valkyria-chronicles.html
Valkyria Chronicles
Valkyria Chronicles follows the story of Squad 7, who you control as Welkin Gunther. Funnily enough my favourite characters were the ones that were just there as supporting characters to the squad.
Most the dialogue is kinda lame but also endearing, and overall I really enjoyed playing this game. Every character has their own special set of traits and skills based on their personality, which made the gameplay interesting.
Another character that made the game a joy to play was this one gay soldier, Jann. He was an anti-tank unit, and he was in love with one of the main characters, Largo, who was also an anti-tank unit. Putting them together would essentially make Jann deal more damage, which was most of the time since I like to keep my squads semi-organized. His dialouge was the main reason why I kept him around though, while the main characters are all depressed here's Jann talking about keeping his body in tip top shape and trying to impress Largo essentially the whole game. Wish he was a main character. Overall though, the game is an turn based RTS. Kinda. The enemy gets to shoot at you while you move a unit, and you to them. So you gotta kinda have an idea of where you wanna go if you start making moves on the field. While I used shock troopers all the way till the mid of the game, the end game the maps got really really big. So scouts were kinda the only option you had. Scouts also had a massive damage buff when you get them around level 12 or so. Seemed kinda unfair since I liked my shock troopers, but oh well I suppose. (I kept using the shock troopers anyway)
Favourite part of the game also happened to be the most difficult mission. There I was, moving in to take a base like I normally do. When I captured it however the lady commander gal thing called up on comms saying I better watch out cause enemies were closing in from all sides. It wasn't all sides, the east was clear, but there were snipers to the west and tanks + 6 infantry to the north and south. I had my tanks on the northern front while, most of my infantry on point and a squad of three guys on the south flank I had forgotten about. So, naturally, I moved the guys to the south into some trenches and started tossing nades to blow up cover that the enemy would use.
Jann was one of the boys on the southern front, so given the tank situation he was going to have to hold them off. Largo was also on the south, so he was supporting from afar. Using a sniper I picked off most of the infantry on the south while they rained hells vengeance on me. Turns passed and every Imp that I killed helped. Until I realized that they call for backup EVERY TURN. So my sniper was busy as balls racking up the kills trying to get Jann to the tank. Eventually he took her down, but he got KOed in the process. I had 2 turns to get him or he'd bleed out. Naturally that meant I left him for dead while I moved my tank squad to the north to ruin the other imps days. 2 turns pass and everythings taken care of. Jann was saved.Still a tough and fun mission though. Never had I been surrounded like that where I was completely outnumbered. My main problem story wise with the game is it tries to constantly remind you in every cutscene about how we're all just humans fighting for what we believe in and yada yada. MEANWHILE I'm racking up made research points for every tank I neutralize. It's just rather annoying when the game wants me to feel bad for all these guys that I'm killing while also rewarding me for the commander I just took out.
There's this scene where Welkin and his love interest are seperated from Squad 7. They stealth their way through this mission (one that I failed multiple times) and find a cabbin in the woods. I killed probably about 10-14 guys going through this mission, cause stealthing is retarded. Welkin and the love interest set up shop in this cabin and get all comfy together. Then they hear footsteps outside, and in this cutscene I don't have my guns anymore apparently. The door bursts open and in comes an Imperial soldier, wounded for some reason. He collapses to the floor scared of death and not wanting to die, you want this guy to live at this point.
Now, on a quick side note, theres this resource called Ragnite in the world that acts as a power source for everything and can even HEAL people. Every unit is equiped with this thing. So, back to this scene.
While this imp is laying on the ground crying and asking for his Mom, Welkin just looks at him and is like "theres nothing I can do" having an infinite supply of ragnite THAT I JUST USED IN THE MISSION BEFORE. Alicia (love interest) grabs the imps hand and starts pretending to be his mom to comfort him in his last momemnts of life.
Some other imps come and find Alicia and Welkin having burried this imp out of respect, and they show mercy on Welkin and Alicia by... leaving them? Theres a platoon leader there of these Imps and he's just like "we shall let you go this time gadget, but don't expect this to happen again."
Meanwhile you as the player are just like "welp... I might have willingly failed to save this Imps life, I main have taken out more of the Imperial army an all of Galias Militia combined, I may be the greatest threat to the Imps as they know it, but hey, I burried this guy so I'll get set free."
I like this game, but holy crap it needs to get it's priorities straight. Why was there no melee option in the game? Could I not have taken a pacifist route? Could I not have stunned guys, built a tranquilizer gun, sleeping gas, or anything? Was the only option to go through the game killing every Imp bastard I saw? Also theres supposed to be some subtle racism like the Nazis to Jews in this game, where the GALLIANS and the imps are both racist to this group of people called the Dracsens. Let me repeat that, the GALLIANS the people you play as have forced labour camps in YOUR country setup before the Imperials got there. Of course the Imperials seize the camp and then burn it down later, killing everyone inside, it was actually rather emotional, BUT up until this point Squad 7 has been completely racist to these people as well. But nooooooooooo, they never killed them. They just forced them to work in shitty conditions in a mine, probably giving themselves black lung. They never killed them; Gallians aren't monsters because of that.
To be fair, Welkin was never racist to Darcsens because his adopted little sister was one. And let me tell you, Squad 7 just rips into her all the time. Well, until this little masacre happens. Then all of a sudden the next mission everyone realizes that maybe Darcsens don't need to be treated this way... So they kill Welkins sister in THE VERY NEXT CHAPTER. Everyone feels sad and it unites Squad 7 to take out these Imps even more... I guess? Everyone claims actions as "Let's do it for her!" (her being this little sister.) To be fair this little sister, Isara, was actually really interesting and well developed. So imagine how pissed off I was when I clear an area like I normally do only for a sniper round to ex machina it's way into the world and kill her. It's a load of trash. And it's not like the sniper was laying ahead, or he was on some canyon roof top. No. He came around a corner of a building I LITERALLY FOUGHT BEHIND FOR 3 TURNS BEFORE HAND. Overall I rate the game a solid 7/10, would hold the line again.