Valkyria Chronicles es una obra que a pesar de su estilo artístico anime, muestra la crudeza de la guerra inspirándose en sucesos de la vida real, algo que muy pocas veces he visto en una weeb media.

A pesar de reconocer su buena historia, dudo que continúe con la saga, no por nada me tomo años en terminarlo y no es que sea un mal juego, simplemente no conecto conmigo y por eso lo terminaba abandonando. No siento motivación ni ganas por continuarlo, además de que nunca he sido tan fan de los tactics jrpg.

I really do enjoy the freer-form take on strategy movement, regulating motion with energy instead of a strict tile system allows for more interesting arenas, but I got filtered by Marberry Beach and I'm not interested enough in the story to grind for upgrades.

Also having a vaguely WW2 inspired urban fantasy setting where bloodline magic is real seems like an own goal if what you're attempting to say is that the side with a fixation on racial purity is the bad guys. Maybe have them be incorrect.

7.5/10
Enjoyed this a bit, was quite nice. While was cliché here and there, it wasn't like it was bad clichés and didn't mind it (Though quite a jarring difference between the clichés and the setting because of the real life war it took ideas from). Plot wasn't a world beater but did a nice job, simple to follow and engaging to a degree. Gameplay was interesting, overall a fun tactical rpg at times needing a lot more thinking than usual which is a good thing. The addition of Valkyries in a war story was nice and cool, though I definitely wish it was more prevalent within the plot, only really showing face a few times which is a bit off putting given the name of the series.

I went into this game looking for a strategy game that offered different gameplay as opposed to something like a more tactical-style game like Fire Emblem would. What I got was a kind of run-of-the-mill story with decent gameplay, that was frustratingly difficult at times but not impossible.

The gameplay itself is interesting enough - strategically moving units around a 3D space, dodging enemies and hiding behind cover to avoid getting hit, and aiming yourself rather than relying on hit% or a dice roll. I appreciated the way the maps used verticality a lot, and line of sight as well. The leveling system was a little weird - having levels tied to classes meant that none of your units necessarily fell behind, but it did make me feel more disconnected to the playable characters moreso than something like Fire Emblem or a Pokemon nuzlocke would. The upgrade trees for weapons was a nice touch, and although it was interesting that you could pick up enemy weapons off certain corpses, I never found the enemy's weapons useful enough to use practically.

The story, as alluded to before, is very run-of-the-mill; but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It does do a good job exploring the various natures of the gravity and seriousness of war - but it can be hard to take the story seriously when it seems like the characters, outside of Welkin and Alicia, don't? If that makes sense? The Valkyrur and their connections with the Darcsen tribe give a sense of intrigue, but I feel like these sort of themes explored better in something like Fire Emblem's Tellius duology.

Other things: the music was not necessarily a favorite, and even became annoying at parts (especially the book mode music), but the cel-shaded style mixed with storybook style art were gorgeous to look at and kept me going.

Overall not a bad time, but I feel like I could have spent my time a little better.

This game has a lot of good, but it has a lot of bad too. The game has an incredibly touching narrative with great characters that actually left me crying in a few scenes. It however has a lot of content that detracts from that story, basically every report. Having quite a few characters being given what felt like negative development, or forced beach episodes that are painful to watch. I accidentally left all the reports until the end (besides the one regarding Faldio/Alicia), and frankly that is the best way to play it. I got a better more well rounded story out of it, and started losing some of my love for the game after watching them, because that story started to crumble a bit. The DLC exacerbated this problem even more, and left me wondering why I would want any of this? The gameplay also is a chore. It is so laughably annoying that I felt like I was in a hostage situation when playing it. I had to do it, or else I wouldn't see the story I loved so much, but it turned out not to be worth it at all considering everything before. Everything is down to RNG from all units movement and accuracy to even how the enemies conduct their turn that time. There were times I was reloading a save, because an enemy got an impossible angle on the Edelweiss' rear (the back engine being pressed against an object and fully surrounded by it on all 3 sides), instantly killing me over and over until, miraculously, they finally missed, and I could play the game again. Every miss you make has the chance to be so debilitating that it is not worth playing the doomed save, so it is a save and reload every action kind of game. It is absolutely worth nobody's time, and you would probably be better off watching the anime, or reading (or even playing) a better written war story.

I started having issues with gameplay from chapter 12 onwards because having to wait for enemy actions without skip or fast forward started to feel like a chore, especially when you fucked it up while your first try doing trial and error and have to go same motions again, and when your one wrong move could cost you 30 mins or 1 hour. dunno why they didnt think of adding that very crucial option. but even though that its pretty unique (real time turn based strategy game pog), enjoyable and game gives you new things to consider to plan for every battle.

the story its trying to give is also lovely. made me care for the characters very much that I would make rescuing downed characters my top priority in missions (even the squad members you only get to know about in personel tabs and in battles, they have so much soul you get invested) and I would just restart the mission if one of them died. only bad thing I can say about story is it gets just stupidly over the top from the setting it sets itself in the later parts. it gets from ''hey lets defend our city'' to ''fighting a massive train-battleship which shots deadly laser that goes on forever with only guns and comically small tank compared to it''. but I couldnt allow these two issues I have with the game to decrease my score to 8 or 9 because I loved it and this one deserved a special place, so heres a full star.

also, alicia you left the oven on

Do not look for "how-to's" or "walkthroughs", you might find an exploit that ruins the mechanics of the whole game; fortunately I found out after I had already finished the campaign.

Also check your mission "book" after each battle. In my gameplay, the game skipped two optional missons automatically that were crucial for the plot (unless I pressed something without noticing).

Excellent variation on the turn-based strategy games, and the story is really interesting.

Sinceramente, no es malo, pero tampoco bueno.
Tiene muy buenas ideas de cara al uso de unidades, su reclutamiento, y su uso en combate, siendo las aptitudes algo clave en la batalla, como en la caracterización de cada unidad. En ese apartado, le doy bastante mérito al preocuparse por la personalidad de cada tropa que reclutas.

Sin embargo, bastantes de estas buenas ideas o se quedan a medias, o contradicen las reglas bases del juego. El uso de clases por ejemplo, entiendo el punto de cada una, pero poco se acaban complementando entre sí a lo largo del juego quedándose en algo meramente circunstancial. La verdad creo que la mayoría de sus problemas mecánicos vienen por parte de que el juego te premia por terminar rápido cada combate y nada más, alentándote a romper y aprovechar las clases mas rotas antes que realizar una estrategia de verdad usando cada clase de la mejor forma posible.

En conclusión, deja que desear a pesar de lo entretenido que puede llegara ser a momentos, principalmente por su historia que aunque básica, es decente. Todo lo mencionado forma un conjunto de buenas ideas no muy bien aprovechadas o directamente enterradas por una filosofía de juego mal planteada.

There aren't many gameplay systems games like this offer, and Valkyria Chronicles certainly holds its unique combat as a sort of badge of honour in its advertising and marketing.

Whilst at first the story felt very bland, it really did ramp up as time went by. I won't say it has the spiciest of developments, but the characters are all lovable, with their own charms. One huge flaw in the story for this game is in how we don't really see much of the ones outside of the main cast, minus their descriptions in the menus.

I've heard complaints that the way the series motivates you to beat stages is also very counter-intuitive. Whilst I can agree that using Alicia, the Bakery Girl, to dash through everything and take over areas before the enemies can notice isn't exactly war-like, it's also super fun. I'm a sucker for cheesing, so it works out for me.

Possible a lot of the flaws, come with the biggest positive about this game: it's combat system. Enemies have a set chance of dodging, and unless you cheese through loading save states to mitigate chances or use a character with the Undodgeable Shot skill, you'll find yourself feeling frustrated on many occasions. You can't even retry missions without finding a way to kill Welkin, and neither can you know enemy placements before starting a map and going through trial and error, so judging which units you need for a select mission is difficult unless you go through the motions or use a guide.

When it works, it all clicks, but when it doesn't, it feels very unfair. The game also has a huge difficulty spike towards the battle at Naggiar Plains, and I found it personally impossible to beat missions normally unless I cheesed it and had managed to get the A-rank weapons beforehand. There is a lot of trial and error with this game, but it doesn't feel overly punishing as long as you manage to save every few turns.

No, I'm serious. Please, for the love of all that's holy, save before big decision-making turns. You might just lose over an hour of progress if you don't!

Conclusion: I swear this game is fun!