Valkyria Chronicles

[KeezNah]

 

UH-TEN-SHUN, Soldier! Click These Grunts for More Screenies:

 

Can't Have A War Without Trailers!

Tokyo Game Show 2007 Trailer

Japanese Military Training Trailer

 

What the hell is this?

A Japanese Strategy-RPG (think along the lines of Advance Wars or Fire Emblem) being developed and published by Sega. Toshihiro Nagoshi will be acting as the producer and has worked on several games before, such as Daytona USA, Super Monkey Ball, the Nintendo-collaborated F-ZERO GX/AX, and Yakuza.

 

What's it about?

Some anime-bullshit or whatever. In the country of Europa (oh man, thats sure subtle), war's afoot and it's up to whatever predefined character you're given and assemble your own rebellion squad to kick tons of kawaii, cel-shaded Supremist butt. And maybe find love in the process, who knows.

 

How does it play?

There's still relatively very little information out right not, but here's an excerpt on the battle system taken from the Wikipedia Entry:

 

Valkyrie of the Battlefield features a unique turn-based battle system called BLiTZ (Battle of Live Tactical Zones). In-between turns players are treated to an overhead map view, but zoom in to control each individual unit on the battlefield. Movement and other actions are handled in real time, though limited by an AP gauge that varies for each character. This gauge can recharge even during the same turn as you operate other characters. Additionally, players are in direct control of the characters' aim, allowing for headshots and other advantages. The environment also factors heavily in combat. In an urban level, for example, snipers can be sent onto rooftops to eliminate unsuspecting enemies below while tanks and other units can outmaneuver enemy positions via the streets.

 

Each character in the game fulfills a unique role - for instance, Alicia Melchiott is a mid-range rifle unit, while her male companion Welkin Gunther is a tank driver. There are also a host of other units including short-range machine gunners, heavy artillery, and snipers.

Japan-only release?

For the time being, yes. Would certainly be nice if Sega did an English translation, but if not - I'll still probably pick it up anyway.

 

Sure looks pretty, though.

Fo'shizzle~

[KnackChap]

 

[ThreeKingdomsEra]

Hell Yes !! Been waiting for games like this

[SchizoidFreud]

^ welcome to the forums

[ThreeKingdomsEra]

Absolutely . That and JRPGs too .

[Tyler]

Absolutely . That and JRPGs too .

 

+1

 

Personal List of Overrated - FF7 , Halo 2&3 , God of War Series , World of Warcraft , Starcraft , and several others

 

-1

 

Anyway, welcome to the forums!

 

 

BTW, the game looks awesome as hell! English language version plz plz plz plz plz plz!

[ThreeKingdomsEra]

I Personally want JAPANESE VOICE with ENGLISH SUBs . Authentic FTW .

[ThreeKingdomsEra]

Hmm , Guess I'll try to find Odin Sphere . Sounds good .

Enchanted Arms also had the option . While the game itself was lousy at best , it was somewhat improved by the way better Japanese voices .

[KeezNah]

Oceans beat me to the punch. Ow, not so hard!

 

Also, decent scores from Famitsu = a slight yay

 

Hopefully, we'll be seeing more import impressions soon~

[KeezNah]

Impressions from Sonsaru, a GameFAQs user:

 

Indeed, and it was good.

 

I've got about 5 hours behind me, and that's all I'm going to get until Saturday now, so I won't be around to answer questions and stuff right away. I'll give you some of my first impressions, anyway.

 

Graphics - lovely. The opening is quite short, but with a nice song timed well to the visuals which are all taken from cut scenes in the game. The ability to literally turn the images from line drawings into the in-game graphics is fantastic, and things like water and explosions look amazing. There are no real peaks and lows, however - just smoothly fantastic all the way through.

 

The whole thing is uber polished, too, with a lot of attention to detail and lovely visual sound effects and other touches. Menus, the book interface etc. are all beautifully polished too.

 

Story - The game is presented as a book, and between each episode of each chapter you are returned to the book page and have to select the new one. This drags you out of the story a little - you don't really feel like it is happening as you, but rather that you are indeed reading a book about what happened already. That's what they were going for, so like or lump it. I like it, but worry a little about emotional attachment to characters.

 

Also, very Japanese at the moment in terms of characterization. I think a 16 year old whiz mechanic driving your tank is probably the least realisitc of the characters, and they generally talk about their dreams for the future /smile and laugh a lot to say they are placed in the middle of a harrowing conflict. Having said that, Welkin is just made out to have incredible strength of character in a tough spot (he shows a new born baby the poor critter's burning home town and simply says, "This is your hometown,") and I'm sure waves of the horror of war will be upon us before too long. Of course, you have a unit of 20 characters from around the 3rd battle and yet only 5 of them ever appear in story scenes, which kind of sucks. They could have at least randomly put some of the others you are using in the background, even if they don't speak.

 

Combat - Starts out very simple, and gradually adds elements each time. There are two words that sum the system up perfectly - "simplicty" and "freedom."

 

Take the aiming circle. Here is a fantastic system that totally removes the need for any sort of "hit percentage" on the screen, instead creating a totally instinctual connection between distance / chances of hitting. The more of the enemy is inside the circle, the better chance you have of hitting them. That's it. Each troop type has a different sized circle.

 

Also, how you know when you will kill enemies. There's no looking at weapon strength stats and comparing them to enemy defense stats (although weapons do have a strength value.) Instead, when aiming at an enemy the box at the top of the screen shows you how many shots from your current weapon will be needed to kill that enemy if they hit in the current location. The next number is how many shots you will fire. You can work out your chances from that. I think this system is brilliant, though simple, just giving you exactly the information you need.

 

Then there is freedom. Troops level up simply by troop type, meaning that none of the 50+ characters you can switch into your unit are ever going to be left behind. You also don't have to worry about "giving everyone a turn" or even using a certain troop type for a while if you don't want to - experiance is awarded as a number at the end of battle and can be spent on any troop type you want. The ability to use CP on the same character as many times as you like (although they have less action points each time they are used repeatedly) plus the ability to carry unused CP over to the next turn just adds even more freedom of strategy.

 

In terms of making the characters unique, the Potentials add quite a bit (I would be warey of picking this up if you don't read Japanese, as that is a big stumbling block right there - you'll have real trouble working these even when they activate if you can't read them). For example, one of the female character gets stronger when there are lots of male allies around, and Welkin powers up when surrounded by nature. There are loads of these, some postive and some negative. On top of this each character can have up to three others that they are friendly with, boosting the chances of combo attacks with that character.

Tanks - they rule. Fitted so well into the system. I'm running out of time, and I could talk about them alone for ages. Only issue atm is that Welkin dying means Game Over, so putting the tank too far forward isn't a good idea.

 

Oh, and all rilfes / machine guns have infinite ammo. Add this into the "allies shoot at anything they can see" during enemy turns and you have a really crazy, fast paced system. Tank busters, grenades etc. have ammo that recharges each turn (remember you can move one character as many times as you like within a turn, but they will only have one grenade.) The support characters refill characters ammo just by running up to them, however, making them really useful.

 

Also, AP - action points. There is a *massive* difference in how much AP each troop type has. In a single move a scout can run right into enemy lines, take a shot at an enemy and then run back to safety. A tank buster may need 2-3 moves to get into position to attack one enemy, and then be left in the open. Again, massive potential for varying tactics.

 

So. Anyone expecting a super deep number cruncher may be a bit put off to start with - glossing over individual levels may harm replay value, I fear, but it makes a nice change of pace from, say, Shining Force (the old ones). Overall, if you love the genre you should be in heaven here - phew, finally, after Op Darkness, Dario, and even SRW OGs / Gaiden which were more story battles than meaty action, a real, solid, fun SRPG!

 

Quite a bit to digest there, but neat nonetheless.

[KeezNah]

GamesRyde Presents: The First 10 Minutes of Valkyria Chronicles

 

Sankaku Complex's Extended Impressions

 

Valkyria Chronicles Playstation 3 Theme (sup)

 

And last, but not least [spoiler ALERT *AHWOOGAH AHWOOGAH*]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GOTY CONFIRMED

[KeezNah]

Yes, and

yes.

[KnackChap]

GamesRyde Presents: The First 10 Minutes of Valkyria Chronicles

 

Sankaku Complex's Extended Impressions

 

Valkyria Chronicles Playstation 3 Theme (sup)

 

And last, but not least [spoiler ALERT *AHWOOGAH AHWOOGAH*]

 

 

 

GOTY CONFIRMED

 

 

Is that

Vyse

?

 

 

Yes, and

yes.

 

 

skies of arcadia 2

9/9/09

[KnackChap]

E3 trailer

 

[KnackChap]

The best RPG from SEGA in a decade?

 

IGN-AU

It's been a while since we played a truly brilliant RPG from SEGA. Thinking about it, the last one was probably Skies of Arcadia on the Dreamcast back in 2001. Part of the problem in recent years has been SEGA's lack of focus, with a handful of mediocre Shining Force spin-offs and dilution of Phantasy Star Online doing little to remind us of the Big S that was responsible for publishing such awesome RPGs as Shining Force III and Panzer Dragoon Saga. From what we've played of the Japanese version so far, Valkyria Chronicles could be right up there among SEGA's finest.

 

the first thing you'll notice is how distinctive Valkyria Chronicles looks. This is thanks to a piece of programming tech dubbed the Canvas Engine. We have our suspicions that this is just a slightly modified version of cel shading, but the results speak for themselves – Valkyria looks like a watercolour videogame, if such a thing is possible (and obviously it is), and in motion the brushstroke effects are quite remarkable. Probably the last game to really grab our attention like this was Okami, so you can count on Valkyria Chronicles to impress your art-fancying side.

 

It's not just the watercolour overlay that's impressive, either. The game moves at 60fps throughout, running at a native 720p resolution. It's generally sharp and solid. There are a few glitches here and there, but overall Valkyria is one of the most eye-pleasing RPGs we've seen in years. So, how does it play? Again choosing to move away from accurate history, Valkyria Chronicles drops the menu-based battle systems of old RPGs and even manages to find a new way of presenting its story – in the form of a book

 

From our early experience with Valkyria Chronicles' battle system, it's obvious that tactics play a big part in the action and that there's plenty of potential for knife-edge conflicts later on. One silly move and you can find yourself outnumbered and out-positioned without enough health to stand a chance, and the Game Over screen appears if one of your key characters is killed, so there's the constant danger that a lot of good work in battle will be undone by one foolish decision.

 

The English-language version of Valkyria probably won't be finished until much later this year, but the Japanese voice acting in place here is generally excellent. The story, too, treads a fine line between reality and fiction – it's not so daft you can't believe it to be true, yet it's not at all historically accurate. If you like your Japanese RPGs in human, believable settings, but with touches of visual flair (the watercolour graphics really are one of Valkyria's standout components) and complemented by satisfying, strategic battles, SEGA's latest shows all the signs of being able to satisfy your wish list. It could end up being the best SEGA RPG in almost a decade.

 

[KnackChap]

nov 11 release date

japanese voice included in disc

[MarketTantrik]

I think I'll pass on this one. Never been too fond of S-RPGs.

[KnackChap]

Never been too fond of S-RPGs.

Its more of a shooter-rpg than a traditional srpg.

Its not grid based instead you move around the map like any shooter and then make your move like a turn based rpg.

And its made by the guys who did skies of arcadia. SEGA <3

[MarketTantrik]

Its more of a shooter-rpg than a traditional srpg.

Its not grid based instead you move around the map like any shooter and then make your move like a turn based rpg.

So its like Operation Darkness then ?

[KnackChap]