Nerd Mentality

Looking back at Valkyria Chronicles

Posted August 14th 2009 by Batist Tardiou.

Ever since the game came out last year, it was one of the few Playstation 3 games that caught my attention at a time I did not own the console. It was beautiful, artistic, and the gameplay reminded me of Advance Wars for GBA and DS. When I eventually did get my PS3, that game was gone from my memories, that is until Valkyria Chronicles anime came out. As I watched more and more the episodes, it made me want to play the game once again. So I decided to snoop around shops and see if copies were still available. No such luck except that one shop that sold the game used for 50€. No way am I going to pay that much for a used game that came out more then 8 month ago. I did eventually stumble on a new copy on Amazon for 30€. I took the jump and I made the correct choice! What a blast this game is!

The story is extremely well done in a game that takes place in an alternate world Second World War. Two big empires are at it to take control of ragnite and land. Ragnite is the lively hood of everyone, a stone capable of creating vast amount of energy. A bit like our petroleum. A small nation, known for being mostly neutral throughout history is invaded by the evil empire because of it's vast amount of ragnite. The game tells the story of a young man and the squad he leads to fight the invading enemies.

The game is a turn-based RPG mixed with strategy and action. What that means is that in between mission, you will have to upgrade your troops, your weapons, your tanks. Also choose your squad units for missions with different classes (Scout, Lancer, Sniper, Engineer, and Shock-trooper). After that, when you begin your mission, it'll be turned based. Meaning you will start and move your units around the map in a 3rd person view point and try to eliminate the enemy. But be careful, if you're in the line of sight of the enemy, they will shoot you. You'll have to think hard with your movements too. Scouts can go very far but aren't very powerful and can get heavy damage very quickly, while Lancers and Snipers are the slowest class in the game.

The game is extremely fun with some very good video sequences to move on in the story between missions. Some very good sequences but can be extremely long. Sometimes you'll have to spend 20 minutes between sequences to play the following missions. Thankfully you also can play older missions if you want to. You'll still get points and money from those missions, but if one of your troops die on one of them, they'll still be dead when you get back to the story.

When playing this game, I really couldn't wait until a sequel would come out on PS3. Sadly for me, and happily for PSP owners, the sequel is on the PSP. Kind of a weird decision artistically. But seriously, can't wait for a sequel with some sort of online capability. This game is so much fun. I definitely recommend the game to PS3 owners that loved Advance Wars and like Strategy games.

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