I bought this game on Saturday and was playing it quite much for the past 2 day, those are my thoughts.
Normally this game should have been realesed November 4, 2008 in Europe... of course when saying Europe they mean the West E., the Center a.k.a. East E. has to wait till 20th - fuck them, I went to MediaMarkt (they have this shit earlier then the rest) but there is one problem, it costed 219zł = 75$... what can I say, I'm a sucker when it comes to words like: anime, turn-based, tactical squad combat.
I will try to describe this game in simple word (because I don't have the needed knowledge to describe what is a WRPG or a SRPG) - "JA2 goes to Japan and meets a JRPG".
Yes, I know what you will say: JRPG, meh... - but wait, I will show you a certain graph describing how "close" VC is to JA2 and JRPG:
JA2 <-----> Valkyria Chronicles <------------------------------> JRPG
I wanted to write something concrete about this game but after thinking this through there is to fucking much of it:
- About the Demo - it only shows you the very basics, if you play the whole game you will see what I mean
- From a group of 50 soldiers you pick you squad of 20, on the field you can have a different numbers of them (depending on the mission) - from 2 to 10 (your tank included)
- You can upgrade your weapons, tank, uniforms or train your units with gaind EXP.
- There are 5 soldier classes:
* SCOUTS - capable of covering a lot of ground, not to powerful (but good enough to flank the enemy and do the job)
* SHOCKTROOPERS - they only have the half of Scouts "covering" distance, high power, good armour (your basic close range units)
* SNIPERS - 1/4 of Scouts "covering" distance, long range - headshot=death (easies to kill)
* LANCERS - "covering" distance the same as a Shoocktrooper (Panzerfaust)
* ENGINEERS - "covering" distance 3/4 of Scouts (Ammo, Repair: Tank, sandbags, watch tower, Disarming mines)
- at some point Scouts/Engineers rifles can be upgraded in 3 ways: Fire power, accuracy, effect - as I am a simple man who believes that not only tactics win wars but also brute force I almost always go for POWER.
Sniper rifles and Lances also have this "branching".
- What is effect? Something you get thanks to upgrading weapons, when attacking your enemy it usualy looks like this - you attack, then he retaliats - when is someone is shoot by you your attack bestows an effect on him (lower attack... bla,bla,bla... you know the drill)
- There are (we have them and the enemy also) Units: Soldiers, Tanks - who give us aditional Command Points, killing them means less "moves"
- Units can be used multiple times in a round - of course there is a draw back:
* there covering distance will be (everytime you use them) 1/4 less then it was at MAX
* Lancers have 3 shots, if they use them all after a round they get automaticly 1, you can always resupply them with the Engineer
- If your units health goes down to zero it becomes wounded and must be reached by an other member within 3 round or it dies - it also dies if the enemy reaches that unit first.
A good way to prevent players from rushing with the Scouts if I think so myself.
- Every person has it's perks, the so called Special Abilities: Personal, Battle and Orders - there are good ones and bad ones (there are seriously drawbacks - Thank you God)
If they die it's over - they will get a beautiful grave on the cemetery that you can visit between the missions - FUCK YEAH! C&C bitches!
Conclusion:
This game was worth every fucking penny I paid for it, if you have a PS3 get it... I FUCKING DARE YOU! The share uniqueness of this game makes worth getting it.
One more thing, VC is quite well balanced when it comes to soldier classes - each class is needed.
