I liked the first game on PS3. But this one is more of the same, but not quite as good.
I'm into strategy and good storytelling. The game has sub-par strategy and mediocre storytelling. I'll get into the story first.
Like the other Valkyria Chronicles games, the setting is a loose representation of World War 1. You're fighting in "Europa" against the evil "Empire." The Empire and itsI liked the first game on PS3. But this one is more of the same, but not quite as good.
I'm into strategy and good storytelling. The game has sub-par strategy and mediocre storytelling. I'll get into the story first.
Like the other Valkyria Chronicles games, the setting is a loose representation of World War 1. You're fighting in "Europa" against the evil "Empire." The Empire and its leader (the one that you see) are evil for the typical reasons (because they look evil and want power). And it's your job to save your side, by sending your small troop against nearly impossible odds, well, that is until you realize that the game is easy.
The main story covers themes of fighting for what's right, which is easy when your opponent is evil for no reason. It only briefly dabbles in the consequences of killing other humans -- It more or less settles on fighting as being a competition. It pays no attention to politics and how they might stop the war, or the other horrors of war, such as rape, pillaging, etc. It's really a child-friendly view of war, and ends up shallow because of this. You'll eventually get to a happy end with nearly no losses on your side, by having unbelievable circumstances take place in your favor.
There are several moments of unreasonable character motivations and actions that I can only describe as child-like. For example, one particular person has a worthy goal, but decides to tell no one and instead masks it as an act of evil, so that person eventually pays the ultimate price. All of that could have been avoided by just telling the truth. To the average gamer, this scene and ones like it might seem deep or emotional, but if you're capable of understanding human actions and motivations, they come off as being fully manufactured.
There's a few logical plot holes here and there. A big one near the beginning of the game is communicating tank locations to a mortar team by changing numbers on different signs. A single three-digit number might be enough information to precisely locate two tanks in a given area, but to do it two more times, using the exact same number, for tanks in different locations, is impossible.
The side stories are more well-written (more believable) than the main plot. They're much shorter and normally deal with personal issues related to war. For example, there's one with old guys coming to terms with their age and how it relates to their abilities and experience in war. And there's another that deals with a wife joining the war to find her lost husband. Her friends learn of this and then have to deal with some sensitive issues that I won't spoil for you.
As for the combat... It's basic and overall less strategic than the original Valkyria Chronicles.
The primary issues with the combat are still there. You can use up all of your turn points on a single unit if you'd like, and many units have unlimited ammo. In one particular boss battle, I remember running a machine-gunner up to the boss, and then repeatedly shooting it in the head (at least 6 turns worth) to win the battle. This was all during my turn, so the boss could not react. That's simply not strategy, but ends up being the most efficient way to play.
And then there's the new game-breaking class: Grenadiers. Any strategy that was there went out the window when these showed up. They don't move very fast and only have three shots, but one-shot nearly everything in the game at a long distance. The only protection from them is something overhead, which is rare. So you send two grenadiers in with an engineer (who can refill ammo endlessly), and you can wipe out nearly everything in the game with ease.
AI is horrid. Enemies will run right in front of your tanks (which kills them), will stop their turns without shooting sometimes, try to shoot at you through walls (which fails), try to shoot at you with inaccurate weapons from distance (which miss), and will end their turns without using all of their movement points (which they can use to move and shoot at you more). With the bad AI, the only way to make the game more difficult is to give enemies more hit points, which is what they did. You'll frequently come across boss individuals who have 2x the hit points of tanks and boss tanks that have 10x the hit points of normal tanks.
This sort of strategy might be great for people who have never experienced good strategy games before, or maybe Disgaea fans. But hard-core PC strategy fans should look elsewhere. I played on normal mode, which is the hardest mode you can choose, beat the last level, and then immediately beat the last level again on Hard mode (when it was unlocked), and had very little issue with it. And that was without having all of the best weapons purchased, maximum levels, or with an optimal troop setup.
Since the original is on PS4, you should definitely play it before this entry, and then only play this one if you're ready to experience something slightly worse.… Expand
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