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Valkyria Chronicles |OT| Beautiful art meets genre-redefining gameplay

Koren

Member
Giolon said:
The only one that I think isn't worth the value is the Edy Detachment mission pack. It's only 1 mission. I don't care how many endings it has based on performance, I can't justify spending $5 on a single mission.
If you seek fastest completion time, it's a damn interesting mission, though. I loved this one, and don't miss my 5€ at all.
 

Koren

Member
McNum said:
She parried, but lost a turn.
What? you can have an effect on the number of opponent turns?
(if that's the case, I can't believe I missed that)

Other than that, yeah, that's one of the reasons I loved chapter 7. The situation is so bad that you really have to come with unexpected strategies.
 

Suzzopher

Member
So looking forward to new DLC. Any excuse to return to such a wonderful game.

Honestly hand on heart this is my favourite game of this generation.
 
Koren said:
If you seek fastest completion time, it's a damn interesting mission, though. I loved this one, and don't miss my 5€ at all.

I agree. Even though it's only a single map mission, the tactics involved are quite good. The end result, I actually enjoyed the Edy detachment more than the Selveria missions. Probably because for Selveria missions, none of my team members really have any personality.
 
radiantdreamer said:
I agree. Even though it's only a single map mission, the tactics involved are quite good. The end result, I actually enjoyed the Edy detachment more than the Selveria missions. Probably because for Selveria missions, none of my team members really have any personality.

This

I enjoyed the edy DLC a lot more, even if I didn't use any of those characters on my playthrough the oozed charm

I didn't buy the Hard EX DLC
 

ronito

Member
McNum said:
Chapter 7 is fun. I remember getting a "Wait a second, am I doing what I think I just did?!" What did I do?
When Selvaria showed up, I had the rest of the squad take cover behind... Bathomys. That's right, I hid behind one boss to avoid getting shot by the other. That's was stupidly awesome to do. That and I had a few extra mortar rounds. I gave them to Selvaria. She parried, but lost a turn.

This is just one of those games that just works. I don't know why, it really shouldn't be this accessible to play, but somehow, everything just fits together and becomes great.
I just got there and was amazed by the awesome. First time in a long time that I was actually afraid, luckily I was only one hit away from taking out the last radiator but just in that time Selvaria took out most of my troop. Totally awesome.
 

Joei

Member
I just bought a PS3 and am going to download this demo later. How representative of the actual game is the demo? The pics and vids I've seen look pretty cool, but I need some hands-on time to actually tell whether I like a game or not and am hoping the demo is reflective of the actual game.
 
Joei said:
I just bought a PS3 and am going to download this demo later. How representative of the actual game is the demo? The pics and vids I've seen look pretty cool, but I need some hands-on time to actually tell whether I like a game or not and am hoping the demo is reflective of the actual game.

It's a small tutorial of how the game flows. VC is an amazing game and for $20, it's one of the best PS3 game that you can't afford to pass up. $20 is a steal for what you get with VC.
 

patsu

Member
Joei said:
I just bought a PS3 and am going to download this demo later. How representative of the actual game is the demo? The pics and vids I've seen look pretty cool, but I need some hands-on time to actually tell whether I like a game or not and am hoping the demo is reflective of the actual game.

I love Valkyria Chronicles. But the demo sucks big time. It tells you the mechanics (like how to move the chess pieces), but it doesn't tell you what the game is about (level design, character capability and charm, story, enemy strength, etc.).
 

Lain

Member
Joei said:
I just bought a PS3 and am going to download this demo later. How representative of the actual game is the demo? The pics and vids I've seen look pretty cool, but I need some hands-on time to actually tell whether I like a game or not and am hoping the demo is reflective of the actual game.

The demo will give you a good idea of how the game works, which is what matters.
 

McNum

Member
Koren said:
What? you can have an effect on the number of opponent turns?
(if that's the case, I can't believe I missed that)

Other than that, yeah, that's one of the reasons I loved chapter 7. The situation is so bad that you really have to come with unexpected strategies.

That's specific to
Selvaria
. Normally, you can't make enemies waste a turn, well, except for their misadventures in Tank driving, but that's just the AI being silly, but for
Selvaria
, there is a catch. When you hit with a mortar,
she raises her shied to parry it. Her blue aura then turns purple. That means she'll use her next turn standing in place to shake off the impact. Mortar her again and she'll turn purple again. Note, she's not harmless, she'll still reaction fire at your troops, but she won't hunt them down anymore.
Granted, this trick isn't that useful in chapter 7, if you've positioned your units to the south, but
for the rematch, it is vital. She'll get an upgrade: An Anti-Tank Valkyrian Lance. Does to Tanks what her normal shot does to humans. That fight is awesome. From the moment she appears you have as many turns as you have Mortars until she goes tank hunting, usually for Welkin.

But other than that, you can't force any enemy units to outright waste a turn.
 

ronito

Member
Joei said:
I just bought a PS3 and am going to download this demo later. How representative of the actual game is the demo? The pics and vids I've seen look pretty cool, but I need some hands-on time to actually tell whether I like a game or not and am hoping the demo is reflective of the actual game.
dude no demo just get the game, you wont be disappointed.
 

Mr_Brit

Banned
ronito said:
dude no demo just get the game, you wont be disappointed.

Does it still retain the charm from the first game? Or is it now more of an angsty Japanese High school drama with interspersed bits of fighting.

Also, does the game have any in game cutscenes or is it all floating head nonsense?
 

Koren

Member
McNum said:
That's specific to
Selvaria
. Normally, you can't make enemies waste a turn, well, except for their misadventures in Tank driving, but that's just the AI being silly, but for
Selvaria
, there is a catch. When you hit with a mortar,
she raises her shied to parry it. Her blue aura then turns purple. That means she'll use her next turn standing in place to shake off the impact. Mortar her again and she'll turn purple again. Note, she's not harmless, she'll still reaction fire at your troops, but she won't hunt them down anymore.
Granted, this trick isn't that useful in chapter 7, if you've positioned your units to the south, but
for the rematch, it is vital. She'll get an upgrade: An Anti-Tank Valkyrian Lance. Does to Tanks what her normal shot does to humans. That fight is awesome. From the moment she appears you have as many turns as you have Mortars until she goes tank hunting, usually for Welkin.

But other than that, you can't force any enemy units to outright waste a turn.
Interesting, indeed. I missed that detail, many thanks for the explanation.

Not sure what you called "the rematch", though. The same mission on the second walkthrough? I think I kept finishing the mission before she appeared after that, I should try it again.
 
So I got the game awhile ago and finally decided to sit down and play it. I'm up to chapter 4 and have some quick questions about the operation.

I managed to capture 2 out of the 3 camps without any problems. However, before I could capture the third camp a ton of enemy reinforcements had been called in. Is that inevitable? Something tells me it isn't because a turn or two after I captured the second camp Isara intercepted a message from the enemies and said everything was fine. I'd imagine something similar would have happened had I captured the third camp sooner. However, I would like to confirm this before I redo the mission.

I'm not sure if I needed spoiler tags, but better safe than sorry.
 

Koren

Member
I may be wrong, but I think reinforcements arrived on a predefined turn (4th?). So that has nothing to do with your own timing or actions.
 

Hato-kun

Member
Finally playing through this game after a few years of owning it. Absolutely amazing game. I'm up to around chapter 10-11 (
Storming the beach
) and this mission is really pissing me off.

Spoilers of the mission
I can get right up towards the end, then get barred by the last two tanks. I flank around the side of the building, but still get taken out by that Ace and the medium tanks machine gun. I'm really stuck, and I don't wanna risk my lancers getting blown away by the tanks up front

Any help?
 

Koren

Member
Again, I should boot up the game to be sure... So take this with a grain of salt.

IIRC, the tank machine gun only fire on some of the sides of the med tank. You can probably avoid some damages by using this.

I think I used a rush to win this mission. If you have orders (e.g. the one that increase evasion) and you don't find them cheap, you should use them. Try to kill all soldiers defending the base, and go for the flag ignoring the ace (if you can kill him, his drop is really useful, though). Use grenades if you have them or lancers to blow up the sandbags before.

It's always really difficult to give good advices to succeed in a mission, since it depends on a lot of things (orders available, units deployed, their level, weapons, etc.). Feel free to post a screenshot of deployment and a couple of informations on orders available if you can, should you need precise suggestions...


I remember killing the soldiers in enemy base using the enemy tank machinegun just by standing beside them, but you would need a Lvl-20 Alicia to do the same... so I guess it's out of question :lol Great fun, though.
 

ronito

Member
Mr_Brit said:
Does it still retain the charm from the first game? Or is it now more of an angsty Japanese High school drama with interspersed bits of fighting.

Also, does the game have any in game cutscenes or is it all floating head nonsense?
I was talking about the first game
 

bernardobri

Steve, the dog with no powers that we let hang out with us all for some reason
adversesolutions said:
I am, but no one else is apparently. : /

Any comments about gameplay, storyline, VO, and other content? I'd love to hear impressions.
 
What you can look forward to:

・Lots of optional missions that branch from the main story and can be undertaken whenever you want to.
・These missions are bite-sized and perfect for commuting and using a handheld.
・Game starts out really easy, but gets tougher about halfway in.
・The high school based storyline works pretty well, and there aren't any characters so far that I really take offense at.
・There are class changes like the last game.
・I have not used the shield bearer class yet, but I think I'll have to soon.
・So far, game is still pretty biased towards scouts, but again I think this is about to change. I'm only about an 1/4 of the way in.
・Anime scenes are pretty good.

Overall, I would have preferred if they just called this a Gaiden, but as is it's a very good game on its own and designed very much with the handheld gamer in mind.
 

jiggle

Member
oh no
not talking about game quality at all cuz it sounds ace

was referring to the interest this game is generating
 
I'm actually surprised how good the English dub is. I still prefer playing in Japanese, but if I didn't have the option to I would be absolutely fine.
 

Jeels

Member
So I just started VC after beating Persona 4, and I'm getting owned so easily, and I'm only an hour in. What am I doing wrong. I was told this game was fairly easy on the standard mode. (I didn't get an option to select a difficulty?)
 

Pandaman

Everything is moe to me
Jeels said:
So I just started VC after beating Persona 4, and I'm getting owned so easily, and I'm only an hour in. What am I doing wrong. I was told this game was fairly easy on the standard mode. (I didn't get an option to select a difficulty?)
difficulty settings are only for skirmishes.

where are you in the game?
 

Jeels

Member
Pandaman said:
difficulty settings are only for skirmishes.

where are you in the game?

The game just began to open up? I can now select crew members and level them up as well as upgrade weapons.
 
I played VC 2 only for 22 hours (end of june) and the game is just awesome but I don't feel is better than VC1, sure the game have more stuff (more missions, more classes, more story development) but I think the the main characters are better in VC1 and the overall sense of war and the epic battles with lot of soldiers and big maps are gone because the PSP.

But don't get me wrong, VC2 is awesome but is a little different experience because his portable nature.
 

Thaedolus

Gold Member
VC2 loses by default since I'll probably never get to play it. I don't own a PSP and doubt I ever will.

VC1 though, I gotta get back to and finish already...
 
I've been brutally ignoring this game for months. I've heard countless positive things about it, but every time I watch a video or look at it, I get disinterested immediately. I'm going to have to force myself to buy it.
 

Swag

Member
Trying to finish this, but finding it pretty difficult to get motivated. Stuck on Chapter 9s battle, my roomate played a bit and the story got pretty interesting. Battles are just a bit too slow for me.
 

TTG

Member
Sebulon3k said:
Trying to finish this, but finding it pretty difficult to get motivated. Stuck on Chapter 9s battle, my roomate played a bit and the story got pretty interesting. Battles are just a bit too slow for me.


I'm the opposite. Up to chapter 15 now and I have to cringe every time the teenage boys and girls go through their "horror of war" moments in the most cheesy way imaginable. Shit, they even managed to shoehorn a persecution/concentration camp side story in there. The missions are fun though and each one has just enough of a twist to it to keep it interesting.
 

Swag

Member
TTG said:
I'm the opposite. Up to chapter 15 now and I have to cringe every time the teenage boys and girls go through their "horror of war" moments in the most cheesy way imaginable. Shit, they even managed to shoehorn a persecution/concentration camp side story in there. The missions are fun though and each one has just enough of a twist to it to keep it interesting.

Some of the really awkward dialogue was making me :lol, I don't know if I'm going to finish this game or if it's going to join the perpetually increasing backlog.
 

McNum

Member
Hato-kun said:
Finally playing through this game after a few years of owning it. Absolutely amazing game. I'm up to around chapter 10-11 (
Storming the beach
) and this mission is really pissing me off.

Spoilers of the mission
I can get right up towards the end, then get barred by the last two tanks. I flank around the side of the building, but still get taken out by that Ace and the medium tanks machine gun. I'm really stuck, and I don't wanna risk my lancers getting blown away by the tanks up front

Any help?

Two very general hints:
1. "This is an order!"
2. What exactly is your mission objective?

I beat that with order abuse. Two Scouts, Alicia and someone else is all you need to take that base. Here's what I did:

- Order: All Units Defend! (2CP)
- Save
- Flank around the right side of the house, hug the wall, and as soon as you see the Ace, take aim for his head. Shoot. If he dodges, reload the game. If he dies, save.
- Grenade the troops covering behind the sandbags near the flag. There should be two. See if you can get them both out of cover with one grenade, Elite Scouts are awesome here.
- Kill any troop still within the sandbags. If they got thrown out of there, they're irrelevant.
- Take the flag

You'll notice that I've completely ignored the tanks. They aren't inside the sandbags, so you can take the base with them still there. Just remember to Defend boost, maybe the Attack order, too, if your troops are a little weak. I got an A on my first try with this.

To get this one to work, you'll need to be really fast in ending your turns, though, so stay sharp.
 

TTG

Member
McNum said:
1. "This is an order!"

I parked a sniper just outside of the tank's range and
blew up the sandbags somehow, I think with Largo, that exposed them. Then it's just a matter of flanking them around with Rosie so there's a little safety net with how much damage she could take.

Speaking of orders, I think that's been the only mission so far where I've left tanks standing. Largo is a beast. :lol One of the side missions you can purchase at headquarters has you
defending a base with 3 tanks rolling closer. Well one defensive order and Largo took out the 2 heavy tanks and the medium one in 1 turn with some flanking and well placed shots to the radiator
I started the game looking for the best spots to get my snipers to, but I've quickly realized that moving a single Lancer around is just as important. I'm also thinking about equipping at least one of them with the mortar, seeing how in the later stages just about everyone is crouching.
 

Giolon

Member
Hey guys! I went and picked up my copy of the VC art book from Kinokuniya this weekend!

VCArtbook01.jpg


WOW let me tell you this is THE BEST artbook I have ever bought. It was a little steep at $63.65, but absolutely worth the price for some great art work from one of my favorite games of all time. I got leave to post a couple pictures of the inside (I asked for permission to post two - I'm going to post three, I hope that's ok!). The pictures aren't huge, but they're good enough quality to see how great this thing is (the idea is to convince you to go buy it instead of replacing the need or desire). So here are just a couple of my favorite bits of this 400 page beast:

VCArtbook02.jpg

It's Rosie! I love her. Every character of the main cast (hero and villain alike) has a full page illustration by the game's character designer, Raita (whom I just found out is also a hentai manga artist o_0 ). Largo's illustration is one of my favorites.

VCArtbook03.jpg

The have design pages for all the primary cast, that go into much more detail on design iterations and changes than the this image here, but I just love this pose of Alicia and the detailing of the expressions in the bottom.

VCArtbook04.jpg

In the back there's an extensive set of pre-production artwork, showcasing extremely early character designs, scenarios and prototypes. I love it. This is one of my favorite pics from that section.

What I've posted just scratches the surface. Did you know Selvaria appears to originally have been designed with short hair? Or that the game was titled "Gallian Panzers" early on?

Perhaps my favorite feature of this book is that the cover artwork wraps around to the back and inside the flaps. If you pull it off the book and lay it out, it makes one continuous image of THE ENTIRE SQUAD 7. I really want to figure out how I can scan it and get it into my computer to be wallpaper in one piece.

I just wanted to give you guys a taste of the awesomeness (Selvaria bikini page intentially ommitted from these images). All of this should be plenty of information to let you know that if you are a true Valkyria Chronicles fan, YOU NEED THIS BOOK.

In other VC related merchandise news, I literally just got pre-billing notification 15 minutes ago from E2046 on the 1/6 Selvaria PVC figure which means it'll be coming very soon. :D
 

Lain

Member
Giolon said:
the game's character designer, Raita (whom I just found out is also a hentai manga artist o_0 ).

I'll sound like a filthy pervert, but some hentai manga artists are some of the best illustrators/drawers.
I'm still waiting on my artbook, so I hate all you people already holding your copy in your hands.
 
Hato-kun said:
Finally playing through this game after a few years of owning it. Absolutely amazing game. I'm up to around chapter 10-11 (
Storming the beach
) and this mission is really pissing me off.

Spoilers of the mission
I can get right up towards the end, then get barred by the last two tanks. I flank around the side of the building, but still get taken out by that Ace and the medium tanks machine gun. I'm really stuck, and I don't wanna risk my lancers getting blown away by the tanks up front

Any help?
Sure.

I assume you've been using Isara Smoke Bombs near the opening to the base. I usually use Alicia/Rosie and hide them behind the left wall, then order a mortar strike (Orders) to clear any shocktroopers camping the base. Evade Boost/Defense Boost Alicia and run to the goal. This works better if one of the tanks leaves its set position, WHICH IT WILL once you hit the shocktroopers camping the Camp with a Mortar Order.
 
Chapter 11: The Marberry Shore

I used a skeleton crew initially and took out every turrett/base. This also involved blowing up like 2-3 tanks and Retreating/recalling fighters to closer bases. Must've used the Isara Smoke 1 like 5 times... My main issue was the tanks would not leave their sentry spot. The Mortar Order was key, not only does it eliminate the camped ShockTroopers, the splash damage of the Mortar usually forces the tank up and creates a running lane for Alicia.

However I made A TON of mistakes... had at least 8-10 guys who had to be medic'd, yet somehow got a B Rank, 11 turns
 

Pandaman

Everything is moe to me
Did i ever mention that i beat the game on the first play through without using orders?
I didn't even know they existed. :lol

I love this game so much, 150 hours well spent. just wish i still had a psp.
 
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