What a game what a game what a GAME!

I played the first Valkyria Chronicles in 2016 without ending it because of highschool exams at that time. Nonetheless, I never forget it: Alicia was my desktop wallpaper for years and I considered this game the pinacle of the genre waaaaaaaaay ahead of Xcom for instance.

I bought this game before my switch and fell instantly in love with it. I mean, there's a shiba with a cap on the box, how could I resist? I started it on august 2022 and finished it, 70+ hours later, the 1st march of 2024.

Where do I start? I'm kidding, the only thing that matters is gameplay. It is... Tasteful. Extatic. Carefully crafted. Polished. Subtle.
The game's a TPS-Tactical-RPG. You control a squad during an alternative WWII leading its way through axis troops using two weapons: guns and minds. At the beginning of your round your given action points. You can spend one to control one of your squad member. If you do so, the game stop being turn based to become real-time based until your character has done an action (disarming a bomb, firing its rifle, launching a grenade, healing its wounds...) and/or is exhausted.

This. This smart, subtle game design tweaks, in which actions aren't solely random based (as they are in most Tactical games) but are also skill based (you have to aim before shooting, carefully watch for your step to not be seen/ to not walk on a mine...) is -there I say it- one of the best idea of game design I have ever seen in my life. It brings a ton of dynamism to the fights, as well as a massive amount of tactical depth. For instance, moving your sniper to the top of a building makes a lot more sense than it does in Xcom, because in Valkyria, doing so actually CHANGES the perspective from which your soldier sees the enemies, which means it changes the actions your soldier can do (aiming for the head instead of the belly, aiming for a contextualized action like shooting an explosive barrel, retreating because you discover 5 more enemies that were hidden before...)

So, this is the basis of the franchise. It was fun in 2006, believe me it is still fun nowaday. So what's new gameplay-wise? Well, aside from new characters (I'll speak about that below), the main novelty is... Mortars! Yay! Litteraly a brand new dimension: now, placing your soldiers under roofs is crucial. Interceptions, which are automatic counterattacks of soldiers during real time phases, are totally changed: you don't want to go through a field covered by mortars. Mortars can also attack tanks, neutralizing their tracks and dealing them moderate to major damages. Eventually, mortars redefine the role of snipers, that are now either more short-range semi-shocktrooper capable of picking key units, either very long range pickers very useful to counter enemy mortars.

This is tasty. But that's not all. Because you know, sega can be generous. Now, every class (there are 6 of them) can equip three different weapons slightly modifying the specialty of the soldier. In addition, mid game, you receive a brand new side weapon for each class that redefine the way they're played. Scouts become semi long range soldier capable of destroying covers with their grenade launcher. Shoctroopers gain the ability to clean very large areas thanks to flame throwers. Anti-tank units can become less specialized in anti-tank job and much more deadly for infantry troops.

Did I talk about tanks? I didn't talk about tanks. Some units are tanks. Tanks are armoured: They're essenstial to protect your unit and charge strong enemi units. Unfortunatley, they're large: there are areas they canno't reach, and you must watch for anti tank mines as they are deadly for your tracks and healthpoints. This 4th episode adds 2 mores tanks to the game. One of them is capable of transporting troop, which is again the best idea they could have had. It redefines your game plan between small squads: the scout squad going forward in a light armoured tank and the big guns following as fast as they can.

A lead and promotion system is included. you can define which caracter of your squad is a leader, and then you can use leaders to move several units in a single move. This again is very pleasant and subtle.

All this wonderful gameplay is deserved by top-tier level design. Objectives are varied. Maps are great. They're re-used a ton of times in very clever ways. The pace is MAMA WAHOU I LIKE IT. Really, this is a wonderful action experience...

...Deserved by a wonderful RPG experience! Each of your soldier is actually someone. That is great storywise (I'll get to it better), but that's also great gameplay-wise. Because people are people. They aren't perfect. Some people are distracted for instance. That mean they can loose their ammo on the battlefield. Some other people are racist. That means if you put them at the immediate proximity of darcsen (the quivalent of real life jewish people), they'll be debuffed. Some people like to tchi-tchat, which lower their precision.

But of course people also have qualities. Being daredevil is quality on the battlefield: it allows you to play with your life in the worst circustances. Being sadistic, or full of hatred toward the enemy can also be a wonderful quality (I think you begin to see why this game is also perfect narratively-wise). The consequence of all of it is that my favourite soldier is a nazi. This is morally interesting. I love you Viola. Yeah, i love you too Vancey. Yeah, I love you too Lily. I love you all.

All these gameplay traits are served by wonderful chara-design, which lead to a wonderful progression system. Honnestly, it is one of if not the best chara design I have seen in... There again certainly my entire life. It is Kojima-tiers. For instance, a sniper is bold. Being bold reflects light: I know it, I'm bold myself depsite being 25. This character has a debuff in discretion because of its chara design. It is as clever as funny. A girl wears an iron mask and helmet. Consequences: she barely cannot see. Consequences bis: she is immuned to critical hits on headshots. A french girl is -what else- a professionnal swordwoman. It increases its damage in close quarter combat, but decreases its precision overall. My personnal favorite "little story between the gameplay" is the following one. A female character has the following trait: Unintentional flirt. What does it do? It lowers its avoidance when she crouches. Translation: she has a very nice butt. Let's be honnest, it is funny and smart.

As stated before, this also features a wonderful progression system. If you play enough with your favourite soldier, he'll rank up. Once he reaches the grade of caporal, you unlock his "squad story". A squad story is a dedicated story and level, aside the main quest, that explores a part of the character's background aswell as the friends he teams with. Of course, everything is very well written, using characters personalities to establish interesting situation varied by their tone and objectives. Once you've beat the situation, characters learn from their defaults and mistakes. As a consequences, their affinities with other squad member change, as well as their traits. For instance, a japan undercover spy that cannot hold its secret anymore (and is addicted to men's pheromons but that's another sotry) is much more relaxed once its secret is discovered: its debuffs change for buffs. Another example is a constantly drunk shocktrooper that remembers she's actually a former elite soldier, which unlock its inner potential in combat (instead of simply getting in a etyl comat in the middle of a fight lmao)

The main story and main character are great. I think they're a little bit, but just a little bit under Valkyria Chronicles 1 characters (I mean, there was a massive sergent weighting 200kg who was fond of vegetables in the 1st game), which actually means they're above pretty much any game in the industry. Story wise, I think it's a little bit under the 1st game aswell, which showed harsh things such as concentration camps in a very japanese way of talking about war (which mean a way of talking about war as it really is: a catastrophe), but it nonetheless is very appealing. It namely deals with the military AND civilian use of nuclear technology in a way I'll never forget. There are very smart twists in the human relations, as well as a full development of the world. Antagonists are, imho, very human, which makes them waaaay more terrifying and interesting. I really want to talk more on this, but this imply spoiling so I won't : go play this game, we'll talk later.

Did I mention both graphics and sounds are 10/10? They are.

There are virutaly no reason why you should'nt play this game if your just a bit into videogames, japanese games and/or tactical RPGs. As for myself, I consider it the pincale of the genre. It is a masterpiece beyond the materpieces. It has earned the temporary spot on my favourite games list on backloggd, taking the place of Katamari Damacy (which you should play aswell).

Have a nice day, and play Valkyria

Put 10 hours into this as really enjoyed the first game. I found the look of it interesting, nice take on World War tank warfare. The writing was very odd though, mostly serious but punctuated with people grabbing people's arses or making weird comments. Felt like two writing teams. And when I got to the fourth mission involving hiding behind a tank and trying to take out pillboxes, while it added another mechanic to the mix, I just decided I didn't want to invest any more time with it. Really thought I would love this, so quite surprised.

This is very much a "one step forwards, two steps back" kinda game. The addition of grenadiers and polish to a lot of mechanics make some aspects better than the first game, but far too many missteps occur to say it's better as a whole.
For one, I didn't mention it in my VC1 review since the story was so good, but the way cutscenes are presented in this series is less than desirable. Instead of just letting you watch the cutscenes, you exit to book mode in-between each one to individually select and confirm each cutscene. This was less of a problem in VC1 since the story was good and well-paced. But VC4 is like double the length with half the substance, so it becomes more of an issue.
And speaking of length, the long animations have not been resolved. In fact, due to the addition of ship commands, there are even MORE. The final boss has a move where EVERY, SINGLE, TURN, it will move across the map. This animation is 2 minutes long. I need not say much else.
Also the maps in this game suck compared to the first. Not only in design but in enemy placement. Take a drink every time you complete a level objective only for the game to tell you "SURPRISE, ENEMY REINFORCEMENTS :))))))".
I wanted to love VC4, and the post-game content looks pretty good. But I can't be bothered to think about it past the ending.

Valkyria Chronicles 4 is one of the safest "paint by the numbers" sequels I've ever had the misfortune of playing. It feels more like a half-baked DLC than a standalone product and fails to move the series forward in any meaningful way.

Aside from minor balance tweaks and introducing a new class, the gameplay is nearly identical to the original. The low accuracy of attacks makes combat feel overly luck-based and leads to a lot of frustration. To make matters worse, they still don't give you an accuracy percentage, which makes it harder to strategize effectively. Graphically, there are no visible improvements despite the ten-year gap between 1 and 4. The vast majority of the assets are ripped straight from 1 and the same can be said for most of the audio. Bafflingly, they decided to retain the much-maligned ranking system (only the number of turns to complete the mission matters). It was dreadful in the original and is just as bad here. You still can't skip enemy turns, which is a feature Fire Emblem added in 2012. Being able to speed them up a bit doesn't count.

The story and characters in 1 were subpar but tolerable. All of the core characters this time are exceedingly unlikeable, annoying, and childish. They've doubled down on the fanservice as well. All of this makes the juxtaposition between the anime bullshit and serious war themes even more jarring. Any attempt to tell a compelling story is completely undermined as a result.

This belongs in the graveyard along with all of the other mishandled SEGA IPs. Do they even have anything left at this point?

I’m glad Valkyria Chronicles is back, I didn’t think Valkyria Chronicles 4 was actually going to happen, it’s still great despite having some flaws and not evolving much from the first game.

The first thing I want to write about is the look of this game. I loved this style back on the PS3 and I still love it now. It’s like a hand painted, water colour story book come to life, which is mixed with an anime/manga style. It’s charming, timeless, colourful and full of personality. This style is carried through into every part of the game; from the UI to the little sound effect words that pop up during gameplay. It perfectly suits the games fantasy World War 2 setting. The environments and characters look excellent too but it’s a shame a lot of characters and enemies don’t get a unique look or at least some variation. The weapons and tanks got plenty of attention and look great as well. The game could use more varied animations and in general the gameplay needs work to look smoother. A lot of the game is presented in a stilted way with only some moments getting fully animated scenes. I also had this weird issue at times during gameplay where things would pause for a second during a turn change or after I selected an action which just added to the overall stilted feeling of the game. So I would sum up the look of the game as cosy and beautiful but stiff and at times a bit awkward.

When it comes to gameplay Valkyria Chronicles 4 is a good strategy RPG. You run your characters and tanks around small maps and then stop to take actions against the enemies or heal. But you need to be careful as the enemies will fire upon you if you are in range. Of course your side will do the same during the enemy turn too. So positioning your characters is vital to ensure both good offence and defence. There is cover to crouch behind and grass to hide in. You can take advantage of the environment and your own tanks. You have a small variety of classes at your disposal with their own purpose and strengths and weaknesses. Figuring out what to do and in what order to do it is satisfying. You have limited movement, actions per turn, health, some ammo types and range. Some units can command and bring another unit with them. Characters get benefits if they fight alongside other characters they like and you can also give out orders for buffs or other benefits. On the whole there is a decent amount to be considering each turn and when picking your team. It’s really enjoyable when it all comes together and rewarding when your plans work out. Even when you are careless and things go wrong trying to plan your way out of your own mistakes is fun too. The game does a thorough job of teaching you how to play and there is plenty of post game content as well.

As much as I do enjoy the combat it does have some issues and it just doesn’t feel like much of a step up from the first game. I wish the maps were bigger with more epic battles and more units. A lot of the battles have like a gimmick or specific way they should be played which got a bit annoying. I would have liked more open battles with a lot of freedom in how to tackle it. Don’t get me wrong though there is usually still a good amount of freedom within these ‘gimmick’ battles. The other thing is jank/awkwardness. Your characters will often get stuck running at cover for a moment before jumping it. Characters also can’t move through small spaces even if they look plenty big enough. So for example if you put your tank near a wall but leave a gap, you need to make sure it’s a really big gap for characters to fit through. It looks awful and is very frustrating when you try to move a character through a space that appears big enough but you just get stuck. There are awkward times when aiming too. Sometimes bits of the environment will be in the way even when you don’t think it will be when positioning your character and what makes it worse is that occasionally enemy fire will pass through and hit when you thought it was safe.

Outside of the main battles you’ll find yourself watching the story and side stories, visiting the headquarters and doing skirmishes. The way the story is played is in little chunks. So you have to keep clicking on the next bit to watch which means seeing more loading screens and wasting time. But I guess that also means you are never stuck in long bits of story. The headquarters is where you organise and upgrade your squad and equipment. You upgrade classes and get new orders with experience and buy upgrades to uniforms, tanks, weapons, etc. with currency. It is a bit simple and has you hearing the same dialogue over and over. It would have been cool if it was like a hub you could walk around in and hang out with the squad. In the headquarters you will also find a wealth of information to keep you up with the story, terms, weapons, world and characters and how to play as well. Not much really needs to be said about skirmishes; they are side battles to test your skills and get more experience and money.

So how is the story? Well it’s not too bad. I enjoyed the journey and there were many good moments but is has its problems. There are times when it feels like there is needless padding. It’s a bit too contrived and Squad E has some ridiculous luck too often. I lost count of how many times they were saved by the weather. It is a bit predictable too and has an underwhelming ending, even when you put in the extra effort for the true ending. Despite the visuals it’s still about war and has no problem going into darker themes but doesn’t do a whole lot with it. I didn’t have an issue with the goofiness or tone changes and actually think that’s part of the games charm. The characters do a lot of the lifting here and they are a diverse, fun bunch to spend time with. Each character, even the side characters, gets just enough development to push them past merely being the stereotypes they start off as. This ties back into the gameplay as well. The characters potentials and preferences change after using them and going through their stories which makes them better. It would have been great to see this pushed even further. The voice actors do a great job and the soundtrack is good but many tracks are repeated a bit too much. The major bad guys are a bit of a letdown though. When comes to story and characters I prefer the first game but this isn’t a bad time.

Valkyria Chronicles 4 is a solid, enjoyable game, that is easily worth playing and it is fantastic to see this series continue. However this isn’t much of a step forward from the original PS3 game and I still prefer that original too. It feels like there’s so much untapped potential here. Valkyria Chronicles could be a top shelf series if given a bigger push, bigger budget, more polish and a bolder story. I’m hopeful it continues and I am keen to see a Valkyria Chronicles 5. I would recommend Valkyria Chronicles 4 to everyone that played any of the previous games and enjoyed them but you’ve probably already played this. So to everyone new to Valkyria Chronicles I would recommend getting the remaster of the original first but you could jump into this one if you like without a problem.

8.1/10

This game succeeds in everyway of the orignal game.
The story is not afraid to show the dark themes that come with war. Like warcrimes, excutions etc. Also the main cast has more personal character depth.
We see that the main character makes mistakes and has to live with it throughout the entire game. Something which causes drama among other characters.

In terms of gameplay it introduces a few new mechanics like the new unit the grenadier, but not much has changes gameplay wise.