War is Hell(a Fun)
In many ways, Valkyria Chronicles was very much ahead of its time. Originally released in 2008, the game blazed a new trail in the strategy RPG genre with its hybrid real-time/turn-based combat system. From it’s gorgeous hand drawn style to its deep gameplay systems, the game has been heralded as an underrated gem in the Playstation 3’s library. But eight years after the fact, does Valkyria Chronicles hold up against the march of time, technology, and game design? The answer is mostly “yes”, but with a few caveats.
Valkyria Chronicles takes place in the fictionalized continent of Europa. As you can guess by the naming, Europa is a stand-in for our real life Europe. The similarities to the real world doesn’t end there, as the game’s conflict is framed as an alternate version of World War II. Europa has been ravaged by a war between the evil East Europan Imperial Alliance (Axis) and the not-so-evil-but-kinda-evil Atlantic Federation (Allies). Locked between these two superpowers is the traditionally neutral Gallia, a sort of hybrid between Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, and Scandinavia. One day, the Empire invades Gallia in search of its rich stores of Ragnite, a resource capable of powering machinery, healing wounds, and creating destructive bombs.
The player is put in charge of the Gallian militia’s Squad 7, a plucky group of citizens eager to protect their homeland. The squad is led by Welkin Gunther, the son of a Gallian war hero who prefers the study of nature to the study of warfare. He’s supported by his adopted sister and tank driver Isara Gunther, the former baking-apprentice-turned-ace-soldier Alicia Melchiott, and the grizzled militia veterans Brigitte "Rosie" Stark and Largo Potter. I was genuinely surprised how much I liked these characters and how well they played off one another. The cast all have fairly deep backstories that for the most part don’t rely on clichés. I particularly enjoyed Alicia’s characterization, as through her we find out that Gallia maintains baking as a vaunted profession with its own guild system. It’s a fun little detail that offers hints of Gallian culture and what Squad 7 is fighting to preserve.
However, the squad’s characterization is not perfect, and I was a little put off by the game’s handling of prejudice. Isara is of the ethnic group known as the Darcsen, who have been persecuted for centuries because of the belief that they were responsible for a long-ago massacre in Gallia. To highlight this tension, there’s a subplot between the bigoted Rosie not accepting Isara as part of the squad. Predictably, Rosie does come around after several interminable cutscenes that have the subtlety of an after school special. It’s pretty obvious that the Darcsen are a stand-in for the various persecuted groups during World War II, but the game only halfheartedly delves into this murky issue. The world of Valkyria Chronicles makes no mention of concentration camps (EDIT: It actually does, with a mission involving the liberation of Darcsens from an Imperial forced labor camp), or of the Empire having a policy of racial superiority all that different from the other combatants. But that’s only the start of the game’s story problems.
Before I go any further, I should mention that I certainly don’t mind Valkyria Chronicles presenting a sanitized version of World War II to appeal to a broader audience. Not every depiction of the war needs to have Saving Private Ryan’s level of gore, blood, and adult themes. However, the game is internally inconsistent about how it presents the horrors of war. Thanks to Ragnite, fallen squad members can be retrieved by a medic and patched back up from near death to be called upon as reinforcements in the very same battle. But unless the character appears in the game’s cutscenes, they can absolutely die permanently if an enemy gets to them before an ally does. As a gameplay conceit this works brilliantly, providing a way to rescue fallen units in a far less frustrating manner than how X-COM handles it. But the story is inconsistent in how it’s applied. The middle of the game has a cutscene where a main character is shot and dies, but for some reason they are unable to save them with Ragnite. It’s the same issue as players wondering why you couldn’t use Phoenix Down on Aerith in Final Fantasy VII, but unlike that game’s seminal moment, Valkyria Chronicles does not have the advantage of shocking the player enough that they neglect to question the logic. Similarly, in a later plot development, another main character is shot and is put into a coma. This devastates Squad 7, to the point that they consider not fighting while said character is out of commission. To think that a militia in the middle of a war would be so devastated by the possibility of one of their own dying just makes them look dumb, especially when no one piped in one word for random infantry #34 that died two missions ago. This weird double standard of only caring about plot relevant characters extends to the Imperial soldiers that Squad 7 fights. Welkin and company have no qualms about mowing down (and permanently killing) the enemy. For a militia made up of mostly drafted civilians, their blasé attitude to killing their fellow man makes no sense.
Of course, Valkyria Chronicles is not the first nor last video game to trivialize war, but the reason I’m so down on the game’s story is because it wants to have it both ways. The extensive cutscenes and the presentation of the story from a journalist’s perspective paint the game as a thoughtful examination of World War II through a fictionalized lens. But when it chooses to engage with such weighty topics as war crimes, societal prejudice, and the effect of violence on the human psyche, the writing needs to be on point. Otherwise, it just feels cheap. This only gets worse later in the story when the titular Valkyrias are introduced, and they wreck any pretense that the historically based setting meant anything. The Valkyrias are a race of beings capable of either advanced technology or magic, but basically they’re just an excuse for the game to go full anime. The few missions that involve fighting the Valkyria’s are also poorly balanced and not that fun to play, so the less said about them the better.
For all the story’s faults, the actual gameplay more than makes up for it. Each battle begins in a turn based format with a neat overhead bird’s eye view of the action, and the player is given a set amount of actions that they can do each turn. By selecting an individual unit on the map, an action point is spent and the camera zooms in to third person perspective of said character. From there the game plays like a sort of third person shooter, except the unit’s movement is restricted by a meter that is spent as they move about the map. The player is allowed to have the unit attack once per action point, but they need to be wary of enemy crossfire during that time. If the unit moves into an enemy’s range, that enemy will begin opening fire, and could very well kill the player’s unit in the process. This adds a great tension to the combat and feels exhilarating when you’re able to successfully navigate your unit through the enemy’s suppressing fire. Once a unit’s action is over, the game zooms back out to the command view where players can repeat the process until all action points are spent or they pass their turn.
The best part of Valkyria Chronicles’ battle system is the flexibility it allows the player. Unlike other turn based strategy games, such as XCOM 2 or Final Fantasy Tactics, individual units can move and act as many times as the player likes, provided they still have action points available. The trade-off here is that each subsequent action point spent after the first reduces the range of movement for the unit, and special units such as snipers and rocket wielding lancers have limited ammo each turn. This allows for some interesting combat dynamics, such as taking down an enemy tank in one turn by having your lancer fire off three consecutive rockets at it, or burning all your action points on a scout to sneak behind enemy lines and capture their unoccupied camp.
The fantastic gameplay does come with a few caveats, however. There’s no easy way to restart missions that go awry, for instance, and missions are frequently started off with long talking head cutscenes that cannot be skipped even on the second or third attempt. Furthermore, certain late game missions require rote memorization by the player to have any chance of succeeding. Ultimately, these are minor complaints that didn’t detract much from my experience.
Outside of combat, the game has a fantastic sense of unit progression through equipment tech trees and an experience based levelling system. By doing well in battle and spending the spoils on developing your squad, the gameplay is able to get more nuanced and interesting. Leveling up units based on their class unlocks Potentials, which are combat perks that make your units more effective on the battlefield. Additional Potentials can be unlocked for certain characters by completing optional side missions, and these particular perks can make finishing the later story missions a breeze. In addition to improving units, you’re also able to improve your ability to command a battle by acquiring Orders, which are actions not tied to specific units that can provide powerful advantages, such as the ability to heal up squad members or rain down artillery fire on the enemy.
I’d be remiss in writing this review without making mention of the game’s art. Simply put, Valkyria Chronicles may be one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever seen. The game’s hand drawn aesthetic was a stunner on the Playstation 3 and looks even better on PC. The art style succeeds in highlighting little details, from the pencil mark effect on all the textures, to the realistic way that hair and accessories on characters sway in the wind. It’s apparent that the animation is inspired by the Japanese anime tradition, but mostly avoids the worst aspects associated with that art style. Clothing and uniforms, while stylized, still look practical enough not seem out of place in a game about World War II. Sure, you can point to the fact that female soldiers wear skirts in battle as dumb anime inspired design, but the real World War II did not have women in combat roles. And if they had, the sexism of that time period would have probably mandated skirts anyway.
The game’s visual presentation is bolstered by its menus, which are presented as a book named “On the Gallian Front” by the squad’s embedded journalist Irene Koller. Players will go through the story and missions by selecting them from pages of the book, and it serves as a charming framing device that has Squad 7 writing history as they proceed through their journey. It feels like you’re digging into an old tome about and old war, but are reliving history through the pretty illustrations in it. Granted, sometimes the menu navigation can be a little clunky, but to me it felt charming in the way that handling a large book can feel uncomfortable but satisfying.
Special mention must be made to Valkyria Chronicles’ lovely orchestral score. The arrangements by Hitoshi Sakimoto match the game’s tone perfectly, combining the regalness and formality of military tradition with the earthiness of the Gallian people. The score walks the fine line of enhancing the onscreen action without overshadowing it, but remains memorable enough to warrant another listen.
It speaks to the excellence of Valkyria Chronicles that even after spending 40 hours with it, I’m itching to check out its PSP sequel. For its myriad of faults, Sega has hit upon an incredibly compelling formula that is as engaging today as it was in 2008. For anyone with even a passing interest in turn-based tactical strategy games, Valkyria Chronicles is a worthwhile entry in the genre and should not be missed.
