The next step for turn-based strategy. Incredibly fun, and absolutely charming.

I'd heard XCom's Julian Gollop had sung this game's praises back in 2010, saying that Valkyria's system was almost exactly what he had in mind for his never-released Dreamland Chronicles. Valkyria's combat definitely feels like a big step forward from the XCom back-and-forth, adding an element of intensity and immediacy to the short burts of action that take place during each movement you choose. The moment you make your move, you take command of that unit and execute the move in real time. Enemy units cannot move or attack until it is their turn, but they can REact, laying down bursts of fire if you draw within range. It goes a long way toward bridging the gap between action and strategy you tend to get in turn-based titles.

The plot is better than I expected, but it's nothing particularly interesting. I was a little interested in the Darcsen storyline, as it was implied they actually caused an ancient disaster which spurred generations of racism, so that was a pretty good element. I also found myself more interested in the political landscape of WORLD WAR ANIME than I thought I'd be.

The characters are the real endearing element here - everyone has wildly different personalities, touched with weird and charming quirks that manifest into battle. The close-range shocktrooper Jane gets an anti-personnel "sadism" buff if she kills enough nazis, but runs into a defense-lowering debuff if she walks on a paved road (since she USED to be a nature-loving pacifist). Others have wildly bizarre powers, like an unmotivated engineer whose gun randomly jams because she's too lazy to clean it, or a ditzy valley girl who loses accuracy due to gabbing with nearby soldiers. You find yourself choosing soldiers that have glaring tactical problems, just because you like their personalities so much. For the most part, however, buffs and debuffs are pretty well balanced.

It adds a ton of much-needed flavor to a section of turn-based strategy that is usually very calculated and bland. Very fun.

I haven't been this taken with a title for a very long time. Very much recommended, and hopefully we'll see Sega release another proper sequel.

Ok I don't want to fanboy over this game but be warned this is going to be very bias

Ok now lets put it bluntly, I love this game, when I first played this game back on the PS3 I fell in love with it instantly, how it looks, the characters, the music, the gameplay I loved ALL of it so without spoiling too much about the game I'll explain the plot.

The year is 1935 in a ficitional land called Europa, and yes it is essentially just Europe and basically, their WW2 happens with the Empire (Who are basically the Axis) and the Federation (who are basically the Allies) trying to out kill each other, during this though the Empire decides to attack a small neutral country called Galia and this is where you start the game.

You play Welking Gunther, the son of a EW1 (their WW1) Hero coming home to help your sister and maid evacuate, on the way Welkin gets arrested by the town watch due to being a suspected spy where he meets one of the other main characters, Alicia Melciott, shortly after your attacked by an empire scouting party and the game begins

now from that description your probitly thinking a very 'Tales of' game but in actuallity the game has alot of things similer to the XCOM line of games, the game is a mixture of real time and turn based gameplay, to put it simple your turn starts with you on a birds eye view with icons repsenting your troops, you select one and assume direct control of said character, here the game unfreezes and you can be shot at, you then move around, crouch behind sandbags and more but you have a bar which dictates how far you move, outside of that you can end or turn or enter aim mode.

here all gameplay stops again, the enemies shooting at you finish (though the mounted guns tend to misbehave and keep fireing for much longer) and you can do a more aggresive action, haling, repearing or the more obvious one, shooting the opponent, but be carful because if your in range of the enemy and they survive your attack they're allowed to counter attack, then you can only end your turn, when you run out of command points you end your turn and then the enemy's begin, basically being able to do the same thing.

Theres also permadeath in this game, baring a few missions every mission has one possible failure state: Welkin Dies. if his tank explodes or on the few missions he's on foot he hits 0 health you instantly fail, outside of Welkin there are 4 more "Essential" characters, these will never die in battle and will instead retreat, being unable to be used for the remainder of the battle, then theres everybody else, if they are killed then they stay dead, no "Amazingly they survived" or retirering due to injurys, when they die they are perminatly dead till you play through the game again.

next is the story, as you would expect for most japanesise games (Not all, just most) the game has some very cliche anime-like moments and archtypes (Including an obligatory beach scene) but actually keeps itself very down to earth and showcases something in war that most war games don't manage, how in war a situation can go from silly and fun to dark and depressing in the blink of an eye, this allows the characters to feel like actual people, you feel then reacting to the sudden changes as you would and that in turn helps you to attach to them.

Now incase i go over the character limit i'm just going to randomly throw the 3 problems I have with the game so

1. The difficulty is all over the place, some missions are rather difficulty then suddenly you get an easy one, theres one mission that is absurdly difficult about 1/3rd of the way through the game but the next 4 or 5 are a cake walk, theres no real curve which makes the experiance a litting jaring

2. the AI sometimes goes into full derp mode, I've had snipers run point blank range into my shocktroopers to try and snipe one, I've even had AIs just end their turn standing in the middle of the battlefield because they got shot once

3. the ports animated cutscenes are at 30fps 720p but the game can be played at 4k and 60fps, small gripe but a little jaring, the game looks beutiful anyway

ok still not at the character limit? good I'll continue

one thing that strikes me about the game (outside of its graphics which look beutiful especially in the animated cutscenes) is the music, which was composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto who you may know from his work in FF12 and the Tactics series, the music uses alot of violins and piano work to help express the emotion being felt at the time including tension, joy and sadness, of course this runs into the problem though that alot of tracks are repeated but thankfully it doesn't get too annoying to listen to after multiple playthroughs and it tends to save the best tracks for when its needed

now to finish off is graphics, and i'm just going to say this now, SEGA needs to use this game engine more, while it does defently have rather low texture quality its only noticeable at really close range, the Canvis engine has that really great combination of vibrant colours, strong lighting (when it's used which unfortunatly is not often) and makes the characters have very distinquishable sillouetes which prevent you from being killed cheaply, there ARE a few issues with the physics but the game doesn't use then in say how a Call of duty game uses it, typically its saved for the ragdolls which disappear after a short while

Overall Valkyria chronicles is as good now as it is then, it is well made and is one of the best games of its generation and mayhaps even be with in a few "best games of all time" list. I would defently recommend buying this game.

What happens when you combine the RPG elements of a turn-based strategy game with the action of a 3rd person shooter? A completely new genre and, hopefully, the future of tactical role-playing games. Valkyria Chronicles (as far as I know) is the first game to ever try this formula and thankfully, it was done right.

I really like this game and have tons of reasons of why you should buy it to back it up but before that let's get my main issues with the game out of the way. The ranking system doesn't take in account if you killed enemies or if you allowed any of your units to fall in battle, the ranking system ONLY takes into account how many turns you took to finish a mission which leads me to another problem, Scouts. They usually are your main units because you don't really need any other units! Why would you spend your time moving around all the other classes if you can just combine orders and scouts so they can basically do all the jobs of all the other classes? You can still achieve As without the so called "scout runs" but still... it seems a little broken (Thankfully I was able to avoid this by only trying to use 2 scouts per mission and little to no orders which made the game more fun and challenging).
*You can still use scout runs to farm money and exp in the skirmishes but that's alright

-STORY
In the year 1935, a huge war (EW2) takes place in the continent of Europa. The Empire tries to take on the continent in an effort to get more Ragnite for their country (basically a mineral which is used for EVERYTHING) but the Federation fights back. In the middle of both countries is located a thrid neutral country, Gallia. When the Empire decides to attack Gallia, the story of how a small country can beat a super-power begins...

You play as Welking Gunther, the son of the hero of the EW1, as he guides Squad 7 in an attempt to push the Imperials out of Gallia. In your journey you're accompanied by fellow aspiring baker Alicia Melchiott, former bar singer Brigitte "Rosie" Stark, veggie maniac Largo Potter, genius engineering prodigy (not to mention your sister) Isara Gunther, and a bunch of other colorful characters that make up your squad.

The characters are all unique and feel different (with some cliches here and there), the plot is enough to keep you entertained but doesn't really stand out, the game deals with theme like racism and life admist war, but what really makes all of this great is the way the story is told.

-GAMEPLAY
At first, the game looks like your typical strategy game (Fire Emblem, Advanced Wars, Final Fantasy Tactics, etc...) you're showned a map where you have certain objectives and you can see the location of your units and SOME of your enemies. Once you choose which unit to use with your "CP" or Command Points is when the real fun takes place. You are suddenly thrown into a third person perspective of the unit you chose where you're allowed to move around, crouch and take cover, attack enemy units, heal yourself or your teammates, save downed units, etc... How much you can do depends on how you spend your "AP" or Action Points which is represented by a gauge which deplets as you move. Aside from keeping watch of your AP, you also have to watch out for enemy fire which will go for as long as you are in third person perspective. Finally each unit is different depending on which class you are (Scout, Shocktrooper, Lancer, Engineer, or Sniper) and to further differ each unit from one another each character has their own Potentials which trigger based on different criteria during the battle. I know it sounds REALLY complicated but to sum it up, the game is fun, unique and not really that hard to catch on once you get used to it.

-SOUND
The soundtrack is great and always manages to fit the mood. The game is has full voice-acting for each and every character and really DO give a personality to each squad member or enemy. A MAJOR + is the inclusion of both Japanese and English voice acting but as far as I know, this game has GOOD english voice acting unlike most JRPGs or Japanese games in genral.

-GRAPHICS & PRESENTATION
Graphics are BEAUTIFUL and look rather unique with its oil-painting, anime like look. The game's hub world (if it can be called that) is divided in a story/picture book menu which divides the game in different sections and menus which, again, is really unique and looks nice.

In conclusion, BUY THIS GAME!!! Even at the full price of $20 this game is absolutely worth it!!! The game offers 60+ in the normal campaign, not to mention this version includes all 4 previously released DLCs. It has the option for a new game + and also every mission you're given a score based on performance, so you can replay missions and aim for the A rank in all 4 difficulties if that's your thing. Basically, it's cheap, unique, fun, engaging and has tons of replayability :)
Oh and I almost forgot, this game freaking has VYSE, AIKA, and FINA from SKIES OF ARCADIA!!!!! That already makes it a must buy for everyone on Steam :O

*On a side note, I did encountered some problems:
-The game ocasionally crashed (recurring examples include: after the first time you visit the Headquarters, and after the results screen in both missions of Chapter 5: The Kloden Wildwood and Report 6: What Lies Beyond Hate) I have heard this happened to many others too, hope it gets fixed.
-Characters suddenly glitching out of the map. They literally fall to a bottomless pit of black screen that can only be fixed by loading a previous save file. This mostly happened after climbing up stairs. Hope it gets fixed soon too.

Valkyria Chronicles is a TRPG (Tactical Role Playing game) and every character under your command has their own unique personality and traits which will either give that character an advantage or disadvantage on the battlefield for that turn.

PROS
- Interesting story
- A great pc port
- English/Japanese voice options
- Game mechanics are quite solid
- Graphics are beautiful though it's in ps3 quality
- Sudden difficulty spikes
- Characters have back stories
- DLC is also very good

CONS
- Speed runs encouraged for gold ratings
- Some "orders" can make missions too easy

Overall
I really enjoyed the game and do hope that Valkyria Chronicles 2 and 3 will be released on steam in the future.

Can change in-game language to japanese. 10/10

Anime X-com. Fantastic

good anime

You don't know the meaning of under appreciated until you've played Valkyria Chronicles. Without a doubt, I can say this is my all time favorite strategy and PS3 game. It has a beautiful soundtrack along with amazing graphics. The game also comes with a colorful cast of characters and is very story oriented.

Now, if you don't enjoy cut scenes . . . chances are you will still love this game. Although you may find yourself sitting through cut scene after cut scene, each help develop the story and truly tell you just what type of game the creators were trying to make. I'm also a bit disappointed on the game's length, but that's probably because of this games uniqueness that isn't offered anywhere else.

I will also mention that this game does indeed have two sequels. Unfortunately, both were released on the PSP, so don't expect a PC port. Plus, only the second Valkyria Chronicle is available in English. On the bright side, there is a fan made English patch available online for those of you interested.

To sum up my lengthy review: BUY THIS GAME! BUY IT NOW! PLEASE SUPPORT THE MOST UNDER APPRECIATED GAME IN HISTORY!

I guess I can sell my ps3 now

Valkyria Chronicles came out for the PS3 about 6 years ago and is a strategy RPG. This contains all the DLC and some touched up visuals. This is an EXCELLENT game. It basically takes the events of WW1/WW2 as in that both wars are/have happened and the land looks exactly like Europe. Everything else is different. You play as a member of a militia group from a small country that's on the defense from the eastern empire (Russia area).

Graphics have been touched up, it can be run at 4k pretty easily with GeDoSaTo. Running @ 4k and 60fps causes some issues with tanks being able to move up hills. The audio comes in english/japanese (and may have more, I never checked).
It's a turn based strategy RPG. You level up your classes instead of individuals. You upgrade your weapons and tanks between missions. Grinding isn't really necessary. The way the game is potrayed, you can't redo story missions but you can replay 'skirmishes' over and over again if you want. It is helpful for new people to learn units strengths/weaknesses but it's absolutely n ot necessary to grind. I played every skirmish once and was able to beat the game without much issue.

This game is a lot of fun, a little challenging here and there. Has a great cast of characters with great voice acting. The story is really well done. I don't want to spoil certain parts but it handles some situations that don't get featured in games all that much well.

You can save practically anytime and quit if you have to run to do something!

Fun game that ease you into the story nicely, difficulty pretty fair
Till you reach to B*LLCRAP threesome with 3 tanks in a wide desert and got your *ss kicked hard!
10/10 would suffer again.

FOR GALLIA!!!
loosley based in the Early Stages of WW2, Valkyria Chronicles Depicts War in the eyes of a Militiamen Platoon called "Squad 7" during a Conflict between 2 super Powers, The Empire and the Federation, while The Country you hail from is called Gallia a "neutral" country in the Conflict, it would soon be dragged into war for Not only its Rich Resources but other More Elaborate Plans.
Valkyria Chronicles plays and Completes like a really good JRPG on the PS2, From character Progression and Weapon upgrade Progression this game follows a good Pace at which you Level and Flow along with the Story.

The game boast---
***Tactical Gameplay as you Lead and manage multiple Squad Mates and Veichles to meet certain Objectives.
***a Overview map in between Teammate turns to see where and what enemies you have Spotted.
***Free roam Turn based Combat, go where you will on the battle field using all the cover and advantages you can use, giving the player As much freedom as possible to meet any objective.
***Characters host a multitude of abilites relating to the terrain they walk on to the people they fight along side and fight against
***Rank System for Completing Mission and chapters Rank A-D i believe (End game stuffs) Replayability!
***Team Customization, picking who will be on your team or how many of each class you want in your party, along with minimal kit customization like giving more speacialized weaponry to certain characters, still nice to have.
**MUSIC by:Hitoshi Sakimoto, look up this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, he is god like. Maybe Final fantasy 12? TACTICS OGRE? ring a bell? Final fantasy Tactics,A2? or for the PS? this guy did it. such a bad ♥♥♥!!! a god amongst Video game musics *V*
**60FPS and Smooth!

---some Negatives---
**The Camera movement sometimes can be tricky on corners or well place shots that need to go in between small yet well space out objects (invisible Walls or rather large object hitbox) but then again this game does not have a lean left or right option XD but thats ok it does not detract from it, since it is rare

***720p Cutscenes, looks a lot more low res than the rest of the game.

**has a ranking system that May or may not be to everyones liking, a hit or miss really. more about Blitzing than actual slow and Tactical Combat when trying to Get the BEST rank, but sometimes every combat is not about killing every enemy and just getting an objective done so i can dig it, but some people cant.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A good Story based Tactical RPG and wishing for the Other Episodes in the Valkyria Chornicles to come out for PC
Give this game a shot If you are into JRPGS, a good story, and some Refreshing Team based Tactical Game play.

solid 10/10 im not a weaboo

First off the port is pretty good and Sega has been working on fixing all the issues that has come up. Secondly the game itself is very good. I enjoyed the story, and the gameplay is extremely unique. Its very rare to find a JRPG that has a decent story, great gameplay and a decent soundtrack, but this is one of them. I hope to see the other two games of the series come to steam.

This game quickly came to be among my favourites. It combines a fantastic story with likeable characters and great gameplay. Really liked the merge between 3rd person shooter and strategy games

10/10

I haven't really played the PC version yet but I did start it up to check out how well they ported it from the PS3. It is one of my favorite PS3 RPGs and it easily is still one of the best games in general as well. HIgher res and 60fps is also a nice addition to an already stellar RPG.

Really good port of a really good game.

Got this game when i got my PS3. I ignored it for about a year because it didnt really interest me, but once I started playing i knew i was missing out.
It puts a nice twist on tactics based games. Once you select a unit, instead of moving them on the overhead map and attacking, you actually control the character in 3rd person view and can interact with the environment. When you are in the stage enemies can attack you instead of standing there letting you run past. If you are familiar with xcom the attacking system is a little different. Instead of rolling the dice you have a crosshair that you can move to different parts of the body. On human troops headshots do extream damage and on tanks they have radiators, which allows light infantry units to damage to damage the tank.

The story is eh, but the artstyle is great. Every character has personalitys or "Potentials" that can make or break a battle. Some units gets a defence boost when under fire, while one outright refuses to attack due to being a pacifist. If units are next to each other, there is a chance they will shoot with you when you fire, allows you to make some devastating combo attacks.

Difficulty wise, it can be a roller coaster. On chapter 7 for example, you fight a very difficult and rather long mission, while chapter 6 and 8 can be rather easy, though the difficulty kinda levels out near the end of the game. Despite this, the game requires little to no grinding, which is a plus in my book. You can go the entire game without beating a single skirmish or extra mission.
Once you beat the game you can start again in New Game+, which allows you to keep all levels and equipment, which means you can absolutly destroy the missions you once had trouble with, and along with that, you unlock an extra difficulty on skirmishes.

All in all, its a great game. Is it for everyone? Of course not, its a strategy game with an anime-esq artstyle.

It has become an increasing occurrence lately to see popular Japanese console games being ported to PC. In many cases, these ports are half-baked without features many PC gamers have come to expect, but in Valkyria Chronicles, Sega has done a masterful job of porting over one of the PS3’s cult classics. Valkyria Chronicles is a tactics strategy game that is not only a great example of PC ports done well (see the end of this review for a quick port summary), but an expertly crafted game in and of itself. Though it has occasional pacing problems and runs a bit long, Valkyria Chronicles is solid enough in terms of narrative and gameplay that it ranks itself among other tactics greats such as Fire Emblem and XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

VC takes place in a thinly veiled, slightly more fantastical version of World World II era Europe. The meat of the game is similar to other tactics games; you control a small squad of soldiers on a battlefield, each with different specialties and abilities. A turn consists of moving and taking actions with these characters in an over-the-shoulder third person view, allowing you to move and attack with a personal perspective of the battlefield. After using up enough command points, the enemy takes its turn, and so on. Each victory nets you experience and money based mostly on how many turns you took to complete the mission, which you can then use to level up your soldiers and upgrade their equipment. Progression is handled well and by the end of the game, I found myself pretty content with how far many of my soldiers had come in terms of skills and abilities. Core combat mechanics are fun and satisfying, although I found that some mission-specific mechanics could have been explained a little better.

Battles themselves feel well-varied throughout the course of the game, and usually strike a fair balance in terms of difficulty (later missions get pretty darn tough). It doesn’t explicitly tell you, but VC does allow for saves during a mission -- a point of contention in some tactics games. In many ways it is a nice feature because you may sometimes unwillingly send your allies into a hellstorm of enemy fire without realizing it, and it makes the game a bit more accessible to newer players. The fact that VC gives rewards based on fast mission completion, however, means that it can be very tempting to continually save and reload once you understand more about the mission and the enemies you are facing (or if you make a crucial mistake). Obviously that’s a choice that’s completely in the hands of a player, but it’s a serious temptation when you are effectively penalized for not doing so. Unfortunately, mid-mission saving and loading makes missions a little less satisfying to complete and makes an already long game take considerably longer -- I’d encourage anyone playing VC with experience in this genre to use this feature as little as possible.

Valkyria Chronicles’ story itself is surprisingly pretty good, though it does take a long time before it gets interesting. The plot gradually unrolls through a huge amount of dialogue, so be warned that this is a pretty long (30-40 hour) game if you want to experience everything. Characters have some depth and relationships are multi-dimensional, which is helped along by mostly quality voice acting. To Valkyria Chronicles’ credit, it takes the brutal atrocities of World War II head on, and does so with sufficient tact, but the juxtaposition against its whimsical presentation is a bit jarring at times. Anyone who outright hates anime may have some trouble with the visual art style, though anime tropes are used sparingly and everyone but the most close-minded should find the characters and style perfectly fine, if not likeable. It’s also worth noting that the musical score throughout Valkyria Chronicles is beautiful and very well done, from the opening title screen to the final battle.

Finally, some quick port details. I was able to run VC at 1080p at 60 FPS on a GTX 570 with no issues whatsoever. It supports both mouse/keyboard and Xbox gamepad support, and works well with both. Cutscenes are still rendered in their PS3 resolution, but look perfectly serviceable.

Overall, any tactics fan will find a ton to like in Valkyria Chronicles. For those less familiar with the genre, VC is a decent starting point in that it is not too punishing and offers up an enjoyable war tale. Combat is rich and satisfying, and the sheer amount of content offered to the player is impressive. It may be a bit much for those looking for a short and sweet experience, but for most players, Valkyria Chronicles will be worth every minute.

I'll leave the extansive reviews to someone more invested in them, but World War Anime is actually one of the closer games to a tabletop wargame and is tons of fun.

Would love to see a new level creator, but eight years after publication that seems unlikely. Here's hoping that we'll at least see VC2 and VC3 ported to Steam.

"Like Fire Emblem with guns. 11/10"