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.

Currently snowed in, so I guess I’ll go back to console games for the time being.

Edy must have gotten her popularity from the VC anime or something lol. I like her myself from the anime.

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.

(And Edy is awesome. Something about the potentials she gets, she just works really well in VC1. Between her and Jane…)

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.

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.