Valkyria Chronicles

These days, you would be hard pressed to find not only a strategy RPG on a console, but a good one at that. In that sense alone, Valkyria Chronicles is a stand out. But it's when you factor in all the unique presentation and gameplay elements that you find Valkyria Chronicles is one of the most unique games around. Period.

Valkyria Chronicles tells the fictional tale of Welkin Gunther, a humble son of a past war hero, who is called upon to help lead his country in the second Europan War. Yes, it takes place on the continent of Europa, and the story is loosely based on World War II, but if you forget that confusing tie in and enjoy the story you'll be in for a pleasant surprise. The story follows a fairly simple plot (although it touches on some subjects such as racism), but what really pulls it together is the strong set of characters and their vibrant personalities. The voice acting for the most part is executed very well, although some lines can come of very corny, and it can be annoying when you notice that the characters lips don't match the dialogue.

Story is one of the main focuses in the game, so be prepared to spend some time watching cutscenes. The main menu during your campaign is a big book, unfolding in chapters. Each chapter is broke up into many episodes, with some being cutscenes and one or two of them battles. Pacing doesn't seem to be a big issue, the cutscenes provide a nice break between battles and the story is interesting enough that you'll want to advance. The book is home to much more than unveiling each chapter. Here you navigate through a huge number of options, and truly learn the depth of Valkyria Chronicles. But we'll explore more of that later.

After choosing from a list of recruits and building a squad of 20 members (with a balance of scouts, shocktroopers, lancers, snipers, and engineers) in addition to your tank, you are ready to deploy. The gameplay is a mix of turn-based strategy and real-time strategy, with a bit of third-person shooting mixed in. Each mission has a unique set-up, and often varied objectives. While the normal goal is to occupy the enemy's main base, you'll occasionally have to take out a heavy tank or stealthily make your way towards an evacuation point. Once you have determined which group of soldiers you want fighting in your squad, you will hit deploy and let the battle begin.

You start off with a set number of command points. These allow you to move individual soldiers, tanks (which take two points), or give out orders. You can spend the whole pool if you wish, or use them sparingly and save them up for a big attack during your next turn. The way in which you move your units is very unique. Once you select the character you want, you take full control over them. Each time you move a direction, a meter at the bottom of the screen depletes. You have until the bar is empty to reach your destination. What makes things interesting, is that when you're in the vicinity of an enemy soldier, they can begin to fire at you, so you have to move quickly and stay behind cover. When you're ready to make your attack, hit R1 to freeze the surrounding world and make your move.

Where you aim the crosshairs makes a difference. For instance, if you aim at the torso, it may take seven shots to take that unit out, but those shots are almost guaranteed to hit. However, you can aim for a headshot, and while it may only take two shots for a kill as opposed to the seven, these will have a less likely chance of landing on the target. The risk/reward factor of this system is great, although it can feel like you're being cheated if all of your shots miss on a target that wasn't tremendously far from you.

The enemy phase takes out in exactly the same manner as you, with the computer utilizing the same exact tools that you had at your disposal. You are forced to watch the entire segment, which may be a good idea to help out your strategy, since some of the battles can get lengthy, it might have been a nice option to allow some of the impatient gamers to skip right through the enemy actions, or at least use a fast forward button. As the Imperial Army makes its attacks, your squad will automatically attempt to take them out (which works well aside from the occasional quirky A.I. move). However, if one of your units is taken down, you could be in trouble. If you take another unit to touch their body within three turns, a medic will rush to the scene and carry them off safely. However, if an enemy gets there first or three turns pass, say goodbye to that character for forever, unless it happens to be one of the main story characters, in which case they just retreat from the current battle.

As mentioned earlier, the first time through, there a few battles that will take a bit of time. There are one or two that probably took close to, if not over an hour to complete. Thankfully there is an option for saving mid battle, but if you don't utilize it, there is nothing more frustrating than restarting a battle after you just spent 45 minutes and were one turn away from the end. And that just might happen, considering the game can seem to take a vamp up in difficulty towards the second half.

In order to accommodate for this, you well either need to be extremely lucky, a tactical master, or level up. The good news is that instead of just sticking with a cast of a few strong characters like a lot of RPGs, you'll level up by classes together. At the end of each battle, you are awarded a rank from A through D, the higher the rank the more experience points and money you are awarded. You then choose how to distribute the XP among the scouts, shocktroopers, lancers, snipers, and engineers. If you ever find that your characters aren't strong enough, you can play skirmishes (which follow the same rules as the story battles) as many times as you want to earn more XP. So yes, unfortunately there is a little bit of grinding, however it isn't necessary to do an excessive amount of these skirmishes.

The leveling system itself is fairly simple, but that's just barely scratching the surface of Valkyria Chronicles. While in the Headquarters tab, along with leveling up your soldiers, you can also visit the R&D Facility to spend that currency to upgrade your units weaponry and armor through an expansive leveling tree. You can also strengthen the parts on your tank, whether ito add ammunition or increasing the HP of your treads. Through the Headquarters, you can do much more, including changing your squad roster, learning new orders, being awarded medals, and many other nice little touches that would unnecessarily elongate this review, so I'll leave a few surprises for you to find.

The sheer amount of things to discover in Valkyria Chronicles is staggering. There is a whole archive  that is continuously updated along your journey, filling in a complete backstory for every single one of the characters, bringing more life to the world that was already so well crafted. Heck, there's even a whole compilation of optional chapters that can be purchased if you want to dive even deeper into this universe.

As if the gameplay and storytelling weren't far enough outside of the box, the unique presentation is just a perfect compliment to the style of Valkyria Chronicles. With a blend of watercolor painting and cel-shaded graphics, with a heavy anime influence, the end result of this experiment is a beautiful sight. This isn't the most powerful game ever graphically, and it lacks detail in a few areas, but the overall look comes together very nicely. The game also packs a strong soundtrack, with a few of the most memorable songs for a video game in recent years.

Valkyria Chronicles is one of the most complete games you can find. The gameplay is incredibly fresh, and even with its minor flaws, makes for some excellent strategic combat. It tells a strong tale, with an even better cast of characters, held up by an elegant style, both in visuals and sound. The amount of content in this game speaks volumes to how much work and care went into making Valkyria Chronicles. If the genre of strategy role-playing games interests you at all, be sure to take a look at Valkyria Chronicles, as it just might be one of the best ever.

Logan Smithson, Noobfeed