Valkyria Chronicles™

A game with a great art style and interesting setting ruined by trial-and-error gameplay that can't really be remedied by anything. The beginning is great and makes it seem like this is going to be a fun game. Unfortunately after a while it just becomes frustrating. Most missions seem like you either need to find out the one and only solution that works, rely on knowledge from an earlier failed attempt or straight out cheese the fight. There were times where I knew exactly what needs to be done but actually executing the strategy was reliant on RNG or really dumb enemy AI manipulation. Enemy AI seems to be either absurdly stupid or insanely precise and destructive and there's nothing in-between. Sometimes the enemies just go and die for no reason, other times the game suddenly wakes up some hidden guy that straight out ruins the last 30 minutes of gameplay with one shot. Then you replay the mission and it feels like you're cheesing it by being fully prepared for the scripted "suprise" encounter. The enemy turns take forever because of enemy animations that can't be skipped or sped up. Sometimes I'd end my turn, go grab a drink or take a piss, come back and somehow it's still not my turn. Some of the actions are just baffling, such as enemy commander shouting orders to non-existent units and it takes like half a minute. It gets really annoying fast. Combat is broken, sometimes shots simply do not register or the game somehow makes you miss what would be a clear shot. I have no idea if this is RNG or bugs and I don't think it matters because it doesn't seem to work as intended anyway. Most units have a really small amount of movement points so getting your troops to where you want them takes forever, which encourages you to use maybe 2-3 guys max and getting through the level this way. Sometimes the enemy will duck behind cover in a way that makes him fully visible and yet at the same time the enemy is protected which makes it absurdly immune to your attacks. Most of the time a simple scout can sometimes withstand an anti-armor round from a tank, in fact most of the enemy troops can... until you aim to get a headshot. I have been playing video games since forever and this is the first game I've ever played where the best strategy for using a tank is to aim for the head. Words cannot express what I'm seeing inside my head when I imagine this scenario. The worst thing is that I really, really wanted to like this game. I even forced myself to get through some of the frustrating parts (7th battle especially) because I thought that maybe I'm just not good enough at the game and that it will get better as I'll level up my troops and gear and so on. It does not get better.

Imagine XCOM and an anime had a baby and that baby was somehow better than both parents. That's Valkyria Chronicles. The watercolour art style goes stupidly hard, the story hits harder than expected and the tactical combat is genuinely fresh even by today's standards. Yes, you will get attached to your soldiers. Yes,, some of them will die. No, you will not be okay. The difficulty can spike out of nowhere and certain missions will have you restarting like it's your job, but honestly that's half the fun. Slept on for years, finally got its flowers. Don't be the last person to play this. [b][8.5/10][/b]

A true classic that is showing its age. The turn-based/real-time combo is unique and fun. A lot of QoL issues keep this from being a masterpiece. Weird terrain hitboxes, the inability to speed up the enemy's turn, lack of difficulty scaling, awful rating system, little replay value, to name a few. The rating system in particular detracts from the overall experience of the game. It's sole criteria is the number of turns it takes to finish the mission, meaning that to achieve the highest rank you must rush through every mission as fast as possible. Much of the joy of strategizing solutions is lost when only scout rushing is viable. You'll get more enjoyment from the game if you ignore the rating system entirely. The game requires two full completions to 100% and the campaign gets a little tiresome the 2nd time around. The optional skirmishes you unlock are simply identical or slightly easier versions of their campaign counterparts, when initially unlocked. They are the meat and potatoes of New Game+ in my opinion, as you then unlock the hard and expert difficulties. These are a lot of fun and are new twists with greatly increased difficulty that is sure to put your endgame arsenal to work. Sadly, the campaign missions are identical to the first go around and are total bore fests, compounded by the fact that you can't speed the enemies turn in any way. Don't let my criticisms put you off from this game, it really is fantastic and there is a lot of fun here. I again suggest anyone playing this for the first time to ignore the rating system entirely, it's a poor design choice that robs the game of a lot of its enjoyment. Having completed it, I doubt I'll ever revisit it other than to remember it fondly and check out the other installments of the series.

Any individual who would join a military (of any nationality. They are all, ultimately, all roughly the same in this regard,) should first turn to history as their primary teacher and advisor. History teaches us: -Exceptionalism is a threat to those above you in the hierarchy and it must be punished. -Success will earn you increasingly impossible tasks. -Political recognition is a temporary shield from a jealous structure that wants you dead simply for doing the job you were hired for. I'm not being funny; this was my experience while I was in, and this game does an excellent job of emulating that reality. In the event you don't believe this to be an endorsement: -The cast is very endearing. -The gameplay is extremely fun, once you understand the unique take on turn-based combat. -It's a slow burn, but it ramps significantly in intensity the whole way through. -Hitoshi Sakimoto has a divine gift for music. He can reach straight into your heart and pull a love for a country you've never visited (and technically doesn't exist. Alternate history and such,) straight out of your soul. -I hold the epilogue of this game as being among my all-time favorites. It's extremely wholesome, and grants an incredible sense of closure. Furthermore, "Senjou no Valkyria" (the anime) exists for anyone without the patience to play through the game.

A great game, the series comes the closest to feeling like Fire Emblem without actually being it. It's aged very well and the port is decent. Story is basic but charming, and gameplay is very fun. Its basically an easier version of XCOM mixed in with some Fire Emblem. Some notes about the port: - SAVE OFTEN: I had one crash that happened twice right after the first mission, the first time it happened I didn't save and lost 30 mins progress. The second time I saved and it was fine. Have not had issues since but just make sure you save after every mission as there are no auto saves. - This is a port, not a remaster. cutscenes are stuck at 1920 x 1080, and some textures look bad, especially at higher resolution but its fine as long as you go in knowing that. In terms of QOL Mods there aren't many, just one that will skip the intro and load the game faster. There are some rebalance and graphics mods but they don't seem worth it.

All in all a pretty fun time. The idea of turn-based combat where you move around freely and need to aim and shoot sounds like a mess but feels amazing in practice. This game executes it fine, it's not amazing, but still an excellent base. I'm surprised more series don't do this style of combat, or perhaps I just don't know where to look for them. The story is alright, a bit too generic and lost me midway. Can't say I wasn't hoping for more since the characters themselves are quite fun. The OST is nice and of course I gotta praise the gorgeous storybook art style, those are always timeless.

The content of the game is actually really good, but the game crashes when I switch from ‘headquartes’ to ‘book mode’. Which causes progress to be lost as the game has no form of auto-save. This wouldn't actually be a big problem, or so I thought. However, I'm not the only one who has this problem with the game and in fact this problem seems to have existed for years. It's a real shame, but I don't want to support a product that requires the player to solve problems that should actually be solved by the developers.

I last played this game back in 2015 and decided to pick it up again recently (2025). Valkyria Chronicles is one of those games that you either absolutely love or absolutely hate. It's a JRPG with a focus on turn based strategy. Which to its credit, does pretty well. However, there are certainly aspects of this game that are broken, bugged or simply frustrating. The PC port has it's fair share of bugs some even game breaking making you halt your progress because your refreshrate is too high to walk a certain walkway, so you have to take measures to cheese your way through it. Or when you're upgraded and leveled out to the max and yet you still get your ass kicked by a unbeatable boss because thats just the way the story goes. If you can look away from the unpolished business, Valkyria Chronicles is a story rich game with lots of characters, classess and game mechanics that will keep every battle interaction engaging and interesting. Overall a solid game and i would recommend you try it. 7/10