REVIEW: Valkyria Chronicles
Reviewed by Lisvender on PS3. Developed by Sega Wow. Published by Sega
This PS3 strategy shooter stirred up pleasant memories of such gems as Advance Wars, Shining Force, Fire Emblem, and X-Com: Enemy Unknown. It also reminded me of how much these tactical combat games piss me off. It’s still very good, though, and anyone who enjoyed those aforementioned games should definitely get it.
Note: This is the only picture in this review. Why? Let’s just say it’s not a good idea to Google images for this game without safe search on.
The year is 1935 EC, and the Second Europan (that’s not a typo) War between the eastern Empire (Russia) and the western Federation (NATO) is a-blazin’. Pinched between the two factions is the teeny nation of Gallia, a land which also happens to be rich in the precious resource Ragnite. The greedy Empire swoops into Gallia to take control, but they are met by Welkin Gunther, a militia draftee, who gives the Empire a serious headache. You’ll guide Welkin and his Ragtag Squad of Misfits through battles against the Empire that grow in challenge, complexity, and length as you go along. Your goal is to push the invaders out and save Gallia from complete pacification.
The story’s premise is interesting, but the developments are typical anime crap, filled with overblown, melodramatic moments, long-winded, head-scratching dialogue, that uniquely Japanese “awkward” humor, and endless death scenes. The Hurt Locker this ain’t. If you want to play a game about soldiers who speak the true words of war, play Call of Duty.
Nobody talks about tangoes in Valkyria Chronicles, but they do go on about bugs, bread, vegetables, and love a lot. Welkin and his girlfriend/sidekick Alicia remain self-absorbed and strangely cheerful in spite of the sobering situation they’re in, and killing people never seems to upset them. This is a war story for the adolescent. Hell, the game even has a beach cutscene so you can see the female characters run around in bikinis. Pretty sad.
Honestly, though, the story isn’t that important to the game’s success. The real joy of a game like Valkyria Chronicles comes from learning and mastering its rules and tactics. The warfare here centers around a basic rock-paper-scissors system:
Shocktroopers are foot soldiers with machine guns, and they can mow down all kinds of infantry.
Tanks are heavily armored, and can blow away Shocktroopers.
Lancers are foot soldiers with rocket launchers, and are best at taking out tanks.
There are three other classes of infantry, too: the Scouts, the Snipers, and the Engineers. While these units play essential supportive roles, they are poor fighters, and they should circumvent the combat engaged in by the others.
Valkyria Chronicles is a war game where you take turns with the computer moving your squad of soldiers around a map. Your goal in most missions is to get your men to the heart of an enemy camp, but you have to coordinate your movements so that your men can clear out the bad guys efficiently and cover each other. There are plenty of games that function like this, but Valkyria Chronicles stands apart from them because it incorporates elements of third-person shooters and makes them critical to your success. When you start a turn and are prompted to select a unit to move, you get a simple bird’s-eye view of the battlefield. All the soldiers are represented by icons. When you pick a unit, the camera swoops down into a fully detailed, over-the-shoulder view, and you get to control that unit using the familiar two-stick move-and-aim model. You can run around, take cover, survey the topography, avoid enemy firing lines, and position yourself for a good shot at the bad guys. The distance you can move is limited, though, and you can only shoot once per movement, so be sure to make your turns count! Aim at the heads of infantry units, or at the rear radiators of tanks to take them out quickly.
Units around you won’t move while you’re moving, but if you get too close to enemy units, they will turn and fire on you, so be careful. This also works for enemies who enter the sights and firing ranges of your guys, so positioning your troops to throw out intercepting fire is a very important strategic aspect. A group of Scouts and Shocktroopers is a veritable death machine to infantry, and it can be very effective at suppressing enemy advances. Lancers and Snipers don’t use intercepting fire, however, so they’re sitting ducks when enemies approach. Be sure to back them up.
If one of your units is downed, you can send another unit to rescue her. Just walk up to her, and your medic will fly in to pull her out of the battle. You can then select your camp to call in reinforcements. If a downed unit isn’t rescued in three turns, or if an enemy unit closes in to finish her off, that unit will be killed and removed from the game permanently. For this reason, you should never send a unit into danger alone.
Each soldier in the game has his or her own personality, and this is expressed through Potentials and friendships. Potentials are buffs and debuffs that come into effect under unique conditions. Some soldiers can absorb intercepting fire without taking much damage, while others have special hatreds for particular enemies which will up their accuracy. Then there are the soldiers with allergies to sand or pollen, who won’t fight effectively in desert or grassland settings. While there are some loners in your squad, most of your soldiers are friends with each other. Putting two friends side by side, and then ordering one to fire will cause both to shoot at once, and more or less doom your target. Forgetting the technical details, odds are you’ll become attached to one or two of your soldiers, and you’ll want to keep them around simply because they make you smile.
As the story progresses, the missions become increasingly complex, and some of the later ones are real brain-busters. You’ll have to divide your forces, capture multiple enemy camps, use smoke bombs to blind your enemies, sneak past spotlights, dodge mortar fire, and engage in trench fighting. Many of the missions have a twist that occurs halfway through, with some new challenge or objective popping up, and no two missions are alike. They’re all very satisfying to study, analyze, explore, and complete.
Succeeding at missions earns you experience points and money, which can be used to increase the stats of your infantry, upgrade your equipment, and add new parts to your tanks. You can also purchase optional Orders, which provide stat buffs and other benefits to your squad in combat, and Reports, which open up side stories and optional missions for further character development. If you run short on resources, you have the option to play Skirmishes, which are slightly altered replays of missions you’ve completed, to refill your coffers. Grinding can be a pain, but it is necessary if you want to get your soldiers to the highest levels, and gain access to special weaponry.
I don’t often talk about graphics and sound in reviews, because nowadays most games have these mastered, or at least polished to the point where they don’t offend. I feel that I should mention them for Valkyria Chronicles, though, because they are truly outstanding. The graphics are have a lovely, colorful, painted look. There are sunny skies, rolling hills, and pleasant architecture everywhere you turn. While I can’t remember a single bit of music from Uncharted 2 or Modern Warfare, I caught myself humming the driving battle themes from this game at work multiple times.
Valkyria Chronicles is a rich and deep game, with immense rewards in wait for the thinking player, but like many strategy games, it can also be frustrating. Early on in the game, before your weapons can be upgraded, your soldiers are going to miss a lot of their shots. Even your eagle-eyed snipers, who can use scopes to zoom in on their targets, will manage to miss most of the time. It doesn’t matter if you line up your crosshairs properly; the computer rolls the dice on where the shot actually lands. In a game like this, where your every movement is precious and critical, a missed shot is heartbreaking and enraging. Not surprisingly, the computer-controlled units rarely have this problem. I highly recommend that you pour your money into accuracy upgrades the moment they become available to counter this problem.
Another issue is that occasionally the intercepting fire won’t work. Sometimes your guys will just stand there while enemy soldiers run right by them. It’s like they momentarily go blind or something. It’s bewildering, exasperating, and just shy of unfair. It can even cause you to lose, if an enemy Scout strolls by your defenders and captures your base camp.
Then there are the mines. Oh God, the mines. The battlefields in Valkyria Chronicles are often peppered with land mines that can severely injure your soldiers and cripple your tanks. They’re easy to spot, but they’re also easy to forget about, and one second not spent looking at the ground can ruin an entire mission. Engineers can disarm them, so if you step on a mine and hear that distinctive “click,” stop where you are and get that wrench-slinger over there pronto. It would be nice if the bad guys could set off the mines, of if you could lay mines of your own, but they don’t, and you can’t. Sigh.
Valkyria Chronicles has been in stores for a while, but with the mountains of hype that were raised around its competitors, it’s likely you haven’t considered it. Mixing third-person shooter elements with turn-based strategy is a brilliant stroke, and while wargamers should grab it in a heartbeat, even newcomers to the genre should try it out. There’s a lot to learn, but the game rolls out the rules in a gentle, friendly manner, so it never gets overwhelming. It has a silly story and some irritations, but it’s nevertheless a well-designed and satisfying game. The only way it could be better would be to change its setting to the future and call itself X-Com.
Controller1.com rating: 3/3 (2/3 for non-strategy fans)
Lisvender
