Wow, there is an absurd amount of hate for this game. I finished Persona and was really excited to start this game, despite the negative reception. I'm actually really enjoying it. I can't be the only one, right? I'm on Chapter 3.
Just finished it myself. I'm going to put this here and hope some people consider it when wanting to try the game out.
My history with the franchise.
Let me start off by saying that I'm not a "true" fan of this series that has played VC 1, 2, and 3. I only just recently played VC 1(remastered) a few months ago but I liked it. However, I can say that the combat pacing for me was slow, and especially so with trying to go for the platinum which I did achieve. The story for the game was decent and had an emotional touch to it which made it beautiful.
Gameplay.
Then I saw that they were making this game and it was more action/fast paced with a less strategic direction. I can understand that strategy fans would be disappointed in the direction of this game's gameplay but I'd say fans of games like Dynasty Warriors wouldn't mind it at all. Now, starting off, the combat is really simplistic 1 button press to win type game and I believe many were immediately turned off by that. However, as you continue and begin upgrading the character's weapons, you get more access to different magic/secondary weapons and then it starts getting fun. I loved the amount of ways you could take out a platoon of enemies by the end of the game with flashy animations and powerful magic. Another thing to note is that the game had elements from the original for strategic elements but were practically useless in the end, like grass you can hide in and barricades you could duck under to avoid fire, yet you can just guard while running at an enemy. However, I did like the use of causing the enemy to become fearful, disoriented, and even tries to run away when you throw a smoke grenade to break up their formation.
I honestly might make a youtube video of my endgame level 70 characters with max weapons/magic. From that statement, yes, I just achieved the platinum for this game as well and immediately came to my computer to write this review.
Story.
All I have to say is that the effort that went into the storytelling is absolutely amazing. This game's story completely outdoes VC1's story in my opinion. The point of view that it is being told from is after everything has already happened( about 100 years into the future). It has a similar premise with VC1, where a small country ends up defying/destroying a much bigger nation. The story's strength isn't in its originality or plot twists or anything. The strength is in how its meticulously told from practically every point of view, from allies & enemies alike. It won't make you feel like there are any plot holes at all throughout your playthrough, but it managed to have 1 or 2, involving the Valkyria & the princess unless I missed something. And then there are the emotional touches to it accompanied by such an amazing soundtrack, I couldn't bring myself to criticize/hate the developers effort, despite the lackluster body/facial movement animations. (And it's disappointing because it they definitely put more budget in getting that right, then everything about the story would be perfect, in my opinion). Everyone seems to complain about the long cutscenes (due to some to most being poorly animated) but that is woefully subjective, because I loved them and found a few like-minded souls that like them as well, so consider that anecdotal evidence. I guess you can say I tolerated them because I was loving the overall story and wanted to see it through to the end.
Difficulty
The game only has 2 difficulties on the first playthrough; Easy & Normal. The people complaining about how easy the game is might've been on Easy or never played past chapter 4 or 5 on Normal( which you can actually tell from the trophy achievement list. The 2nd story trophy which is literally in the beginning (about Chapter 1 or 2 I believe) has 91.2% of achieving it. But then the 3rd one (out of 5 story trophies total) only has a 20.6% achieved percentage that is acquired in Chapter 6 or 7. That's a massive 70% drop off of players that probably complained but never even finished it. Anyway, the game does start off piss easy with little variation but it's crazy how the story spikes from chapter 6 onward. I found the bosses annoyingly satisfying because you had to go through a whole stage first fighting enemies without saving, while conserving your items/ammo/mana, and then take on the boss which at times I found myself running out of ammo and items to replenish my mana.
Characters
The game has less overall characters than VC1 but the character development for each one was really good for me. However, they didn't put any(or very few) of the quirky get-to-know-your-characters development scenes in the actual story or else it would have been even longer.
Those scenes were reserved for the free fully voiced DLC they slowly released over the course of a few weeks. Some of them actually did have really good body/facial animations and others still suffered from lack thereof but the voice actors did a great job with them though. However, they did have some some non-voiced group sessions (officially called "Circles") where your characters talked about various things like love, patriotism, art, family, weapons, childhood, fashion, jobs, food, and books. I'm not lying when I say that I really knew the characters by the end of my first playthrough. And in a way, they make you have to use all of the characters because that's the only way to get the secret ending
(Pros)
- A very well written story
- Excellent art direction
- A amazing composed Soundtrack
- Combat that's not as bad as you expect but also not as great as you think. (It's both a pro and a con. Fun but not really strategic in a sense)
- Trying something new and should consider keeping it like it is but with a bigger budget.
(Cons)
- Jarring animations at times.
- Loading screens that should of been cut for the PS4 and Xbox versions of the game
- Slow start for the story
- Combat that's not as bad as you expect but also not as great as you think. (It's both a pro and a con. Fun but not really strategic in a sense)
- Some odd pauses between lines in earlier cutscenes.
Last thing for me to say is reiterating the need to take all criticisms/hatred for this game with a grain of salt. Some, if not most, may have some nostalgic rose-tinted glasses when going at this game. It's good, not great, but woefully undeserving of the hatred.