Valkyria Chronicles

Now the recommendation with this game comes with a pretty sizable asterisk because while the game is a fun strategic romp through a fictional rendition of WWII it is one of the most boarding stories I have ever played through. However, I know not everyone cares about that so let’s begin with the game part of this video game.

Valkyria Chronicles is a top-down turn-based strategy RPG, however, the major difference between this and other titles with the game four descriptors is in how it approaches gun combat and movement. Essentially what we have here is a blend of strategy and third-person shooter, wherein whenever you select a unit to move you zoom into an over the shoulder camera and control them around the battlefield for a limited amount of time. Here they can also take cover, heal allies, interact with the map, or attack. When you do decide to target an anime Nazi you pick where to shoot and the unit will fire X number of shots depending on their class and if you get high rolls 3/5th of them will hit.

Overall this system works quite well, creating a very intense moment to moment atmosphere like your actually shouting orders during a battle. Helped by the fact importance is put on both the player phase and the enemy please. See opponents can shoot your units even during your turn and vise versa. Essentially giving most units overwatch allowing the player can set up some deadly defenses or pincer moves. It also means you have to keep a close eye on enemy lines to make sure they don’t set up one of those moves before you.

Now, this can get annoying seeing how for some reason we can only use sandbags for cover, and even then there’s a change of getting it. And while you can just break line of sight with an opponent to create cover that doesn’t give the same overwatch bonuses as sandbags. All around the cover mechanics are the one thing that drags down the game play because while’s there’s plenty of stuff that will block bullets only a few have a button prompt that let you hide behind them. There was a map early on that really pissed me off for this reason and that was because there were some lovely chest high crates in front of a choke point and I thought, “oh, this would be a great spot to place a machine gunner,” only to have those plans dashed as I discovered that my units couldn’t crouch behind said crates forcing me to stick the unit in a back ally fully espoused on one side.

However, the above complaint isn’t that big a deal breaker mostly due to the games spectacular presentation, which for me is essential for turn-based strategy games. Most of which are slow and un-energetic allowing a lot of the tension to slip away, like playing D&D with ten overpowered characters. They also have a bad tendency to get over complex, heaping rule books after rule books onto you until you have to manage six different systems just to move a unit. Fortunately, Valkyria Chronicles dodges both of these pitfalls and is still a challenging strategy experience even with its relatively simple box of tricks. Alongside its quick punchy action pact pace with good animation, sound and music it really sucks you into the firefight at hand and keeps you there for every tense hair pulling moment.

It’s just a shame it attached to one of the most boring stories I have ever sat through in a video game.

It really is amazing how uninteresting the game's story and characters are given its fantasy WWII setting. This could have been like war stories of old, stories about the horrors of war and fascism, the dehumanization of our enemies, and true acts of bravery to protect something greater than yourself.

That’s what we could have had, but no, we got stuck with ‘War is bad,’ yay.

Now to the game's credit, it’s not a complete snore fest, my eyes did unglaze when they introduced the not-Nazis only because they were far more interesting to listen to then the people I’ve been told to care about. Which I chalk up to the games poor characters and motivation, essentially being a list of quirks going off to war to protect their homeland and nothing else.

Now you might argue that’s a pretty good motivation, a drive to save your homeland. It is, but for it to work you have to mention a trait about that country that’s worth protecting, which is something Valkyria Chronicles fails to do. We never hear about its history or people to derive an ideology or culture to protect nor is it a bulwark for the encroaching empire, so even if they fall the war isn’t lost. Now some may take issue with that last commit as I never finished the game, however, I did get to the point where they mention that there’s some kind of super weapon under this county so while there is consequence if they lose my point still stands. This is information we got seven chapters in, meaning that’s seven chapters of not knowing, and not caring about, what I nor the cardboard cutouts helming this story are fighting for.

To have a gripping story you have to make clear what’s at stake early on, in Lord of the Rings Frodo has a similar motivation, save the Shire from the armies of Sauron. However, unlike Valkyria Chronicles its established early on that the Shire is a carefree and peaceful place. Shown though Hobbit culture in every scene in the first third of Fellowship. Now Valkyria Chronicles and LOTR are two very different things but the comparison still stands. The first three to four chapters are set in your hometown and never once does anyone say why it’s so special nor do we get to see it being special.

Overall it's just another generic tranquil backdrop to produce equally generic people.

Speaking of.

The leads in this game are three of the blandest people I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. Each one is a single elongated quirk there trying in vain to stretch out into a full-blown personality, with nothing deeper than that. One of them is average anime nice guy protagonist #2456000000, with the weird hobby quirk that does little to affect his social skills or general behavior. The other is tsundere girl # God there are too many, who the writers also try to use to get the ‘war is bad’ message across but don’t show us how either trait surfaced which is central to both characteristics. And finally adopted little sister # Don’t you fucking dare try and screw her, with the smart quirk that again doesn’t affect how she talks or interacts with others and the world at large.

Overall each of them lacks any driving motivation beyond not dying and protecting their hometown. However, as we have established, their homeland is boring and not worth protecting and while not wanting to die is understandable it’s the bare bones of characterization. Relatable characters need something out of an adventure beyond not just dying to make them identifiable, it’s their wants that make them interesting. Going back to Frodo, his motivation outside of dying is to be able to go home to the Shire, a place he loves, a place that’s safe from all the horrors of Middle Earth. Yet sadly, in the end, we get nothing like that in Valkyria Chronicles, just a bunch of stock characters with nothing beside the model tag to tell them apart from one another. Each of them is introduced with nothing and gain nothing, at least in the time I spent playing, but I don’t see them turning these lead weights into gold any time soon.

In the end, I can still say play Valkyria Chronicles for its fun, fast-paced, brilliantly presented game play and skip any cut scene you see.