Valkyria Chronicles 2
With the release date of Valkyria Chronicles 3 for PSP less than two weeks away, I figure this is the perfect time (by my usual standard of procrastination) for me to write up my thoughts on VC2, a game which I had only recently completed.
In my defence, I only got to play the original VC three months ago after finally caving and buying a secondhand PS3. Also, Valkyria Chronicles 2 is the most amazing game ever created for the PSP and everyone with two opposable thumbs should play it.
Gallia’s Lanceal Military Academy
The original Valkyria Chronicles is in my opinion the game that made good my PS3 purchase. This was completely unexpected because I bought the console primarily for FFXIII, which I threw into the rubbish chute after 10 hours, and VC is pretty much obscure and under the radar for most people.
I found the art style absolutely amazing and the combat system pure genius. This makes sense because the game was developed by the part of Sega WOW formerly known as Overworks who were responsible for fan-favourite Sakura Taisen series, so they really know what they are doing. (Incidentally, I learnt how to play Koi Koi not because of Summer Wars but because of the mini-game in Sakura Taisen…)
The first VC stood out in two aspects. The first is a cel-shaded 3D graphics engine that I think outclassed all previous attempts to simulate manga-style art with 3D models. The second is the hybrid combat system evolved from a combination of third-person shooters and classic turn-based tactical RPGs like Front Mission and Sakura Taisen.
Not that the drawn CGs are bad
Unfortunately, only the latter survived the sequel’s transition to the PSP, obviously due to technical limitations. In VC2, character portraits and cut scenes are sadly all standard drawn CGs. The battle system is also tweaked to accommodate smaller and close-quarter level designs involving fewer soldiers, but I won’t say that the game has become worse than the original — merely different.
Gameplay
Pre-mission briefing
The VC series employs a pretty unique combat system. Basically instead of moving units in a grid like in traditional tactical RPGs, you have a limited number of moves every turn with which you can take direct control of individual soldiers in a third-person view. The enemies will lay suppressing fire on your units but are otherwise immobile during your turn. Moving your troops across the battlefield while dodging enemy fire is hence a far more active and engaging process than in traditional turn-based strategy. This works out incredibly well and the gameplay is very addictive.
Battle map
Controlling a scout
Your units can only move a set distance and carry out one action (e.g. attack) each time you select them, so you have to think of how to maximize your limited actions per turn while killing enemies and achieving objectives such as capturing points.
Performing an attack
So for example, you can start your turn with a Scout rush by using its high movement range to storm the enemy’s command point and capture it. Then you spend your next move calling in a Gunner using the captured point to obliterate multiple enemies surrounding you. This is a more efficient use of moves than trying to use the Scout’s feeble peashooter to kill the enemies one by one or taking multiple moves to bring the slow-moving Gunner over to the enemy base.
Crouching behind a sandbag to take cover
Similarly, if there’s a tank in front of a command point, it is usually more efficient to capture the point by running pass the tank with a Scout or Shocktrooper and then calling in a Lancer (anti-tank infantry) to attack the tank’s weak spot from behind, than to slowly chip away its armour from the well-protected front.
Sneaking behind the enemy tank with my Heavy Lancer…
The indicator tells me it takes 2 hits to the weak spot to kill this heavy tank. Would probably take 6-7 hits from the front
There are many ways to reduce the number of moves you need to achieve the same result and pulling off a perfect combo gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. That sense of satisfaction is the essence of this game. The battle system creates natural synergies you can exploit simply by thinking tactically and does not rely on hard combos that have to be memorized. It’s like poetry. You can watch it in action in this VC3 promo video.
Victory
With enough min-maxing, it is sometimes possible to win a mission by capturing all the command points within one turn even though the mission’s limit for S Rank is five turns.
Classes
One huge mechanics change in the shift from VC to VC2 is the class system. VC employs a very bare-bone system with 5 basic classes (Scout, Sniper, Engineer, Shocktrooper, Lancer) and an elite version of each class that slightly modifies the gameplay (e.g. Shocktroopers get flamethrowers).
Class upgrade tree for Engineer/Medic
In VC2, the 5 classes basic classes (Scout, Shocktrooper, Lancer, Engineer, Armour Technician) can each be further upgraded into 2 veteren classes (veteran versions of every class, plus Sniper, Gunner, Mortarer, Musician, Swordsman) which in turn can each be upgraded into 2 elite classes (e.g. Anti-Tank Sniper, Heavy Gunner, Medic, Explosive Swordsman) making a grand total of 20 elite classes to play with.
Of course upgrading involves a hell lot of grinding for a variety of random drops (or “credits” since the game setting is a school) that differ for each class… But it’s actually not that hard to get everyone to elite by the end of the game if you diligently play though every mission. You don’t really have to grind (i.e. replay missions).
Armour Tech, a new class in VC2, is a melee unit with a bulletproof shield that can disarm/plant land mines
According to the saved file, I logged 64 hours into VC2, excluding the few dozen reloads it took to perfect some non-repeatable story missions. In 64 hours, I managed to complete all the missions at S Rank (mostly in one playthrough), excluding character-specific missions belonging to characters I don’t use in my main squad, and upgraded all my squad members to elites (with at least one unit of every elite class).
My squad setup
There is a lot more replayability in VC2 compared to the first game. Some of it is grindy, but generally it is thoroughly enjoyable.
Annoyances
If you play through VC, there’s a part during the tutorial where the game proudly informs you that there is no need to grind levels with individual units because all units of the same class share the same class level. You merely have to collect generic EXP to upgrade entire classes. What a thoughtful system, you think to yourself…
Class levels
In VC2, generic EXP and class levels still exist, but elite status is no longer linked to levels. Instead you have to fulfil specific credit requirements for individual units and manually upgrade them one-by-one to elites. This renders the class-level system completely redundant as anything but a linear stat boost. Sigh…
Credits are granted only to units that perform well in missions and each mission grants a specific category of credits (out of four; e.g. Attack credits, Support credits) and each category contains four different grades (e.g. Attack, Attack II, Attack X, Attack II X).
Credits issued after a mission
These credits are granted somewhat randomly, so you can imagine the frustration when you only need one single Attack II to upgrade your Veteran Scout but the mission keeps giving him Attack II X and wasting Attack II on a Shocktrooper that doesn’t need it.
Objection!
Also, the original VC was fully voiced throughout but VC2 has voice-overs only for select scenes. This is a rather huge annoyance in my opinion because partial voice-over is lame and reminiscence of the Nintendo DS.
And I can’t help but feel sad that the awesome cel-shaded engine Sega made for VC is going to waste now that VC has permanently abandoned the PS3 for the PSP…
Capturing a point with my scout. Her character-specific ability also happens to activate, healing her to full
Gameplay balance is also not that great. It’s not so bad if you play against another human player, but certain strategies such as Scout rush are powerful to the point of being broken against the retarded computer AI.
The mission-ranking system determines rank by the number of turns taken. This mandates an offensive play-style going for fast efficient wins, which is further disincentive against using support classes such as Engineer/Musician and slow-moving classes such as Armour Tech in most situations, making the Scout even more overpowered.
S is Japanese for A
Of course, getting S Rank using other classes is perfectly doable and there are very few cases where a Scout rush is absolutely essential. But it often makes things too easy.
Improvements
The weapon/tank upgrade and research options are a huge step up from the original.
In the original game, the upgrades are largely linear stat boosts that, while helpful for progression, do not alter the style of gameplay with few exceptions. The “elite” gimmicky weapons that named NPCs drop are largely useless compared to your default stat boosters. Your tank stays in the base for most fights because it is costly to move and there are very few cases where it is necessary, or even more convenient, to use it.
Submachinegun upgrade tree
In VC2, your tank can be customized for a large variety of purposes, from heavy-armour tank that costs multiple movement points to use and can deal massive damage to enemy bosses to low-cast light-armour personnel carriers that can rapidly transport your troops right to the enemy command point while building bridges and clearing obstacles. This makes the tank useful in nearly every mission.
Similarly, there are numerous weapon sidegrades and special enemy drops that are actually vastly superior to your default upgrades and it actually makes sense to keep an eye out for them.
Heavy tank with heavy armour-piercing rounds, rear armour and enemy camouflage
Light tank with desert camo and water sprinkler (removes heat ray debuff on desert maps)
VC2 also does a much better job of developing side characters. In the original game, each of your squad members supposedly has a unique personality and back story, but none of it is covered in the game itself. You only get to infer them from the one-line voice-overs and the in-game encyclopaedia.
Story scene for one of the Lancer side characters
Lycoris/Anisette, the younger sister of Edy from the original game
In VC2, there is a series of cut scenes and a character-specific mission for every squad member. Sure, the back stories are all cliché-fests, but it’s still nice to have them at all. That said, some of the original VC supporting characters such as Edy are strangely popular with the fans despite having zero presence in the game’s story…
Guess the cliché
Another side character’s story mission
There’s also a decent multiplayer option now that lets you play ad-hoc wireless co-op and versus games with your friends. It’s hard to describe how co-op works, but it is quite fun. Versus mode can be slightly broken if the two players are at very different tech levels in their respective games, but it’s still possible for the disadvantaged player to win if he plays his classes right.
Overall
I think Sega has found itself an incredible game franchise in Valkyria Chronicles and there’s a lot of innovation going on in the two games published so far. Unfortunately, the games do not seem to be doing very well commercially and the move to the PSP, a dead platform in North America, certainly does not help.
Welkin and Alicia from the original game
VC2 is a very fun game, but it is also flawed. Most of its flaws can be attributed to either the technical limitations of the PSP or the strange Japanese notion that all games made for the PSP must be incredibly “replayable”…or grindy (see: Dissidia, Crisis Core, Monster Hunter). The former is made glaringly obvious by the glorious masterpiece that is the original VC on PS3.
The beautiful enemy commander, voiced by Ayako Kawasumi, issues an order
VC of course has its own share of flaws. The story is much grander and more immersive, but the gameplay is slightly too simplistic. On the other hand, VC2 has a much lighter cookie-cutter story but improves the gameplay mechanics in some aspects. It’s a two-step-forward-one-step-back deal.
Becoming the bad guy alters your sense of fashion
Still, in spite of its flaws and limitations, VC2 is by far the most enjoyable PSP experience I have had. It really is disheartening to see that such a brilliant game is apparently not popular enough to warrant even one proper walkthrough on GameFAQs…
More screenshots because I took too many.
Mission shop
There is always a hard-ass drill sergeant
There is always a mascot animal of unknown species
Mission selection screen
You can tell they are bad by the colours
The tank driver/technician is a hawt oneesan who says, “Don’t break it next time, kay?” everytime you bring your tank in for repairs
Arranging your characters before a battle
Blowing up an enemy supply vehicle
Enemy moving in to capture my point during the opponent’s turn
The academy’s scenery changes with the seasons
A total tsundere in a bromance with the main character
It’s like Pikachu with wings
For Queen and country; That is your Queen (voiced by Mamiko Noto)
I eagerly await the release of Valkyria Chronicles 3 on 27th Jan. ^^
Valkyria Chronicles inspired me to attempt to play through all five Sakura Taisen in order.
January 13th, 2011 at 2:21 am
I actually thought the way they did side characters are not really better than what VC1 did. I find myself more motivated to unlock all the side character’s missions than forward progress in the main mission in VC2. I’m in… June? and I’ve unlocked most of the side characters. Too bad they keep on introducing new ones. The characters in VC2 are all too cookie-cutter, and expounding on their characterization via actual missions just makes them less appealing to a degree.
It isn’t bad, but it is different. I just prefer the way it was done in the original a bit more, where it actually mattered who played with who in which map, etc., more because of what kind of character they are and not because there is some kind of back story. Although there were a couple good spots in VC1 where they told you a back story to a minor character because it is kind of relevant…
I also find that there is much less incentive to use the tank in VC2, mainly because it doesn’t get any credits like how your infantry does. A kill by a tank is wasted, in other words. So unlike VC1, I use the tank mainly as a buff, for cover fire, and to lay down bridges/etc.
The other reason why there’s less incentive to use tanks is that on average you get way more command points per turn in VC1 than in VC2, so costing 2 points is no big deal in VC1, but a huge deal in VC2. Until you get better light chases the tank is kind of merf…
The credits system is totally crap IMO. Because it does introduce grind to the game and makes the existing exp system almost pointless. Only if there is some way to get credit without going into battle and assign who gets what kind…
January 13th, 2011 at 2:46 am
Omo, I disagree with you on the tank.
The tank is incredibly useful because it provides anti-debuff auras. This is critical in desert missions and extremely helpful in night/fog missions. It saves CP just by being there, and since you often have to switch its zone, you might as well use that 1-CP to also kill/destroy something.
I will agree that the 2-CP chassis is pretty useless other than for the 5-weight AP rounds in boss fights and I only used the 3-CP chassis once on the second last boss whose support fire can actually kill your tank. But the 1-CP tank is always useful if you want to minimize CP use because of the shoot-again potential, plus it can dislodge multiple sandbags and hidden enemy units in one turn.
And the multipurpose chassis is insanely useful for unlocking shortcuts by building ladders/bridges and breaking boulders. As a bonus, it can equip a flamethrower with rather long reach and it even transports your slow-ass Swordsman to the enemy base and lets you capture flags with it. Unlocking these shortcuts is the easiest way to get S Rank on a lot of missions.
Killing units is not a good way to earn credits. Personally I only played each mission once (not counting failures) so I always aimmed for S Rank. The 1-CP tank lets you advance rapidly by taking out things like V2 supply vehicles and enemy tanks in one turn. Frankly, it is the most overpowered thing in the game.
But of course, I do try to user my Lancers where possible when they need credits. I still find tanks useful in more than half the missions though. Especially when you have 1 or 2 CP left for S Rank and you need to kill that last annoying ace.
January 13th, 2011 at 7:19 am
I played it for a bit, but lost interest because the generic anime high school plot really wasn’t doing anything for me, especially off the back of the fairly interesting plot of the original game. VC3 looks to actually have something more substantial going on in that regard so I hope it gets a translated release at some point.
Still bummed that it’s not on PS3 any more, too. The PSP just really isn’t up to it. Segmented and recycled areas, wierd looking models (everyone seems really tall and the animation’s jerky), lower graphical fidelity and the loss of a lot of those pretty effects. Maybe VC4 will be a PSP2 title and we can actually get back to something resembling the original engine.
January 13th, 2011 at 7:22 am
As someone who loved VC1 immensely, would you say VC2 would make it worth it to get a PSP? I’d been hoping the series would continue on the PS3, but it looks like it’s PSP from now on.
(And Edy is awesome. Something about the potentials she gets, she just works really well in VC1. Between her and Jane…)
January 13th, 2011 at 11:03 am
NegativeZero:
If the rumours that PSP2 will have PS3-level graphics capabilities, then that will really be awesome. I really like VC’s full 3D.
wren ng thornton:
It depends. I think if you love the gameplay you will enjoy VC2 after getting used to it. The story is close to non-existent though.
But I think VC3 will definitely be worth it. It looks like they made quite a number of improvements, including having more open maps.
January 13th, 2011 at 11:13 am
Finishing up VC1, and now I read that VC really is not going to be on the PS3 anymore. Then again I saw it coming when they announced it on PSP for VC2, though I only got around to playing VC1 recently (long after I finished watching the anime).
Edy must have gotten her popularity from the VC anime or something lol. I like her myself from the anime.
January 13th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
No, Edy has been popular since the original game. That’s why there’s a DLC specially for her (“Edy’s Detachment”) and also why she earned a speaking role in the anime.
January 13th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
I can’t really say which one is better- they both have their strengths and weaknesses. I will say that for certain reasons, I don’t think handheld games should be as hard or frustrating as their console counterparts. I just smashed my PSP to the point of unusability after getting pushed back by a gate camp rush for the umpteenth time.
Currently snowed in, so I guess I’ll go back to console games for the time being.
January 19th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
It would be nice if the psp2 will allow me to play on my hdtv. I really want to play Valkyria Chronicles 4 on a big screen.
January 20th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Lol I thought Maaya broke the scale, didn’t expect you to give up after 10 hours :3
March 2nd, 2011 at 8:55 am
“The original Valkyria Chronicles is in my opinion the game that made good my PS3 purchase.”
I totally agree. I really enjoyed VC, and am very sad that they dropped the PS3 platform for the franchise. I LooooVE the gameplay mechanics in VC, and got very attached to the characters while playing (not only the main characters featured in the story, but also the quirky side characters). The cell-shaded 3D engine looked great, as you said, but that gameplay was such a perfect combination of cold, rational, strategic thinking, and adrenalin-pumping immersion — Excellent!
Thanks for writing up your thoughts on VC2, even though I don’t have a PSP, so will never play it.