Introduction
Valkyria Chronicles is a series published by SEGA that’s mostly stayed on Playstation consoles throughout the years and makes a name for itself in its interesting art style and rather unique tactical combat. The first game, Valkyria Chronicles 1 was a PS3 exclusive for quite a long time until it wasn’t, but then got remade again later. The first game was about a scrappy militia defending their homeland from the invading empire in a dramatic war that mirrors both World Wars.
So, what’s the game we’re playing?
Valkyria Chronicles 2 is recreational software about a school with guns and wacky students.
No, really, what is it?
Valkyria Chronicles 2 also takes place after the events of the first game where a racist rebellion is gaining power and is threatening to undermine the whole country. Instead of a scrappy militia on the gruesome frontlines of war, we have a wildly irresponsible academy that sends out our ragtag group of quirky anime dudes and gals to handle the uprising. Oh, but that happens while we’re not having our wacky high school hijinks, because anime.
Due to the memory limits of a UMD disc (it’s a PSP exclusive this time,) it doesn’t have a wide variety of unique maps and constantly stages battles in the same areas instead of unique maps like the first game. It plays very smoothly though, its controls are mapped well, and it’s visually okay for a PSP game. I nearly finished it years ago but had to stop when my bargain bin PSP decided it was going to fry itself.
I should've realized that my PSP died for a reason: keeping me away from this terrible damn thing.
What’s it like as a game/ compared to the first?
What I would say before I began this tortured journey:
At the base level, it’s still mostly the same game (a third-person shooter crossed with turn based tactical warfare) but a few things set it apart. Firstly, it makes some changes compared to the original’s balance by adding another base unit class and dividing them all into sub-classes through its promotion system. Units have many traits, with their most glaring flaws/personality issues being curable through side missions unlocked in a way similar to Fire Emblem supports. Damage tends to be more polarized with many things doing only chip damage and other things that do gruesome amounts of damage per hit. The AI is usually not very smart and only has an advantage in sheer numbers and the capability to be a cheating bastard.
From what I’ve gathered, there’s a bit of a divide where some folks seem to really hate this game, and others really seem to like it. I’m somewhat in the middle of those two extremes- parts of this game I really don’t like, and other parts I find nice enough. (I haven’t played VC1 in years and I also haven’t finished this game, so take that into consideration if you have an opinion on it.) Whether you hate or love this game, feel free to weigh in with your opinion on it, as I’d like to hear it at least.
Edit From Later Twybil, only 10 Updates in: I'm still kinda on the fence, but I'm leaning a lot more to the hate side now. I forgot how dumb this game was.
What I can say about it now:
This game is a trash fire filled with an endless grind, a terrible story, and a never-ending uphill battle against both mediocrity and it's overwhelming cheating. Unlike other awful games, such as White Knight Chronicles, this game lacks any truly terrible aspect and instead remains a level of bad that is uninteresting and devoid of anything to really poke fun at. Well until the end, really, where the development took a huge turn into
Read this thing from start to finish to see the spirit of a fresh, new LPer become increasingly more broken until I relapse into pure apathy. I tried to maintain a neutral stance, to have fun with this, and it tore me apart. This game is "aggressively mediocre", and infinitely draining to play on an in-depth level, and ruined any desire for me to even inspect the other games in the series despite multiple assurances that the others aren't this bad. Regardless, the resulting LP could be better given I run out of effort to give halfway through, but I think it's more than enough for this awful thing.
If you think you like this game, then I can only believe you're either delusional or that you don't truly remember what this game is like. If you don't want to see me bashing it, then I don't suggest staying.
What about spoilers? Do I need to know the story of the first game?
This game is a sequel, thus it spoils parts of Valkyria Chronicles 1. As result, feel free to discuss VC1 in the thread freely, I don’t mind. If you don’t know anything about VC1, you’ll probably be fine as there’s only a bit to the previous plot that matters. This game hardly gives a fuck about the previous one anyhow.
Spoilers for this game are off-limits, so please don’t. It has a story, What’s the LP going to be like? Any chance for thread participation?
This will be a Screenshot LP. The battles in this game are much shorter than they were in the first (A-rank is usually 3-4 rounds), and I think I can explain everything enough.
I'm no longer doing battles as per thread vote. Trust me, you're not missing anything. It's the same boring routine repeated over and over again.
Oh, and there's lots and lots of
, I had thread participation once, but really now its just voting for which character's awful story you want to see so that the awful main story can be spaced out. But of course, that too was in the past and it really just atrophied into me doing all the updates and saving a vote for the final update.
As a final note, don’t be a creep. This game is anime by nature and does fall into the seemingly perpetual trap of having skeevy moments. There's not that many, but this game sure loves its fanservice when it has it. I'll put up warnings that way you don't have to lose as many brain cells as I do dealing with this.
(The graphical fidelity of the first two updates will be a bit low, but this is swiftly remedied!)
Updates:
In Which I Try to Remain Positive About This Game:
Update 1: "I'm coming for you Leon!"
Update 2: Get Schooled
Update 3: A Merry Band of Personality Issues
Update 4: Move and Shoot Exercises
Update 5: It's For Real This Time
Update 6: That (Depressing) Anime High School Lifestyle
Update 7: In Which Things Are Done, Not Unlike Last Time
Update 8: Avan Gets Attacked By A 13 Year Old
Update 9: Marion, In the Armory, With a Gun
Update 10: The One I Forgot to Give a Title
Update 11 - Avan Doesn't Do Anything, Yet Again
Update 12: Friends, Knitting, and Fascism - Story
Update 12: Friends, Knitting, and Fascism - Combat
Update 13: (Now And Then) There's A Gun Such As I - Story
Update 13: (Now And Then) There's A Gun Such As I - Combat
In Which I become Increasingly More Tired of This Game:
Update 14: In Which Everyone Does A Terrible Job - Story
Update 14: In Which Everyone Does A Terrible Job - Combat
Update 15: It's Christmas in March - Story
Update 15: It's Christmas in March - Combat
Update 16: "There are no items of note." - Story
Update 16: "There are no items of note."- Combat
Update 17: Food Talk, Femme Fatales, and Shipping Material; We've Got it All - Story
Update 17: Food Talk, Femme Fatales, and Shipping Material; We've Got it All - Combat
In Which This Game Breaks My Spirit:
Update 18: Special Especially Long Post-Hiatus Update Special
Update 19: Winter Whiplash
Update 20: (Not A) Beautiful Noise
Update 21: Night Maneuvers
Update 22: Mega Update, Giant Sci-Fi Lasers, Maximum Anime
In Which I Stop Giving A Flying Fuck:
Update 23: You Can Stand Me Up at the Gates of Anime
Update 24: War and Art
Update 25: Mega Muscle Man Medic Moen
Update 26: The Indigenous Hunting Culture of Pseudo Poland
Update 27: In Which Diebal Village Gets Attacked Again
Update 28: You Hurt Captain Anime's Feelings
Update 29: Avan Gropes A Lady
Update 30: 4/10 Could Be Dryer
In Which The Game Takes A Steady Decline:
Update 31: Avan Gets Owned By A 13 Year Old Again
Update 32: Avan Gets Cutscene Killed
Update 33: The One Nobody Was Looking Forward To
Update 34: Leon, Valhalla, Oh, and Zeri's Tsundere Waifu Too
Update 35: Shots Fired and Laser Lady Talk
Update 36: Kodachrome
In Which The Game Runs Out of Material And Sputters to A Finish:
Update 37: Operation Didn't We Do This Already?
Update 38: The Finale of Captain Anime
Update 39: The Nightmare Ends (It Was Just A Bad Version of VC1 After All)
Extra Updates:
Bonus Update 1: I Got an A in Blitzkrieg Class (Entrance Exam A Rank)
Bonus Update 2: A Merry Band of Personality Issues - Character Details
Bonus Update 3: Character Details List, Somewhat Updated
Bonus Update 4: The Beach Scene (As Part of Update 33)