Incline The Valkyria Chronicles Thread

[Grinolf]

So I finished the game. Gameplay was mostly fun, but there are things that annoyed me:

1. Invinsible walls on which characters stuck wasting their AP, precious for such classes as lancers and shocktroepers.
2. Aim from a third person which makes player sometimes unable to shoot enemies that he can't see, but controled character definitely could.
3. Very linear character progression with choices, even when given, being the fake ones.
4. Very passive AI, that just waits player to kill him without doing nothing. Sometimes enemies start attack you, but it rather an exception. Only troops that came as reinforcements tend o be quite aggressive. Not only that, but AI also hardly use any CP to set up a proper defenses often leaving most of his CP unused.
5. Tactic is just run to the enemies as fast as possible and kill them. Different map provide some variance, but the base always the same. And ranking depending only on number of turns only further promote mindless rush. And as result of previous point player hardly ever need to think about defences, as exposing himself to enemies almost never would be punished. One time I went as far as didn't kill enemy scout near my base (as I have a better ways to spent my CP) while leaving only sniper to defend it. AI didn't even bother to take it, despite him being able easily to do so.
6. Bosses:
Tank in the desert and train ones were annoying, but harmless as long as player stayed out of their way. And why someone would want to do the opposite?
Tank in the bringe didn't do anythin at all. Well, he shoot my tank once and used his smoke rounds for no gain at all. In the end he turned his back right to my tank making him easily to kill.
Blue girl, tank with lance and final boss required such high variety of tacticks to beat them as buff your scout to death with orders and kill her, buff your lancer to death with orders and destroy it, and finally buff your shocktrooper to death with orders and kill him. They were a truly engaging battles.
7. Very bad UI. I guess it not as bad as it tend to be for console ports. At least it's just annoying and not unplayable. But inability to navigate through most of menus with mouse is bullshit.
8. Locked out content. The game hardly has any replayability, so I don't understand why not allow player to do everything in first playthrough. That look like a very cheap way to force this replayability to the game.
9. Arbitrary defence bonuses for being in the cover even when that cover didn't cover anything at all, like against snipers (that make them even more situational) or when your shocktrooper shoot enemy directly in the back staying right behind him.

Then about the story. As the game was praised for it's "great" and "mature" writting. Not sure where ones find it.
Plot itself is just standard WW2 reenactment with with Eastern and Western fronts mashed together and usual japanesse twist in the middle. Or better say that it Eastern front in the clothers Western one, because otherwise game would ended after the first mission with Galia capitulation and heroes with what left of the army ending up scattered around the globe fighting for other countries. Or not, as I know that french did it, but Galia clearly based on Low Countries and I don't remember hearing that belgians and dutch did anything similiar.
There was decent but predictable twist about history beng counterfeited, that didn't mattered at all for the story. And jumping on the plane in the end was retarded. But other than that there nothing to say about it. Oh, they also showed 3 cutscenes (5 minutes long of time total at best) in the concentration camp, that suppossed to be "deep", "mature" and "insightful", but these talks are just not serious, as just showing concentration camp by itself doesn't have any value and don't make a game commentary on WW2 crimes.
Still plot servisable for what it is even if simplistic. Contrary characters are the weakest part of the game.
First about Alicia. Why is she even main heroine? She had absolutely no personality and no presence in the story during most of the game (Aside from information that she worked at bakery, but really?), then she suddenly revealed to be a magical girl in the end. Not that she gained much of the personality after that. Rosie looked much more suitable to be main heroine than she.
Then there is Welkin, to whom writers attempted give a personality by making his mostly banal speeches with some "biology" flavor. Result was very embarrassing. And I am not even into biology, but I suspect writers aren't much into it also.
There was also an annoying mascot, but thankfully writers didn't cared much about him and kept ignoring it.
Welkin's sister was likeable. And the main villain and the blue girl weren't as one dimesional villains as they tend to be in such unambitious stories, but overall picture is pretty grim.
Don't remember anyone other worth mentioning.
And with such little amount of an actual content there were too much cutscenes. Game wouldn't be hurt if they reduced the number in two or three times. But it also clear why anime adaptation failed, as they needed to fill an obvious gaps in plot and characterisation with something, but were creatively bunkrupt to produce anything but cliches and plagiate.

That ended up with one hell wall of text...

 

[abnaxus]

Really, Vyse and Aika should've been the heroes of the game.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Really, Vyse and Aika should've been the heroes of the game.

They are, but not this game.

 

[Ackermanus]

Jaeger was supposedly a genius tank commander, but he basically beats himself by shooting smoke rounds at his own camps so you can run in unassailed with your scouts and shocktroopers. Fuck that loser.

Certainly, I meant the spirit of the whole fight. That is, for me, it makes much more sense for the game to end with a struggle against another tank commander, than what was actually delivered. Also, despite his artificial stupidity, I still had to restart that battle a couple of times (although mostly because I was too dumb to properly protect my base camp), and I found the battle, with all its flaws, more interesting than a boss battle with 1 enemy. Turn-based combat (with a twist, certainly, but turn-based nonetheless) isn't really suited for that (although I'm sure there are exceptions).

Grinolf

As for the story and writing, I don't see how anyone could say it's great/mature. I'd say it's a mixed bag, tending towards the positive. Whether you consider it to be acceptable all in all (like I do) or not really depends on your tolerance for the cliched animu bullshit parts.

Spoiler

Maximillian is a decent enough villain: he executes war criminals, has a good enough motivation, then falls flat by becoming A GOD AMONG MEN and by having zero empathy (my biggest complaint really). Jaeger, again, only suffers from having a laid back personality that doesn't match what you would expect from an experienced general. The not-nazi is the only boring villain, and while I'm not saying he couldn't be better, he's necessary to the story they're trying to tell, otherwise the bad guys would be too "good".

Alicia, as I mentioned, is boring, but Welkin is not that terrible. Sure, every time nature shows up in the dialogue you die a little inside, but as someone mentioned earlier in the thread, it makes sense for him to be an efficient commander (an educated commander who uses his particular field of expertise to find a way to victory, instead of the usual dumb "I fight for my friends and love is all I need" hero), and he displays the insight you would expect from someone like him, some naivety aside. His acceptance of death, for example, or that he doesn't go full berserk on his squadmates for their infighting (including against his sister).

Rosie's character development is exactly the one you are expecting, but it is handled better than in most cases (although the bar is pretty low admittedly): she doesn't become instant best friends with darcsens at the concentration camp for example, and surprisingly enough her redemption occurs before (if only moments) Isara's death. On the other hand, the traitors/incompetent generals in Gallia offend your intelligence every time they are on screen even if, again, their presence is needed for what the game is trying to tell.

I guess the same could be said for the combat really. I think the system is solid and challenging until you figure out how to exploit it, but is there a game against which the same can't be levered? I don't really mind all missions being offensive capture the flags either. It's clear they did so to compensate for the AI, which is inept at attacking. For me, again, that is acceptable: all strategy games give something unfair to the enemy because you can't really expect a non-retardo human to lose otherwise. Most games make the enemy stronger (for example, you are fighting super-soldiers as mooks) or give them very large numbers.

To be fair, in VC the enemy does also have larger numbers (although enemies aren't stronger than your soldiers 1 on 1), but the AI seldom uses all of its action points or has all units close together, so it doesn't even have an advantage in that. Their solution? You have a time limit, "king" units (they die, you lose), and have to attack yourself.

TL;DR: It's a fun game with an inferior (although, at least early on, still challenging enough) AI and occasional dumb mission, a typical anime story (with a TWIST) with quite a few redeeming qualities. Expecting a masterpiece in either area is foolish. But I think it's a solid game (good for what it is) as long as you have a decent enough tolerance towards some of the game's bullshit.

 

[Perkel]

I think Welkin character is really well done. Whole point of his character is to be a nerd that wouldn't want to waste his time on shitty speeches, morality of combat and so much other stuff that is most of the time lol worthy at best.

He is basically Wenli 2.0 from Legend of Galactic Heroes.

 

[Average Manatee]

If you want a more interesting/difficult game I'd recommend playing without upgrading weapons/armor. The game plays a lot better when Imperials aren't completely out-stripped quality-wise, since normally their equipment never improves as fast as yours does (as you can tell by captured imperial weapons being almost never worthwhile compared to yours). Makes no sense anyway that a mere militia of a small country is armed better than the forces of the empire, who would presumably be the best equipped of the nation since they are on the offensive and often under the direct control of major leaders.

It's kind of a fact of life that any game released in the 21st century with only 1 difficulty level is going to be too easy once you understand how to play. Where most of us expect staying on top of upgrades as essential to have a fighting chance in reality the game is balanced so that the top-of-the-line equipment is a way out for players who would rather grind to make up for playing badly.

 

[Grinolf]

Spoiler

Maximillian is a decent enough villain: he executes war criminals, has a good enough motivation, then falls flat by becoming A GOD AMONG MEN and by having zero empathy (my biggest complaint really). Jaeger, again, only suffers from having a laid back personality that doesn't match what you would expect from an experienced general. The not-nazi is the only boring villain, and while I'm not saying he couldn't be better, he's necessary to the story they're trying to tell, otherwise the bad guys would be too "good".

Alicia, as I mentioned, is boring, but Welkin is not that terrible. Sure, every time nature shows up in the dialogue you die a little inside, but as someone mentioned earlier in the thread, it makes sense for him to be an efficient commander (an educated commander who uses his particular field of expertise to find a way to victory, instead of the usual dumb "I fight for my friends and love is all I need" hero), and he displays the insight you would expect from someone like him, some naivety aside. His acceptance of death, for example, or that he doesn't go full berserk on his squadmates for their infighting (including against his sister).

Rosie's character development is exactly the one you are expecting, but it is handled better than in most cases (although the bar is pretty low admittedly): she doesn't become instant best friends with darcsens at the concentration camp for example, and surprisingly enough her redemption occurs before (if only moments) Isara's death. On the other hand, the traitors/incompetent generals in Gallia offend your intelligence every time they are on screen even if, again, their presence is needed for what the game is trying to tell.

Well, I actually agree with most of it.
I already mentioned in my previous post, that Maximilian was a decent villain even to the point that he felt slightly out of place, as one-dimensional villains is what usually expected from such simplistic stories.
My point about Welkin, that this nature talking is almost the only way that game uses to give him a personality. Remove it and yes, he would still be a competent commander, but he wouldn't have any character besides that. And it probably would be for the better, as games not so demanding to proper personality of protagonist and he could just serve as simple avatar of the player.
Rosie having a proper backstory a character development isn't something that supposed to be extraordinary. In fact that what a characters should have in order to be, well, a characters. But for some reason during development someone thought, that have a main heroine that lacks either is a very good idea, which automatically makes Rosie more approipriate for the role. And with her as Valkyria twist about Valkiries and Darcsens could have some significance in the story. Currently it's not connecting with anything in the plot, as it concerns events from thousands of years that have no significance in present. They could also implement religious aspect of Valkiries properly, that is mentioned but never come into play.

I guess the same could be said for the combat really. I think the system is solid and challenging until you figure out how to exploit it, but is there a game against which the same can't be levered? I don't really mind all missions being offensive capture the flags either. It's clear they did so to compensate for the AI, which is inept at attacking. For me, again, that is acceptable: all strategy games give something unfair to the enemy because you can't really expect a non-retardo human to lose otherwise. Most games make the enemy stronger (for example, you are fighting super-soldiers as mooks) or give them very large numbers.

Yes there would be always a ways to explore AI and it currently can't put a fair fight against human. But I don't think it is much to ask from it to put his units into the cover, flank player troops and capture undefended bases. That's not the things that should be hard to implement.

Their solution? You have a time limit, "king" units (they die, you lose), and have to attack yourself.

I don't think it even possible to loose from time limit. Looking at statistic my maximum number of turns was 8, when I still didn't know the game. And I am tend to be a very caution and defensive player. Even too much. I don't know what one need to do to spent 20 turns on any mission.
Losing main tank also isn't a common occuarence, but one could be careless and unlucky enough to get one-shoted by enemy lancer. Personaly I didn't even used tank much in the second half of the game as they do to little for 2 CP cost and lack of AP.

He is basically Wenli 2.0 from Legend of Galactic Heroes.

Lol. I don't think it's wise to make any comparisons to LotGH, as they level of quality it just too different. Doing this comparison would also meant using same standards for VC as for LotGH, and with them in action plot and characters of VC going to be raised to the ground, while using more appropriate standards one could judge story of VC as toleratable and serviceable.

Not that anime didn't tried to give additional characterisation to Welkin by blatantly ripping off Wenli. But it was even more painful to watch than standard Welkin biology speeches.

 

[Jick Magger]

'Competent commander' is about the nicest thing I can say about him, but the game is constantly trying to push him as being some kind of military maverick. Most of his decisions just seem more common sense than any real stroke of genius, or come as a result of Isara doing the thinking for him, and when there's one point in the game where his input was vital to actually winning the battle he utterly flubs it and resorts to punching the guy who did come up with a solution when questioned on how he would've handled it.

Spoiler

His sister's also killed because he seems to have just immediately broken ranks and gotten to repairing his tank right out in the open, instead of posting patrols or a watch to actually try and secure the enemy base he was currently occupying. Unless he did do both and they managed to miss the four to five imperials in metal armor sneaking into the camp.

 

[34scell]

Well that event was just bullshit regardless.

 

[oscar]

I was laughing at how stupid Welkin was in demanding to know WHY!!! Faldio* did it when he'd neatly, calmly and logically explained why in his diary that Welkin read 20 seconds beforehand

*on that front what the fuck is up with the names and ethnicities in this game. Half the names are Anglo, half of them are Japanese, some of them are Italian while there's a mixture of Caucasian, Indian and Arab looking people within Gallia with an African drill sergeant. There's no consistency even within the regions. Some of the 'Desert-bred' people are blonde and fair while others are dark brown. Meanwhile everyone from the Empire is white and Gallia is meant to be recently independent from the Empire

 

[abnaxus]

That entire event with Faldio was complete bullshit anyway. No reason why Faldio couldn't have simply tried to calmly explain everything to Alicia/Welkin to begin with.

Faldio's action at the end of the game was even more illogical nonsense just added for drama's sake.

*on that front what the fuck is up with the names and ethnicities in this game. Half the names are Anglo, half of them are Japanese, some of them are Italian while there's a mixture of Caucasian, Indian and Arab looking people within Gallia with an African drill sergeant. There's no consistency even within the regions. Some of the 'Desert-bred' people are blonde and fair while others are dark brown. Meanwhile everyone from the Empire is white and Gallia is meant to be recently independent from the Empire

It's Wapanese, bro. For instance, check out the world map. They randomly named countries and cities after regions/cities in Belgium and the Netherlands.

 

[spekkio]

BROS, is it me, or my screenshots lack something...

link

 

[Luka-boy]

I like that you can tweak it if you want so the canvas effect covers the entire screen making the game look like Paper Sorcerer

 

[Renfri]

Wikipedia

The 2014 PC version of the game exceeded its publisher's expectations, topping the [URL='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_%28software%29']Steam

sales charts on the day of its release, ahead of the then also recently-launched games Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and Assassin's Creed Unity.

[/URL]

 

[Luka-boy]

 

[SCO]

The good thing about this is that this combat system will get cloned now.

 

[Jaesun]

The good thing about this is that this combat system will get cloned now.

I hope so.

 

[Visperas]

After 64 hours I've finished the main campaign. I've done most of the skirmish in normal but none of the reports (I didn't know that things you bought from the reporter transformed in more scenes in battles until the very end). It's a good game but I'm left with the feeling that there aren't many options to tackle most of the battles. It's like there's only a "general" strategy that will work and anything else that you try will end in failure. Despite enjoying VC I think I would still prefer a more classic turn based system than this one.
Apparently, Mordheim is already kinda cloning this system, we'll have to see how it works on a medieval fantasy setting.

 

[GarfunkeL]

The big problem is that the only way to get A rating is to rush to the completion. If the scoring system graded damage caused, damage received, units killed, units lost and time spent, it would make for better variety of tactics.

 

[Jaesun]

The big problem is that the only way to get A rating is to rush to the completion. If the scoring system graded damage caused, damage received, units killed, units lost and time spent, it would make for better variety of tactics.

Yeah. I wish it graded missions this way.

 

[Heresiarch]

Finally beaten the game. I've been screaming for MOAR. Too bad I still have Tactics Ogre and SRW Z2.2 to beat...and those two combine together are going to take me around 80 hours.

Downloaded the ISO of VC2 and VC3 to have a quick look at. It's horribly painful to look at the original 480 x 272 resolution stretched to fill on my fucking 27 inch screen, and dat polygons...

However, both games still look very promising and VC3 in particular feels darker and more serious. VC2's school anime style along with that dumbass main protagonist is turning me a bit off, but I've heard that the game is worth to keep onto it.

I guess now I know what games will occupy my Christmas.

 

[Rutteger]

The good thing about this is that this combat system will get cloned now.

Granted this is a 3DS game. hopefully some Japanese developers start to see the PC as a viable platform for these games.

 

[SCO]

VC3 has very good encounter design.

 

[Malpercio]

Actually PC version is better one in therms of gameplay. There is bug that causes interception fire more damage.

Also remember when i was talking about shift between VC1 and VC2 in art and how they gone from "serious" to "anime" ? Here is comparison in full glory:

Don't forget this masterpiece!

http://i.imgur.com/OouUshB.png

 

[Athelas]

The lack of penalty for characters falling in battle and the very easy way to bring them back through camps really limits the lethality of combat. That, and the endless amount of Ragnaid/Engineer tools makes it possible to stay in a permanent self-regenerating loop with relative ease.

Some of the minutiae in this game are weirdly identical to Silent Storm (classes, certain items). I wouldn't be surprised if they took inspiration from it.

Whoever said the story was a thoughtful examination of war must've been under the influence of something. I am currently at the point in the story where it looks the flying pig is about to play a pivotal role.