Game of the Month #18 (July) - Valkyria Chronicles

Valkyria Chronicles is a tactical role-playing game in which the player uses a unique turn-based battle system called BLiTZ (Battle of Live Tactical Zones). During their turn the player views an overhead map in Command Mode, but zooms in to control each individual unit on the battlefield in Action Mode.

The game is set in fictional Europa, loosely based on Europe during the early years of World War II. Because of its abundance of Ragnite ore, which takes the place of petroleum in the game setting, the neutral nation of Gallia comes under attack from the East Europan Imperial Alliance, which is itself engaged in war with the Atlantic Federation. Players take control of a unit of the Gallian Militia, dedicated to repelling the invasion. The game's visuals, which use Sega's CANVAS graphics engine, resemble pencil drawn paintings in motion.

Damn, I'd love to participate, but I'm away from my PS4 until almost the end of the month, so I guess I can't do anything about it. Have fun y'all.

Just realized I have this on steam and actually meant to play it for a while. So I might participate this month.

Bought this in the Steam summer sale, so I'm in!

I just bought the remastered version for the ps4. I'm in.

I decided to play this as well. Have already played a few hours and wow this game is hard. This is my first time playing a strategy RPG I'm more used to regular RPGs and the closest I've played before must be Civilization or something. There are so many considerations which troops to bring with and how to use them that I'm finding it really difficult.

The mission based rank system is kinda flawed too since it only relies on speed and not 'tactics' I guess. Since I'm new to the genre I take it really slow as well, so I guess I won't A rank any mission in the game. That's fine though. The story isn't that great I've actually skipped most of the cutscenes, this seems to me like a game where the strength is the tactics and overall gameplay.

I like the Anime style to the game, it's charming and tanks make the 'vroom' sound when they manoeuvre. There is an easy mode in 'Skirmishes' which is side missions I wish they would have added that to the story missions too.

Just started this last night.

Man, I'm gonna slap the person who made this menu interface... Having the ability to change page by pressing the bumpers and then pressing Y to bring up a menu that has an option to change pages is rather redundant.

Combat is fun; this is a nice approach to cover based combat. There are times when I become a sponge because I run out into the open and have no idea where I'm going so I end my turn in the middle of a street. That's on me.

Will get back to it tonight.

You can count me in this month, hope to play this soon :D

Even if I wanted to I can't play this game cause I don't even have the console need to play it, oh well, I though now that I had youth allowance I could go get the stuff once it wins the vote, guess not this time. I was away when this won anyway so it would be been slightly awkward timing.

Finally a game I've finished not too long ago, so I can actually talk about it. I also actually have a somewhat in-depth look written about it on another site, so maybe I'll post it here as well after people here have had some time with this game (and I'm not feeling too lazy translating it into english). For now I'll say that I liked it a whole lot and it instantly earned a place among my top favorites. For an RPG it's not terribly long, around 30-ish hours including a lot of grinding.

Originally Posted by: hello_world

The mission based rank system is kinda flawed too since it only relies on speed and not 'tactics' I guess. Since I'm new to the genre I take it really slow as well, so I guess I won't A rank any mission in the game. That's fine though.

As a tip to you and everyone else playing this: Don't worry about the rank at all on your first playthrough. It'll just ruin all the fun. Sure, the game kinda wants you to be fast but just have fun with it. You can balance out the results by eliminating some extra troops anyways, plus skirmish missions can be repeated endlessly if you want some extra EXP.

Oh, good gravy. I have to pick from ALL these recruits right from the start? why.....

EDIT: I haven't really said much positive I realize, so let me say this game is still a blast to play! It has a very Fire Emblem meets Gears of War Feels to it. (Or advance wars?)

This Game of the Month has given me a great excuse to come back to Chronicles after I stopped partway last time. I wasn't a huge fan of the mission rank system the first time through, but playing some of the levels again, I see that the designers implemented the system to add replay value to the game. I'm getting much higher rankings now that I know the enemy positions and movement patterns.

What I really like: Leveling up and getting new gear affects all characters in that class (or all of them regardless of class)

What I really don't like: Your tank has so much aggro that units that are effective against it move multiple times in one turn and just annihilate it. Which results in a game over... I've had to restart lots of chapters multiple times because all the enemy soldiers target it's weak junk.

What I really like: Leveling up and getting new gear affects all characters in that class (or all of them regardless of class)

What I really don't like: Your tank has so much aggro that units that are effective against it move multiple times in one turn and just annihilate it. Which results in a game over... I've had to restart lots of chapters multiple times because all the enemy soldiers target it's weak junk.

I don't think it's a spoiler that you have a tank... it's on the cover.

Anyway I'm really enjoying this game, except I've kinda hit a brick wall at Chapter 7. This mission (and only this mission) feels like trial and error, which is frustrating enough in fast-paced platformers, but in a tactical RPG where guiding each unit can take minutes of careful management and strategic planning, it feels like a sure way to throw away hours of your life. I'm going to push through because I've heard that this is mostly a random difficulty spike that equalizes out for a while afterwards, but this level is really killing my enjoyment every time I have to restart it.

In other news, Catherine O'Hara is the second coming of Christ and I love her.

I'll participate. This one has been on my Steam backlog for a quite a while now.

To those of you playing with the English dub- How is the voice acting? I didn't think it was great in the early scenes, and was already used to the JP VA's, so I switched back. Does it get better in later chapters?

To those of you playing with the English dub- How is the voice acting? I didn't think it was great in the early scenes, and was already used to the JP VA's, so I switched back. Does it get better in later chapters?

I'm about halfway through the game (finally got past Chapter 7 by making a backup save for every turn) and I'd say the voice acting has been pretty consistent. Personally I don't mind the English voices, aside from a few recruits whose voices you really only ever hear when you add them or remove them to the roster. So if you weren't a fan in the beginning, I doubt it will win you over later.

On that note: How are the JP voices? I considered using them but I also heard that the subtitles are kind of inaccurately translated at times.

I played for a couple of hours and I'm really enjoying it so far. The anime art style is great. It doesn't have the "creepy doll" look that some other ps3 era anime style games suffer from.

I'm using the japanese voice acting, and it's great. As for the english subtitles, yeah they aren't exactly a 1-1 match with the japanese audio. The big picture is the same but there seems to be a disconnection when it comes to the small details. I assume the subtitles are for the english audio track are used for japanese audio. Or maybe just bad translating, who knows :D

The subtitles aren't changed when you use japanese voices, they use the subtitles for the english audio for both.

In other news, Catherine O'Hara is the second coming of Christ and I love her.

Amen to that.

Properly upgraded snipers are amazing. The only problem I had was the limited ammo and that was only a problem because I didn't realize you could use engineers to resupply troops by simply running up next to them, which made me feel really stupid when I finally noticed that. Also one of the most satisfying things was positioning your troops just right so that all enemy troops running up to them died without firing a single shot.

Ahhhhhhh this game... I actually played about 10 hours of it, but I found it pretty hard for some reason? Well, time to try it out again!

Edit: I got farther than I did last time, so that's a good sign! Loving the game so far.

Edit 2: So, a little follow-up, I finally beat Chapter 7 the duel against Maximilian's tank, it literally took be about 5 hours to beat, and I must say, even though I usually hate it when games are too challenging for me, it's VERY satisfying once you find the right strategy to win.

I don't think it's a spoiler that you have a tank... it's on the cover.

Anyway I'm really enjoying this game, except I've kinda hit a brick wall at Chapter 7. This mission (and only this mission) feels like trial and error, which is frustrating enough in fast-paced platformers, but in a tactical RPG where guiding each unit can take minutes of careful management and strategic planning, it feels like a sure way to throw away hours of your life. I'm going to push through because I've heard that this is mostly a random difficulty spike that equalizes out for a while afterwards, but this level is really killing my enjoyment every time I have to restart it.

In other news, Catherine O'Hara is the second coming of Christ and I love her.

"In other news, Catherine O'Hara is the second coming of Christ and I love her."

YES

Although, I have a 3 year old temper tantrum when she misses.

Spoilers if you haven't played through chapters 11-14

You know, you'd think after the first time a member of their team got sniped for just standing right out in the open on a battlefield, they'd maybe stop standing right out in the open on a battlefield. Not really complaining, just a funny observation. Of course, the second time it was one of their own soldiers, but still. It's also kinda ironic that both of these happened only a couple of chapters apart.

Also, I don't know how people have managed to finish this game in 30 hours or less. I'm at about 30 hours now with only a couple of skirmishes/reports and I still have 6 story missions left, which are averaging at about 2 hours each for me.

Originally Posted by: burningsoup

Also, I don't know how people have managed to finish this game in 30 hours or less. I'm at about 30 hours now with only a couple of skirmishes/reports and I still have 6 story missions left, which are averaging at about 2 hours each for me.

I don't want to spoil anything but it's quite possibly because you can actually finish a lot of the missions in a single turn. It took me just under 31 hours to beat the whole game with everyone at max level (which also helps), every upgrade bought and every skirmish beat and I didn't even skip any of the story.

I love this game. The English dub is great. I tried the Japanese dub but you'll be missing out on the little quips each characters have while on the battlefield, and that's a deal breaker.

Originally Posted by: burningsoup

Also, I don't know how people have managed to finish this game in 30 hours or less. I'm at about 30 hours now with only a couple of skirmishes/reports and I still have 6 story missions left, which are averaging at about 2 hours each for me.

I don't want to spoil anything but it's quite possibly because you can actually finish a lot of the missions in a single turn. It took me just under 31 hours to beat the whole game with everyone at max level (which also helps), every upgrade bought and every skirmish beat and I didn't even skip any of the story.

Yep, honestly that's what I've been doing as of Chapter 10 (by looking at strategy tips on the internet). I'm now on Chapter 13 and... well, it's very hard, even by looking at a walkthrough! Hopefully I can get past it. Edit: I did it! The only hard part was to throw a grenade at the first camp without dying!

Also, to answer to burningsoup, the ''game time'' says about 14 hours for me, but that's without counting the numerous times I've had to load to a previous save due to dying or messing up in a battle. I'd probably have to add an extra 20ish hours to the time the game gives you on the Save/Load screens.

Besides that, I love the game so far and will keep recommending it to people who like JRPGs and/or strategy games. I love the ''war''-themed story, especially little moments like (Chapter 8 minor spoiler?)the dying enemy soldier in Chapter 8 4-b, reminding you that even within our enemies, there are good people as well. And, of course, the characters are lovely and I easily got attached to them.