tank, but you'll learn to move the camera to help orient yourself after a while.
You will get to be the Lieutenant in the battles commanding your personally selected units around the battlefield. You'll have so many action points per turn, and once they are out, or you want to save some for the next turn, you're enemy will get to go through their action points. There are enemies on the battlefield that when killed will deplete the number of points the enemy has per turn, but the same goes for your units as well. There's a wide assortment of unit types. You have the scout, a fast moving unit with light armor and a standard rifle, they have the ability to spot enemies that might be hiding. You have the Shocktrooper a unit with a machinegun that can deal out some punishing damage when they hit. You have the Lancers, these are your anti-tank units that have the equivalent of a rocket launcher at their disposal. You have the Sniper which is a deadly assassin that can knock down units with a single shot. Finally you have the engineer, the unit that can replenish ammo, fix your tank, repair cover, and if need be shoot a rifle. Through the game you're going to be experience that you'll be able to use at headquarters to level up a specific type of unit. This will get you better movement, aim, damage, etc. You'll also be making money on each mission which you can turn around and use on upgrading weapons, armor, or pieces of the tank. As you play the game you're going to unlock more layers to the gameplay, as well as more pieces of the actual game to mess around with.
This game has had me in its deathgrip since I picked it up. Once I started playing, I couldn't stop. I wanted to continue on and find out where the story was going. I will admit that there were definitely times where I really wanted to watch a couple cut scenes back to back, but the way the book thing works, it makes sense that I couldn't. My one bit of advice is that once skirmishes are available, use them, make your units monsters on the battlefield, so that when you continue the story you'll be more than ready. Also I know that this is common knowledge, but saving is your friend, I can't tell you how many times that has saved my ass. If you're looking for a solid game on the PS3 you need to get this. This game gets an 8.9 out of 10.
