As Street Fighter IV has recently shown, stylish graphics can be just as engaging as photo-realistic depictions, and one of the games that I've always been aware of for its style but haven't yet dipped a toe into to find anything out about it is Valkyria Chronicles.
One part watercolour memoir, one part tactical role-playing game, Valkyria Chronicles takes players through the Second Europan War as a band of brave peasants determined to prove that nobody is going to get trampled on without a fight.
All I know about it before playing is that it looks mighty interesting.
Fun Times
The year is 1935, but the planet isn't Earth, and this definitely isn't Europe, and it absolutely isn't the Second World War, but it is.
Other games ham-fist this kind of thing, turning it into the absurd (think Ace Combat 6, I guess), and while Valkyria Chronicles is a little on the nose with it in places, I think it's showing some level of competence in how it's going about it.
The misunderstanding is soon cleared up as it turns out Welkin is the son of a notable General in the Gallian army, but a scouting party from the Autocratic East Europan Imperial Alliance - or the bad guys, until I find a shorter name for them - soon forces our protagonist in action.
The actual gameplay of Valkyria Chronicles is here, in these skirmishes and battles that take place initially in the Command Mode, a birds-eye view map of the action where you decide which of your team members will use one or more of your precious command points for the turn.
Upon selecting a unit, you're taken straight to the Action Mode, and now you're in a third-person shooter with a limited amount of action points, represented by that orange bar at the bottom, to run around, get into position, and make a single attack against a target.
Select the right unit at the right time and you can string together attacks that leave the enemy with little option but to succumb to your efforts. Park up in cover, and there's even an overwatch mode that will automatically see your units fire off a few rounds when an enemy runs within range, for example.
Making use of these abilities, and making note that everyone will heal just a little bit of health at the start of each turn will allow you to strategize in the Command Mode before enacting a plan in the Action Mode.
Meet the victory conditions before you meet any of the failure conditions and the battle is yours and you can see the next episode and chapter of the story, simple as that - though I'm sure this gameplay is going to get a lot more involved as time goes by. It is an RPG, after all.
On the one hand, it allows you to save before going into each and every battle, and you'll know which parts of the book are battles and which are cutscenes with little difficulty, but on the other hand, it does feel a little stop/start.
I am absolutely on-board with it so far, though. The aesthetics on display are just lovely. I'm playing the PC version of Valkyria Chronicles, released long after the PlayStation 3 original, and it just works wonders.
Like Yakuza, I think this might be a series where I pull the trigger on going all in, as much for the presentation as for the story and gameplay. It's another sleeper hit that I've only been vaguely aware of until actually playing it, and then being consumed by it having done so.
I've still got much to learn about the tactical side of things, such as 'Don't run into the open like an idiot, and 'Hitting the victory condition might be easier than you think', but strategy and knowledge of the underlying systems will come in time, I'm sure. The game is so easy to control so far that it is down to my handling of the situation, rather than my handling of the controls, so that's nice.
The story has seen our peaceful little town get demolished by a tank. Alicia is going to do her duty no matter the cost, electing to defend to the main gate for as long as possible. There are some family members in need of rescuing, so we're going to run back and get them out of here.
Would be mighty handy if we had access to a tank right about now.
The folks of Gallia are lucky to live in a country where students get taught tank maintenance and the like, and we're incredibly lucky to be the child of a General, and have a half-sibling that is a child of a tank designer who built this, the Edelweiss, for that General.
I said Valkyria Chronicles was handling its story well, but this is a tad silly as far as circumstances go. Still, I've clearly decided that I'm here for the long haul, so we better learn how to pilot a tank.
Can't have all the fun just yet, though. Outnumbered and outgunned, things are looking bleak for Alicia. Armed with a grenade she can barely throw, and flanked by town watchmen who are capable of shooting well, but are not named and will therefore be on the useless side, turns go by with panicked running around into cover and wishful thinking for each and every shot I take.
There is a clear indicator of how good a weapon is against the enemy you are pointing it towards, including a count of how many shots it will take to down that enemy, but even armed with this knowledge, I felt I was rolling the dice rather than executing a grand strategy.
With the town watchmen getting killed, there's no better time for Welkin to smash into town, and now we're packing a punch.
Controlling the tank is as simple as controlling any other unit. Cycle through weapons, make an attack, drive around where necessary... it's so big it uses two of your command points for the turn, but if you've got enough points to play with, you can keep using the tank until you run out.
Frustrations
Sadly, one of the loss conditions was if Alicia fell in battle, which she did. It took me three attempts to score a victory in this fight, and you've got to retry from the start each time - no checkpoints here.
Will fights be massive and sprawling as the game goes on? Will the introduction of new, named characters make failure less likely, or less punishing? I've no idea how Valkyria Chronicles will develop, but I'm eager to find out.
Final Word
I am definitely thinking of going back to Valkyria Chronicles sooner rather than later, and I couldn't point out which specific element is the reason why. The illustrated look is like nothing else, the gameplay is simple to get your foot in, the story and characters are a little silly but still engaging. Everything comes together to make something that stands out, and I want to see everything else that the intro teaser showed me before the menu screen loaded in.
Would I want to play it on a console? Probably not? I'm not sure. I'd imagine it plays fine on the PS3, but the bite-sized nature of its presentation is great for pick-up-and-play sessions. Sat here at the computer, I can quickly dive in for another skirmish, or an attempt at one. Over there, I'd have to get the disc out, turn the TV on, put up with P2 walking in front of the screen every few minutes... For a game as impressive as this, I want to enjoy it as comfortably as possible.
A quick look at the series and I see some PlayStation Portable entries, some Japanese-only entries, and a recent enough sequel on the PC too, so I may well be dipping into a whole load more Valkyria Chronicles in time, all because of that near-instant appeal it gave me when I finally got around to seeing what it was all about.
Will my view change as the gameplay gets more involved? Will it change depending on what happens in the story? Will I eventually tire of the artwork? I hope not. I hope to enjoy Valkyria Chronicles for a long time to come.
If you like any single aspect of this game, check it out to see if you're a fan of the rest, too.
FILLING YOU IN
I'm now in chapter 6, in the desert, riding our tank with some racist squad members, a chatty war reporter, and a piglet with wings called Hans who goes 'Moink'. Valkyria Chronicles got a bit weirder, certainly, but remains playable.
There's only one battle per chapter so far, but those battles are often big and will take much longer if you keep insisting on restarting like I do. The reason they are big is that we now have a squad of 20 members we can swap in and out each battle, made up of anti-tank units, scouts, engineers, snipers and the like, each with their own personalities, likes, dislikes, and friendships with other squadmates.
I'm still learning new tricks and mechanics, but all those personality traits translate to buffs depending on how a unit is used (e.g., snipers working alone, or city boys preferring to do everything on concrete), and there are situations where like-minded units in the same area fight together to provide a few extra shots at your chosen target, offsetting the annoyance of missing the last shot and leaving your foe on a sliver of health, yet fully capable of acting as though nothing as happened.
It's a game whose story is a little unusual, a little too twee and Japanese in places but is still managing to keep my attention, even if my R&D department insist on calling me 'Bro' in every other sentence. Keep upgrading my weapons and tank, dudes...
Skirmishes can let you test out your skills outside of the main storyline, and experience and loot earned from them can be brought in to help you unlock new unit abilities and equipment, so if I do get stuck, there are ways and means to get a bit stronger before trying again.
All that's left is for me to apologise to anyone who ends up on the memorial wall, especially if they got there through a stupid mistake on my part.
FURTHER FILLING YOU IN
After one too many moments of "Are you kidding me?! That's bullshit!", I made the decision to watch someone else put up with Valkyria Chronicles' gameplay quirks so that I could enjoy the story. The bonkers, borderline anime story, told in a strange way, full of on-the-nose WWII analogies. At least it looked damn good to watch, though.
Missions came in all shapes and sizes and included everything from stealth missions to full-frontal assaults. Were they all cohesive to the storyline that was being told? Eh, not so much, but at least there's mission variety - if you can put up with those quirks and oddities.
Silly though it was - it certainly got even more Japanese as time went on - it has made its mark on my memory, and I'll definitely be looking into its sequels, even if only to watch them being played by someone who does have the patience to try, try, and try again.
Fun Facts
The use of action points to determine the amount of movement a unit could do on a turn was chosen to emulate the notion of scared militiamen not knowing what was around the next corner, and so not wanting to push forward to find out.
Valkyria Chronicles, developed by Sega, first released in 2008.
Version played: PC, 2014.
Version watched: PC, 2014 (Keith Ballard)