Valkyria, Valkyria Bless and protect our fertile land
By AleeN634 5 Comments
Valkyria, Valkyria
May the bloodline live forever
Valkyria, Valkyria Bless and protect our fertile land
~Excerpt from the Anthem of the Dutchy of Gallia
So I finally got around to beating Valkyria Chronicles today and what can I say? If you're into strategy games, anime or World War II games then this is the game for you. Primarily an action-strategy-RPG game, Valkyria Chronicles shows a surprising amount of depth and artistic license. The game focuses on Welkin Gunther and his command of Squad 7 in the Gallian militia. Primarily a tale of love and life during a time of war, the game paints an surprisingly detailed world giving both sides of the conflict an equal chance to show their own reasons for fighting. The story is heavily anime influenced with a lot of archetypes of characters represented so be warned that if you hate anime and everything it stands for, this might be a huge negative. The art style is unique that is uses a sort of pencil coloring technique (along with some cell shading) that may take a bit to get used to but ultimately makes the world stand out.
The narrative is presented using a storybook format where the 'chapters' are composed of several cinematics scenes coupled with 1-2 battles. What makes the narrative compelling for me is that at the start of the game the book is nearly empty. As you play, biographies are completed, entries about the world give more deprth and meaning to the conflict and very few elements of the story appear forced. Using a pseudo-World War II as a backdrop the game strikes an interesting boundry in presenting slave labor camps and war attrocities against a specific ethnic group the Darcsens. Now mind you, as a video game, the narrative never goes too far indepth to show you the true horrors of war but even their slightly toned down version is a step in the right direction for presenting a more realistic portrayl of war in video games.
Now what makes the narrative so strong (at least for myself) is that by spending so much time building up characters and presenting the world is that you gain a better understanding for your squadmates. Building these relationships is key as characters (aside from plot specific characters) can die during battle. By building that strong relationship in terms of backstory, you begin to not treat you squad as expendible cannon fodder but as people who can live or die under your command. With the exception of a few scripted deaths, the rest of cast is yours to control and it's ultimately your decisions that will decide their fate. Trust me, there's nothing more heartbreaking than building up a character, reading their backstory only to get kthem killed in battle.
Gameplay is phase based between your squad and enemy. However, during your turn (or the enemy's) you are allowed to control the real time movement of your team with only brief pauses for attacks. Strategy plays a key role as placing your units as they will be able to suppress (ie. attack units within their vision radius) enemy units during the enemy phase. Here once again, while you have several classes of squad member to use, their personalities comes through with each member excelling with their own bonuses and negatives. Their relationships with other characters also play a role in allowing extra attacks or other bonuses when being used. If there is a fault with the gameplay (and what truely hampers the game from being excellent) is that the game only really grades you on the completion time of the mission (although small bonuses for eliminating enemy aces and tanks are given). Yet at the same time, neither action nor strategy are overwhelming to the user or entirely necessary to master the game.
The length of the game is fair at about 18 chapters, plus 6 unlockable bonus missions. As an added note, Sega of America has confirmed that DLC of 2 mission packs and 1 enhanced difficulty setting are coming this Spring. A word of warning though, there are a lot of short cinemas per chapter which means that sometimes you spend a lot of time watching before the next battle. The story may not be surprising but what it does present is done well and not over the top.
If you make some time to play Valkyria Chronicles I honestly think you'll be rewarded with one of better games of 2008. An interesting narrative and setting along with a good gameplay backbone makes this a good strategy-action-rpg for the PS3 (rpgs especially are few on the PS3 to begin with). You may have missed this gem the first time but do your part and join the Gallian Militia today!
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