Valkyria Chronicles

[Henroid]

I started this game last night. I got frustrated in the first mission with the tank, so I imagine this is going to be fun. It got easier once I realized that enemy movements are scripted, so I just need to be out of the way and save CP until the tank gets there.

Only to some extent. Trust me, they will definitely react to you in a lot of cases where you try to juke / trick / abuse it.

[Dewar]

I think it was just a feature of that one map, it still being part of the tutorial and all. I literally stood directly in their path and they ran around me, to then turn around and take a shot. It has been much less so in future missions, but man I just finished a desert level where they were constantly spawning snipers every single round across a mostly empty desert area. I finally just had to roll my tank all the way across the level (I hate the tank) and sit right in the base killing the reinforcements every time they spawned.

[Ninety-Three]

Just pulled this game out of my Steam backlog and I've been enjoying it a lot. Scouts are super broken but it's fine, the game's A ranks require you to complete each mission in an absurdly small number of turns so it makes an interesting puzzle to try to A-rank a mission while completing as many optional objectives as possible. There's a lot of save-scumming involved (mostly to give your lancers perfect aim) and I'm convinced some missions are impossible to A rank while getting all objectives (maybe if you grind skirmishes for hours to get everyone to very high levels). The hidden potentials thing is annoying, I wish the game would just tell me how my characters are going to level up so I know who to pour points into.

 

I bounced off the story very quickly, so I appreciate the game making it so easy to skip through. Am I missing out on a decent story there?

 

It's useful for finessing your position to make sure you're properly behind cover, since the level geometry actually does matter in this game. (It's not like Firaxis' X-com.) Crouching or crawling in "cover" only makes you immune to critical damage from headshots, it doesn't confer any other defensive bonuses. Well, crawling in tall grass also seems to make your unit harder to detect.

 

Are you sure? I've noticed anecdotally that it seems to reduce incoming hits, which makes sense if they're going with an X-COM (the original) aiming model as opposed to XCOM (Firaxis): your hitbox presents a smaller profile, reducing the odds of random scattered shots connecting.

[Henroid]

Ugh, save-scumming is so detestable to me. It's a slower form of save-state abuse some LPers do. And it removes one of the intended aspects of the gameplay.

 

As far as hidden potentials goes... I dunno, it's neat. It gives each character more... character. It's why you level characters by the whole class rather than individuals. Except for engineers, I would suggest people just level your classes at equal paces. With the exception of maybe giving your shock troopers a rank ahead once in a while - don't underestimate their run speed (not to be confused with distance they can run via AP) and ability to soak up damage. Plus, shock troopers are great for positioning to have them idly shoot at passing / approaching enemies.

[Ninety-Three]

Ugh, save-scumming is so detestable to me. It's a slower form of save-state abuse some LPers do. And it removes one of the intended aspects of the gameplay.

 

As far as hidden potentials goes... I dunno, it's neat. It gives each character more... character. It's why you level characters by the whole class rather than individuals. Except for engineers, I would suggest people just level your classes at equal paces. With the exception of maybe giving your shock troopers a rank ahead once in a while - don't underestimate their run speed (not to be confused with distance they can run via AP) and ability to soak up damage. Plus, shock troopers are great for positioning to have them idly shoot at passing / approaching enemies.

 

I fully acknowledge that I'm playing the game in not the way that it's intended to be played, but save-scumming away the improbable misses (I draw the line at scumming to enable one in a million sniper shots) and anti-infantry tank hits allows me to play it like a deterministic puzzle game. It's fascinating, and I'm certainly not making the game too easy by trying to get all optionals with minimal turns.

 

I get that potentials are good for character differentiation, but they would do that just fine without being hidden. It's annoying to have to constantly consult a wiki rather than the game just showing me what they'll grow into on the recruiting screen.

 

As for leveling, hah. Scouts are insane and get the majority of my XP, lancers get the majority of the remainder (because the one thing scouts can't do is one-shot tanks) and shocktroopers get the rest, though I don't use them too much (I advance way too quickly for them to use much reaction fire). I've learned that if there's an enemy around the corner, you can slowly tap the walk button and you'll find a tiny window where you can shoot at them, but you're not yet drawing reaction fire for entering their vision.

Is the economy completely broken? I have enough money to max out all my soldier upgrades at all times, and probably to max out upgrades to the tank I never use. Does that continue throughout the game?

[Henroid]

The game will get to a point where you have to start making real choices on where to spend your money. The weapons branch out to three paths, and aside from that, the income doesn't support making one choice for each weapon type even.

[Bjorn]

(because the one thing scouts can't do is one-shot tanks)

 

Yet. 

 

 

 

The game will get to a point where you have to start making real choices on where to spend your money. The weapons branch out to three paths, and aside from that, the income doesn't support making one choice for each weapon type even.

 

By doing the skirmishes, optional report missions and class challenges, I never had any problems buying whatever I wanted, and had almost every single possible upgrade purchased by the end of the game (I did farm the fastest skirmish for some experience, doable in one turn, because I wanted my 4th potential unlocked on my last class, but that was very late game, like Chap. 17 or 18). 

 

Oh, and because I didn't realize this forever, there is a second page to the skirmishes tab.  Somehow I was dumb and just missed seeing it.  That's where the class challenges are if anyone else missed that. 

[Dewar]

Man, I guess I'm the only person who likes snipers?

[Bjorn]

Man, I guess I'm the only person who likes snipers?

 

No, I loved Marina, my primary sniper.  She was a workhorse, most fights opened with her killing 2-4 (depending on if she got any free shots from her potential) enemies, usually creating safe territory for my scouts to advance into to blow up cover that other units were hiding behind.  Her value usually rapidly declined after the first round though, once everything in her line of sight was dead, and her low movement amount limited her ability to reposition. I did have one mission where she must have killed 7 or 8 units on the first round, thanks to a reload from an engineer and a couple of free shots. On a couple of big maps, I would call in a new sniper at a forward camp once I had taken one, but that wasn't that common. 

 

My primary units through the entire game were scouts Alicia, Cherry, Aika (replaced Cherry once I decided I liked her barks better), then Marina (sniper), and Dallas (Engineer).  Dallas got brought along on most missions just in case I needed a reload or to fix a tank, but ended up doing a lot of mop work following the scouts around.  I really liked Jann (Lancer), I just struggled to justify Lancer use except for very specific situations.  I also loved Jane (Shocktrooper), but similar issue with Lancers, too situational. 

 

One thing that kind of bugged me was that Alicia, Rosie and Largo gave you bonus command points.  I would have rather just had a person from each of those classes designated with that bonus randomly, as I actually liked a lot of the non-story characters barks and personality more than the story characters, but the three story characters were pretty mandatory most missions, so giving up command points for flavor just didn't make any sense. 

 

I know I spent some time complaining about VC in the latter third of the game, but I really did overall think it was pretty special. 

[melmer]

Looks like they've fucked up the new sequel. I just jump through the video, I don't think it's even turn based anymore :/

Why

[TheLastBaron]

Wow. That looks terrible.

[melmer]

Thank god, there might be hope for the sequel yet

http://gematsu.com/2016/05/valkyrie-azure-revolution-made-more-rpg-like-result-demo-feedback

Love this bullet point:

• There were many harsh opinions

Translated: everyone hated it

[Griddlelol]

Well yeah, it looked shit. More like a Warriors game than anything from the Valkyria Chronicles lineage.

[melmer]

I've seen comments that they consider this a spin off game and not a sequel, so i'm sure it still remain quiet different from the actually 'good' game in the series.

 

I like the introduction of close combat sword attacks... but there's too much of it. It's like they're trying to copy FFXV. This is an example of a developer who is utterly clueless to what 1) Is good about the IP they're using 2) What fans want, and ultimately 3) What's going to sell