Defend Gallia on the Go
Portable sequels to home console games are a rare and odd beast. For a variety of reasons, perhaps financial considerations, design requirements, or market analysis, developers take quite a risk in moving their games over to inherently less powerful hardware. Such is the case with Valkyria Chronicles II, the 2010 PlayStation Portable follow-up to the 2008 PlayStation 3 strategy classic. The sequel, focused on the aftermath of the Second Europan War, is in many ways constrained by Sony’s handheld. However, thanks to smart design decisions and a surprisingly strong narrative, the game manages to hold its own when compared to its predecessor.
The story of Valkyria Chronicles II takes place two years after the now famous militia, Squad 7, repelled the East Europan Imperial Alliance from Gallia’s borders. Following Archduchess Cordelia’s reveal in the first game to be of Darcsen heritage, an insurgent faction has emerged that denies her claim to the Gallian throne. Due to widespread prejudice against the dark-haired Darcsens, the insurgency gains many followers and begins a campaign that turns into the Gallian Civil War. The game follows the students of the prestigious Lanseal Royal Military Academy during this turbulent time as they work to prevent the racist mutiny from spreading. The player is given control of Class G, a dumping ground for the purported worst students at the school. Though the cast of characters is vast, the story primarily focuses on three students: headstrong Avan, brilliant Zeri, and empathetic Cosette.
Like the previous game, players will engage in battles with infantry and tanks in pseudo-turn based combat. Each turn consists of selecting units in the field and then controlling them through a third person perspective as they move and engage the enemy, where the player must actually aim and fire their weapon. Complicating matters is the fact that enemy units can fire at the controlled unit while they move, so positioning behind cover and proper sequencing of squad movement are critical in order to succeed.
Owing to the limited capabilities of the PSP, Valkyria Chronicles II’s maps are smaller than in the first game. However, to offset this, engagements now take place across several maps that are linked by base camps. The result is a different tempo over the course of a mission, one where I found myself focused on securing each map in order to avoid being surrounding by the enemy as I advanced. The smaller maps and segmented missions also lend themselves to more bite-sized gameplay sessions that are ideal for on-the-go gaming. While the game has far more missions than Valkyria Chronicles, most take only 15 minutes or less to complete.
When not in missions, the player is given an aerial view of Lanseal that acts as the game’s main menu. From here you can go to the Drill Grounds to spend experience points on troops, the R&D Facility to develop new weapons and armor, or the Briefing Room to manage your squad and embark on missions. Exclamation points will also crop up around the academy in between missions that can be selected to play vignettes that either advance the story or provide further details on Class G’s band of misfits. While some of these vignettes can get pretty cliche or gross (I’m looking at you, pool party with scantily clad teenage coeds), a lot of them helped to make me care about these characters almost as much as I did for Squad 7. It also helps that the first game’s protagonists, Welkin and Alicia, hang around campus to offer advice and aid to students.
In addition to being well-characterized, Class G can be customized extensively to fit your play style. The unit classes from the previous game have been reworked here to allow more flexibility in how characters develop. While there are returning classes like the Scout, Shocktrooper, Lancer, and Engineer, the Sniper base class has now been replaced by the melee focused Armored Tech class. Fans of the first game’s Snipers, fear not, as the class is now one of the game’s many specializations. These new specializations come about as your troops gain more battlefield experience, and once unlocked, provide game-changing abilities. For instance, by using the same Shocktrooper to kill a whole bunch of enemies, that unit can become a flamethrower wielding Commando or a machine gun carrying Gunner. The downside to this system is that unlocking specializations are dependent on enemy drops that seem to be randomized, so if you want your Scout to become a Sniper, you better hope that somebody drops a diploma. Don’t be afraid to go to an online guide to figure this system out, as it’s poorly explained within the game.
The one undeniable downgrade from the first game has to be the visuals. In my review of Valkyria Chronicles I mentioned that it was one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever seen, but that isn’t a statement I can make about the sequel. Gone are the sketchbook textures, hair flapping in the wind, and cinematic cutscenes, and in their place arrives a generic anime inspired design. While there are elements that identify the game as part of the Valkyria franchise, such as the soft border around the screen during gameplay and clothing and equipment looking like a mix of steampunk and World War I & II influences, it can’t hide the fact that Valkyria Chronicles II was designed on significantly less capable hardware. The score likewise fails to impress, and I turned the sound down basically any time I wasn’t watching a story beat.
Like Class G itself, Valkyria Chronicles II manages to succeed despite the odds against it. With a well thought out gameplay structure and a narrative that manages to hold its own against its predecessor, I was happy to spend another 40 hours in Gallia. With the recent re-release of the first game on PlayStation 4 (and the previous re-release on Steam), I can imagine that there are plenty of newcomers to the franchise who want more. Valkyria Chronicles II may not be everything you want in a game bearing that name, but what it does have should keep Valkyria fans satisfied.