Valkyria Chronicles
Sega WOW / Sega
Anthony: Sega made a what game? “Good” you say? Neat. Valkyria Chronicles coming out of nowhere and taking people by surprise turned out to be a pretty nice treat for everyone.
Valkyria Chronicles is a hybrid strategy/shooter/RPG game that draws few comparisons... maybe Worms if it were more strategy based? It follows the tale of Welkin Gunther, an aspiring teacher who finds himself caught in a war to save his homeland, but in a fantasy setting where a special ore powers machines and an ancient race called the Valkyria can turn the tide of war.
What’s good:
- The five job classes of troops were very well designed for the game. Scouts have a huge running/shooting range and are good at picking off troops but very vulnerable to heavy combat. Shocktroopers have more limited mobility, but are powerful offensively and defensively in combat. Lancers are very slow, but are the only unit capable of taking out heavily armored targets solo. Engineers can repair tanks/obstacles and disarm mines while having moderate mobility/shooting skill. Snipers have little range or defense but can kill almost every soldier in game with a single shot from very far away. Tanks are behemoths with incredible defense and firepower, but are slow and take twice as many action points to use. All are necessary to get through the game, and many will have specific points in the game where they truly shine and work together.
- In what’s a pretty rare occurrence, Valkyria Chronicles actually worked pretty hard toward giving your various non-story-based troops individual personalities of interest. They all bring different good and bad points to the fray, all have good individual voice acting, and they help make the experience more interesting. It’s worthy of note that Skies of Arcadia characters make useful cameos here, and that Jann is a hilarious character who should be in most games from now on.
- The graphics are done extremely well. Utilizing bright colors, cartoonish visualizations of battle, and “sketchy” art together makes for a very interesting combination. Animated scenes are particularly effective, all locations and characters look good, and it helps make a war story stay visually appealing.
- Great voice acting exists throughout the game. It’s good to see that companies aren’t skimping on getting the right talent for the roles, especially even as they fill minor troop roles. Music is also good, though it’s unfortunate that the battle themes rarely change.
- The game deserves credit for creativity alone, as the mix of RTS, shooter, and RPG gameplay works surprisingly well. To that extent, there’s a pretty solid variety in the battles themselves, from horrendous encounters with monstrous tanks, to long range scout missions, and to melee-heavy firefights alike.
- One thing that the game’s narrative does particularly well with, despite being a somewhat sugary JRPG storyline, is keeping the reality of war in perspective without resorting to cheap tactics. Some people die, others get injured, your non-story troops can permanently die, and there are some particularly effective scenes that highlight the enemy’s good intentions and human nature. Even some enormous big-budget RPG titles revolving around Ages of Dragons often don’t rise far beyond the “x is evil, destroy x!” narrative, so I found myself pleased with a number of well-done scenes.
- Levelling up all troops of a certain class simultaneously was a very good inclusion. Though it keeps the process simplistic, it means you’re not punished for trying out different units, which is especially prominent as some units become more or less useful as more traits are developed.
- They allow you to save mid-battle. Thank you, Sega.
- The system of using “orders” to augment a unit or multiple units’ abilities among certain parameters was a great idea. It can add some really shrewd strategies to various scenarios you’re up against.
What’s neutral:
- They rank you and give you bonus exp/money based on your performance in battle. However, the only factor they use to determine your rank is the number of player turns it took to beat the stage. I don’t like this for a couple of reasons. Aesthetically, in a game ultimately about killing people, considering many stages’ goals are simply to capture the enemy base, it’s strange to have a ranking system not at all based on your killing of people. On the other hand, especially with early stages, it basically requires you to throw out any semblance of strategy and just charge headlong towards the stage goal. This is especially notable considering the enemy’s movements, the area itself, and the units themselves are largely obscured until you get close by; it will happen often that you go several turns into a battle not realizing that you need an engineer, more scouts, less lancers etc.
- Loading mid-battle saves takes an extremely long time. Now you might want to avoid it, but if you want to go for A ranks in battles or want to avoid needless deaths and wasted turns, inevitably you will have to load battle saves numerous times. Because time and the use of your command points are precious, it’s unlikely that the average player will simply be “okay” with getting gunned down by a hidden soldier, missing a Lancer shot for the third time, or getting headshot between turns when the enemy could have missed.
- For what’s a perfectly acceptable and engaging story, I have a few problems with it. For one, certain evil characters are over-exaggerated to the point of parody. This idea that a major general is an uncompromising jerk who cares little for his soldiers is absurd and is clearly just set up so you’re glad to see him die. Meanwhile, a certain character or two that betray you practically look like Disney villains, making it pretty easy to see coming. Then the “sugary” aspect.... a random pig character comes on as a “mascot” and is basically completely pointless to the story (a war story, mind you.) Then the ending... well, everyone likes a happy ending, but it’s actually overly happy in my mind. I like the “x and y went on to...” happy endings as much as the next guy, but I feel slightly insulted if the results are “x won the nobel peace price, y became president, z is the most famous actor of all time, and v went on to save to the human race” etc.
What’s bad:
- There are some battle system areas I think need to be addressed. One is the camera: when aiming, it disables your ability to spin/adjust the camera, so I ran into several situations where scenery effectively blocked off my ability to see where I was attacking. Another is their hit detection: when very close to an enemy, it sometimes shows your attacks as being properly aimed, but when you fire, the character’s weapon placement changes to where you completely miss. Invisible edges of objects can sometimes block shots that appear to be right on target as well. Oops.
-The “evasion” system is a very cheap tactic that at very least needed some sort of percentage system to let you know how likely it is to trigger. Perfectly aimed shots and even explosions can be “evaded” by you or your enemy, completely nullifying any damage, and even allowing the enemy to counter-attack you for free. I found it an annoying system in that it wastes your precious turns and even can put you down in health or dead as a result. I would have tolerated the evasion system more, however, if they at least let you know how likely it was to trigger. Instead, it’s just like a nasty surprise that means it’s time to reload or lose a turn.
Whether the cries of “Buy a PS3 so you can play this game!” are warranted or not depends on how adventurous you feel. Valkyria Chronicles started a brand new hybrid genre here and it’s pulled off with very few of the rookie mistakes that are common when a company tries something new. The balance is good, it can be very fun overall, and it’s engaging with its variety and depth. All of this is complemented with a gorgeous graphical style, great voice acting, and good music.
It’s not a flawless execution of course, so don’t be surprised if you hit a few frustrations and “bad ranks that aren’t your fault” situations along the way. It’s likely the kind of game where you may want to try a stage partway to see what happens and then reload to try with a better setup. The storyline is solid and engaging, though it has a few odd moments of over-schmaltziness and Disney-esque hyper-characterizations. If you can get past those aspects, Valkyria Chronicles is pretty dang good game in every way.
Lauren: From the moment we loaded up Valkyria Chronicles, we knew we were in for something special. The art style and music were gorgeous and captivating, and the storyline seemed interesting enough. Though I only participated in the first few battles (and became more and more surprised at the complexity of every battle thereafter), I'd like to comment on a few specific elements.
What stood out most to me were Valkyria's graphics. They are anime-style at the core, combined with 3-D effects and sketchy shading that results in a somewhat "gritty" style. As with Eternal Sonata, it's always nice to see next-gen RPGs that can do gorgeous graphics without resorting to brown photo-realism.
The music was simply fantastic and epic throughout the entire game. Similarly, the voice acting, which included many well-known stars, was very convincing. These elements provided a great background for the half-fantasy, half-reality based world of Valkyria Chronicles.
Overall, the plot was fairly strong throughout the game. My complaints include some generic bad-guy attitudes and a bit of schmaltziness toward the end, but those are minor. It was an intriguing story that surprised us a few times and successfully pulled off some genuinely emotional moments.
Valkyria Chronicles absolutely deserved its high scores and popularity. Of course it has occasional issues, but it's a strong tactical RPG and a great addition to the PS3 library. I hope Sega's similar endeavours in the future go as well as Valkyria did.
No comments:
Post a Comment