Valkyria Chronicles Remaster - Review

I got the game digitally but have the boxart since its pretty nice.

Genre: RPG.
Developer/publisher: Sega
Platform: PS4.
Official Site: N/A

Release date: 17-5-2016.

 

This was yet another game I got on a sale and decided this was up next in my backlog.

Wait its all sega? always has been. I did try out valkyria revolution once which I also

bought on a sale but I couldn't get into it? i'm pretty sure it was the story-telling perspective

that put me off. Oh well here I am trying to give the valkyria series another try!

I don't think there are any main plot spoilers but I do discuss some stuff

so it is not completely spoiler-free but hey this game is from 2008

so if you haven't yet played it or have plans don't read!

Pro's

- Good story and cast of characters.

- Nice artstyle and fitting BGM.

- Figuring out and completing the fights gives a sense of victory.

Con's

- Survivability can at times be too RNG dependant, leading to needing to savescum.

- Can't skip prebattle scenes or fastforward enemy turns.

- Easy to miss sidestories if you purchased them later since they get placed alongside older chapters.

 

Storywise I liked the beginning, tis a story about war which isn't fun and it is serious, still

it was easy to feel and understand SOME of the characters as the story progressed.

It was also quite realistic and at times a little unpredictable, yet sometimes

it is also a little predictable in a good way. Due to that I was easily hooked.

Unfortunately as the game went on the pacing was too fast and ended up spending more

time in battles so by the time and important event happened related to a character all

I was like wtf are you serious? just like that really?! This game does the bare minimum

to flesh out its characters if you don't get the sidestories as early as possible AND go

back to read them since they get put between old chapters which was pretty bad design.

Maybe it was a me problem since the only thing I grinded for was the penetration order

which needs sniper rank15, most money went into weapon/tank upgrades so yea I didn't

get most side stories till way later when I had money to spare. Fun beach episode but that was the

only one I could read normally, the bread episode was nice but by then it was the end of the game.

Also forget getting any scenes with NPC characters they get nothing at all and you basically

gotta headcanon it yourself which I dislike. The only characters I actually cared for

were Alicia and Welkin, also Faldio I guess? Isara,Rosie and Largo grew on me

but they were just kinda there and part of the team.

I felt really bad for Selvaria and Maximilian was just a massive jerk and that's putting it nicely.

They tried to pull a pity card on him by giving us some last minute backstory but that was

too little too late and honestly I felt more about Faldio than that stupid jerk.

Imagine Lelouch telling C.C to die, yea I went there. I basically convinced

myself that this guy was Lelouch at his utmost worst which is a lot.

The Code Geass jokes don't end here because LMAO @ Faldio.

Honestly I do like this game, good story&cast and the gameplay is interesting and finishing

the game or certain battles did gave a sense of victory and the ending was very good

but you know it is also too much RNG so I find myself having to save too much

just to make any decent progress, chapter 17 was a complete nightmare for me.

Let me explain...  a unit can dodge and survive the turn but also could get Ko'd.  Basically

nothing is guaranteed, units can miss point blank range but on the retry just score x3 times

in a row and there is nothing like a probability to hit, proficiency is random too

which can either lead to having the best time ever or the worst. Also metal allergy?! 

is that even real? or suddenly getting moody that you can't even do anything are you serious.

I'm all for a little randomness and can deal with the proficiency stuff but at times all I wanted

was to take out a heavy tank and I know I could but it keeps missing till suddenly

rngesus said yes, you will hit the tank and it will explode. I know good positioning can

change the outcome of the turn too but man so much trial and error I am tired.

I hated how saving/loading was literally the only way I could get shit done

suddenly I miss the utawarerumono series that just had turn-redo.

So once again old game is old despite it touching up on the graphics.

I don't regret playing this but man... it was exhausting trying to figure it out the right tactics

especially with my pea brain and making many a mistake. Its easy to say its not for everyone

but hey I still tried! and had some fun while stepping away from it all with

a sense ofvictory which is better than nothing or only a relief that it was over

like with a certain DLC that came too little too late!

More ramblings after the jump but I basically just summed up the best and worse

incase you don't want to skip to my final thoughts.

 

Character interactions for what little there were are still good though, they felt natural

and down-to-earth. It was kind of obvious there was supposed to be romance and it was easy

to ship Alicia and Welkin cuz they were the only ones I cared about besides Faldio. However

the characters more often than not have other stuff on their minds so while it was there

it also wasn't the focus, I am just glad it still managed to progress in a natural way!

Miles better than in BK1 and a certain DLC called beyond the dawn.

Honestly I loved Welkin a lot, probably one of the better protagonists out there

I liked his quirks and his gentle personality but also his ability to lead.

Alicia was also great and I liked her chemistry with Welkin a lot, I ship it!

Don't got much to say about the rest of the crew but most all grew on me with time.

TFW random beach episode and the only side story I didn't miss.

---

 

Gameplay is unique but can be challenging. I could figure it out after a few tries

and will say that you should try and experiment and figure out the flow of the fight

and then act accordingly. There's no auto-save so be sure to save manually a lot, I kept one

book mode save before a fight and then made a bunch of saves for during a fight.

Which is how I actually managed to beat it without losing any units.

 Because this game also has perma-death but you have like 3 turns to save them unless

some enemy touches them. All in all the combat felt like it was thought out well enough

both on paper and when actually played. Except the part about RNG but we don't talk about that.

Anyway fans of srpg's shouldn't be disappointed. Sadly its only unimportant characters that

could die and in specific missions if certain ones died like Alicia,Welkin,Rosie or Largo

it would be an instant game over. Wew guess that's plot armor for ya.

You can still reassign ko'd characters again from a checkpoint as long

as you rescued them in 3 turns so this game isn't too bad. 

Still idk how they themselves feel about being yetted back from a mortal wound. >_>

Sadly during chapter 5 I realized that while I enjoyed the game the battles could be long, I tried

not to use a guide this time to keep it exciting and that it was and really do recommend to play

this game blind! however its not really a game I recommend if you don't got a hour or two

to kill but its great if you want a game that actually has you work for your victories.

Around the time of chapter 6 and 7 there's a difficulty spike and pretty much

my only gripe with the game cuz the rest was all relatively easy till the later stages.

Really weird to try to slap the players buttcheeks but then mellow out for a bit...

This game also doesn't hand out trophies for no reason which is very good since I got tired

of how I get them when I did absolutely nothing or something completely random.

By chapter 6 I realized how incredible fair this game is, anything the player does

the enemy can also do. This can be frustrating but it is still a game and enemies

have patterns which you the player can learn to eventually get through it.

For some it may take longer but all in all VC is an incredible fair game.

 

With all that in mind I was able to continue playing and enjoy the story, honestly I partly

was getting tired of the easier games and wanted a game to sink some time into!

This game originally is from 2008 and it shows, back then people actually made games

and they tried with the systems. Games are allowed to be a little frustrating

if it isn't for you that's okay just hit da bricks and play something else!

honestly it feels the developers pulled out their all in this game and while it isn't

perfect you will still get a lot out ot this game if you're willing to learn.

The only thing I really disliked was the 20 turn limit(rarely less), maybe it is there

to prevent it to keep going forever but this may be why I got frustrated when characters

kept missing and general RNG, like now that I finished the game I know

its more than enough time but damn no stress huh?

I hardly A ranked any battles except maybe the one in the beginning were you had

to protect a gate? all I did was take out the tank ASAP and it was done, that was it.

The rest of the stages were too long and at times even almost reached the turn limit.

Around ch7 I decided I should maybe use a guide cuz figuring it all out by myself

wasn't fun anymore, it felt I was being inefficient or not doing it right. So ultimately

a guide/strat was only used if I was confused at how to approach something like in ch9

and the end result ended up being so simple it ended up with another A rank.

Fouzen was also relatively simply but I wanted to do it my way and ended with a B rank instead

I typically only reached for a guide/strat to know what units to bring or for a little guidance

cuz at times its like oh man wtf am I supposed to do now? Also lmao I A ranked

the last battle too and I was like wait that's it? it was that simple yet again.

Meanwhile chapter 17 was a glorious D rank... and another personal enemy of mine.

Please go away...

Now my biggest gripe with this game is that it can be punishing. Mostly in ch7 or 14

 since it has a nasty surprise that may make you want to redo the whole thing over.

 Like destroy the radiators on a super tank too quickly and there will be surprise reinforcements

including an invincible unit that'll slap your ass if you positioned yourself carelessly.

I disliked this fight so much...

Of course this could be remedied when retrying and I basically had to position

my units down south ahead of time. This stuff made me wanna quit... cuz

you had to sit through the mind numbling first half all over again like yea

story is interesting but damn can't get there cuz gameplay be slapping buttcheeks.

Okay I'll tone it down, you can get there as long as you're willing to try!

chapter 8 wasn't much better, sure it is different but annoying to sit through especially

if you make dumb mistakes, then again key saves throughout does help.

The worst stage for me in the game was probably chapter 17, the constant

reinforcements dragged everything on and you basically had to capture all the camps

to prevent the tank from repairing. There were cheese strats but those involved lvl 20 lancers

and at best mine were 12 and I had to grind windmill plaza to get snipers at 15 for

the order penetration. Which is also the only thing I ever had to grind for, thankfully

the Alicia method made that fast. Thanks for coming to my ted talk I just needed to vent...

My general advice for the game would be: only add 1/2 engineer to the rosterand like 5/6 Lancers.

That is mostly cuz of chapter 7&17... unless you grind less Lancers should be OK too.

 Get 1/2 snipers as well since there are some missions where they're useful.  You can never

go wrong with scouts especially Alicia. A few Shocktroopers will do as well anyway it doesn't

matter which you can get by with most units. No one was too bad.  Do grab Aika&Vyse

when they're available they're references to Skies of Arcadia and are decent units.

 I have also found out you don't always need a full squad since Alicia with a few orders

can make miracles happen so there you have it. I am sure there are other ways but

the Alicia method really helps but its not for every stage just a few.

The best advice it would be to save at the start of any stage and then let's see

how far you can get with no knowledge at all and making further saves at key points

in case you don't want to lose any members etc.

One more thing there's a character voiced by takahiro sakurai in this game, Faldio.

Anyway even if the seiyuu had been caught up in some stuff IRL I still love his acting

and can still enjoy hearing his voice. Like the moment Faldio spoke I was like

wait hold up? Sakurai is that you? and yuuup it him the one and only.

Unfortunately he is a typical Sakurai character and there were points were I was like hmm...

i'm sorry but I have just seen too many characters voiced by him so I was watching him like a hawk.

Same thing happened with a character voiced by Jun Fukuyama. I knew it was him.

Insert more code geass jokes here...

Final thoughts!

 Honestly this game grew on me, sure it could be a little frustrating at times

but I liked figuring out the stages they were like puzzles and due to me learning

(and save/load) no units were lost except the two nameless npc's in the beginning. I liked

the story also mostly everything made sense by the end except Max's power up, I didn't get how

he did that, they didn't even explain. Bgm was pretty good and fitting for the tone of the scene.

 The graphics are decent and the style gives the game charm, the only thing I didn't like was that

the models were kind of unfocused/had rough edges when they were zoomed out. Not sure if

it was on purpose but its whatever. Moving on I think the character interactions and romance

were better than say Baten Kaitos 1 but I wish there were more side episodes with other npc's

or like any dialogue at all since at best they were just units to use and nothing else. I know there's

many but outside of combat a lot of them just never said a word which just bothered me

and all you get is their personnel file with a basic description of them.

Like Rosie and Largo grew on me cuz they were a part of the plot but I just can't begin

 to care about the random units except Vyse,Aika,Alex or Jane since most were fairly generic.

Sorry I am just not into x character likes x but they never really interact so I gotta

headcanon things happened when they didn't. Which is kind of what they did with the npc's.

Anyway boohoo I am a Faldio enjoyer and I like his whole character arc, his final moment

was beautiful, this guy literally does a 180 and then record scratch freeze frame to realize

he fucked up at something and admitted it while also literally being heroic. I love him.

Also what really sealed it was that he wanted to stay friends and become grandpa''s with Welkin.

I didn't really get too attached to anyone else except Welkin and Alicia whom I ship

but honestly if you don't view special episodes it could feel lacking, the only one

I saw was a random beach episode that I sat through mostly being deadpanned cuz

it was so random and the only thing I enjoyed from that was Alicia and Welkin getting flustered.

Which made it super obvious they were into each other but imagine skipping it and you

miss out on good character bonding since others were present too.

Also I didn't figure out till later that there were other side stories which you can buy via the

reporter however they get buried with older chapters so I didn't find them till later and by then

I could barely be arsed! ah such is life, I think this is a bad design decision and there should

just have been a separate tab for side stories instead of like inbetween old chapters.

Due to the difficulty this game isn't for everyone but it is still a pretty solid package

with a good story and gameplay, its definitely worth more than the 5$ I got it for.

Good if you like challenging games, bad if you just wanna chill and enjoy the story

since the battles are such a massive time sink.

7.5/10

All in all its a pretty good game with a decent story&cast but can be difficult at times

there's nothing quite like it and stands out on its own very well. I actually really liked

the ending because it carried the weight of everything that had happened. 

Still I think the game does show its age and I may have enjoyed it more had I played it sooner

since I just have higher expectations for writing and it does feel like they cut corners

with anyone that isn't Alicia,Welkin,Faldio or Selvaria whom I just feel bad for

cuz her relationship with Maximilian comes across a cruel code geass joke.

 

I will end my ramblings here because I have written too much and at the end of the day

it was a pretty good game. I am up to playing VC4 sometime but not anytime soon, let's give it

some more breathing room while working on something else in the backlog

but hmm whenever it is on a sale I probably will get it but tbh I feel bad for getting

these for 5$ so I might just bite the bullet next time.