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Anime Valkyria Chronicles 2 is a good tactical game

SCO

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Phase based incline. Pity about the retarded characters thou.
 

SCO

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Wow i just did the Nichol mission. WTF, Japanese buttheads, do you have to put incest everywhere?

Anyway, the third is being fan translated for over a year, so i'm not in any hurry to get it.

edit: the thing that is really annoying me is the interface; it's probably some kind of concession to strategy to have to choose the team you have, but it's just annoying beyond the tank type.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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We had a pretty big topic about the first one, and the general consensus was that it's enough reason to get a PS3.
 

SCO

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If you're a 'master tactician' i suppose you might get bored if not going to A rank all the time, since the enemy AI is fairly dumb and the 'most winning' tactics are obvious (if capture a objective, hop up basecamps, place a guard on the new and retreat from the last, except your own; if extermination mission, capture the camps ASAP and wait for the enemies to kill themselves against you on their turn. V2 mix it up a little, but not enough really).

Still... very solid gameplay, that is not retarded positionally as usual; hope it gets cloned as FF were cloned. And get more maps FFS.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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Personally I'd say that the AI isn't that different from the norm. The fun in most great tactical games is not in outwitting the opponent, but in all the creative methods you can use to do it (Jagged Alliance 2 is the shining king of bizarre plans). I for one found VC's time attack approach pretty fun to work with, and in general would say it's up there with the best.
 

SCO

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I also appreciate (gnashed teeth sometimes) that the missions randomize the enemies positions; though it's often a pain in V2 missions (where you want to take out the generator ASAP).

At first i was wasting command points because I had the idea that i 'had' to select a npc to retreat from a position (and that complicated my pipelining planning a lot, as i'm sure you can tell), but when i found out that you can retreat from the basecamp area with 0 CP cost it got much easier (maybe decline).
 

pocahaunted

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Is this shit really that good? Everytime I hear about the game and proceed to explore a bit more, I'm taken aback by the amount of animu. So... is it tolerable?
 

SCO

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Animu story == crap, idiotic premise of -retarded mostly- teenagers fighting a war on a bizarre highschool environment (instead of a military school which it masquerades as). Protip: game can skip every social sequence even the obligatory ones by pressing start.
Gameplay is fine, if going for A rank everytime (forces you to take risks, which proceed to deaths etc). Just don't reset once a plan doesn't go exactly to plan.

Could have perma-death for unsalvaged casualties in the battlefield instead of the 'hospitalization' thing, but i suppose that would complicate the animu.
Maps are very heavily recycled and that's a bummer, but the enemies and positioning itself is often changed.
The large area phase based battle is a much better combat model to clone that Final Fantasy retarded in-place system, hope it happens often in the future.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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The first game is a rather different in that sense, since it's fairly serious as a war story (there's one scene where I'd say the game far outdoes 99% of war stories in video games out there, it's a really mature snap-back at the whole "woe is us" reaction to crimes against humanity happening) where in the World War 2 expy the combo expy of Imperial Germany and Imperial Russia with a dash of nazism invades the Benelux-Finland crossbreed. The plot itself follows a fairly standard structure, but it's very acceptable since they pace things well and give a good deal of time for characters to be set up so you actually give a shit about them. No highschool environment there.

And personally I'd say the cel-shaded aesthetic is extremely beneficial to the game, helping it look very memorable. It helps that they put a good deal of effort into making good use of making it look animated. Getting hung up on an artstyle is a bad thing to do anyway (Codex loves Arcanum, don't get hypocritical).

Also in the first game every character except cutscene characters is subject to permadeath. There's less randomization, but the game doesn't pull punches either (meaning if your command tank is exposed the AI will kill it that same turn, which is game over).
 

pocahaunted

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Cool, I'll get around to playing it then, I was just put off my how cliche animu everything seemed to be. Guess you really can't judge a book by its cover.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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There's a winged piglet mascot thing that shows up in two short cutscenes (maybe a third one, it never really does anything but show up). That's the most offended you'll probably get.
 

SCO

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I don't think so. From what i'm seeing in the sequel there is also a retarded 'ancient (female) race' motif (valkyria duh), that triggers my weeaboo sense, as well as the usual stupid stereotypes (teen idol etc). Mini-skirts, lolis and occasional huge melons not optional.

A man can only take so much of this emotional damage once he turns 30 you know?
 

WhiskeyWolf

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retarded 'ancient (female) race'
Yes, there is... or rather was a long time ago. Still, it's a very well implemented motive with a bit more depth then it seems at first.

At least in the first VC, as I didn't play the handhelds. Fuck them, I wanted a proper squeal you bastards, on the same fucking console.
 

Karmapowered

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As Vaarna said, we've already had a rather lengthy thread about the series on the Codex. It may be worth checking out.

I am not going to repeat here my impressions with the game after my first run, but I think VC2 is crap below average at best.

I place it in the same league than Front Mission 5 : if one can stomach the ultra-clichéd story and art, it's fun for the first couple of hours. After that, it's a disheartening downfall towards frustration (grinding certificates) and disappointment (most missions will be won thanks to the same pattern, making most classes/characters useless eventually).

Still, I am looking forwards to playing VC3 (once it's translated).
 

SCO

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heh, the butthurt on that thread is funny. I agree that 'most' missions can be won with the 'same strategy' (i even mentioned it above) and that it feels somewhat puzzly because the AI is tarded. I just don't see how that is exactly different from 99% of other games, including, yes, Jagged Alliance 2 and its uber snipers on roofs.

I'm just hoping that jrpgs move past the final fantasy position-less zeitgeist. It's true this game doesn't compare to JA2, but i also think that is more of a question of refinement, intentional difficulty and more gamist approach (classes, time attack and less precise movement). A fine system to replace the full derp of normal jrpgs fuckery anyway.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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retarded 'ancient (female) race'
Yes, there is... or rather was a long time ago. Still, it's a very well implemented motive with a bit more depth then it seems at first.

At least in the first VC, as I didn't play the handhelds. Fuck them, I wanted a proper squeal you bastards, on the same fucking console.
Don't know about the Valkyria being all-female tho, I just figured the only two Valkyria you encounter during the game happened to be women.

I guess it bears mention here that the first game had an excellent soundtrack:





heh, the butthurt on that thread is funny. I agree that 'most' missions can be won with the 'same strategy' (i even mentioned it above) and that it feels somewhat puzzly because the AI is tarded. I just don't see how that is exactly different from 99% of other games, including, yes, Jagged Alliance 2 and its uber snipers on roofs.

I'm just hoping that jrpgs move past the final fantasy position-less zeitgeist. It's true this game doesn't compare to JA2, but i also think that is more of a question of refinement, intentional difficulty and more gamist approach (classes, time attack and less precise movement). A fine system to replace the full derp of normal jrpgs fuckery anyway.
There's actually nice thing about VC1 in that as you obtain more Orders for Welkin and the game mounts of pressure by bringing in more and tougher enemy troops (including tanks and plentiful snipers) while the levels start opening up into multiple approaches (while still keeping the need for rapid blitz tactics). It avoids the usual tactical game "problem", where the game gets easier the farther you get (JA2 is especially true in this, but I really like just coming up with increasingly bizarre and expensive plans by the time I assault the capital).
 

SCO

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In VCII, the 2-3 star missions are definitively tighter than the early ones.
 

Kem0sabe

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Only ever played the first one for the Playstation 3, great game but sadly i never finished it, the missions just kept getting more and more ridiculous until i just went "fuck this". But overall it was money well spent, very long tactical rpg with very nice production values.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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How far did you get? You mean ridiculous as in "man these snipers and lancers are kicking my ass" or "Maximilian what the hell is up with you and your giant fucking tanks"?
 

Kem0sabe

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How far did you get? You mean ridiculous as in "man these snipers and lancers are kicking my ass" or "Maximilian what the hell is up with you and your giant fucking tanks"?

More the later, the battle setups went from

:excellent:

to

:notsureifserious:

They should have ended it about half way, when the giant tanks started appearing.
 

deuxhero

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None of the giant tanks are really health grind fests. The first is a simple matter of destroying the radiators with grenades, which is one grenade/1 destroyed radiator, the second is about stopping it from being able to heal and the final boss can be killed in one shot from support stacking.
 

Karmapowered

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Giant tanks that can heal themselves is surely a sign of an AI at its finest.

And certificates = grindfest. (EDIT : re-reading my previous post, I think I should have been more specific, sorry about that).

If you don't grind for certificates, you can kiss your S or A level missions good bye, which means you can't upgrade your troops, which basically means you can stop playing.
 

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