I'm a good chunk of the way into Valkyria Chronicles on the PS3, so it's time to talk about it a little bit.
From the moment I saw the art style of the game, the only word to describe my feeling has been "enchanted." Just like Prince of Persia, it's the type of game that has such a complete, coherent look, that it could even hold up a mediocre game if it had to. The watercolor/cel-shading style is gorgeous, and the character designs reminiscent of my favorite Dreamcast RPG Skies of Arcadia (Vyse is even in the game!) both did a lot to pull me in. The solid voice cast and the mix of humor and sadness keep the story from being something you want to skip, as well.
I've also been in somewhat of a battle - I like strategy games, but I'm not very good at them. I especially don't have tolerance for a drawn-out sprite-based spreadsheet - much of NipponIchi's library.
Valkyria Chronicles gives me my strategy by mixing it with a bit of action and keeping it from being overlong. It's very different from just about anything else out there and what works, works really well.
There are some things I'm not such a huge fan of; slogging through the slow menus comes immediately to mind. You can't scan the 3D battlefield except from the point of view of characters. The 20 turn limit on every battle seems really weird. The lancers and the snipers are horribly, horribly inaccurate. You can only crouch or crawl when the game says you can. You can't pause mid-battle and there's no autosave. These all irritate the crap out of me.
Some of that stuff just seems to be what I'd call "relics of Japanese game design," something I accept as part of the deal - whether it should be there or not.
Regardless, my current recommendation on this game is buy, buy, buy. It's horribly underselling compared to its quality as a game. This is one of the best things to come out of Sega in a long time.
From the moment I saw the art style of the game, the only word to describe my feeling has been "enchanted." Just like Prince of Persia, it's the type of game that has such a complete, coherent look, that it could even hold up a mediocre game if it had to. The watercolor/cel-shading style is gorgeous, and the character designs reminiscent of my favorite Dreamcast RPG Skies of Arcadia (Vyse is even in the game!) both did a lot to pull me in. The solid voice cast and the mix of humor and sadness keep the story from being something you want to skip, as well.
Squad 7: Roll out!
I've also been in somewhat of a battle - I like strategy games, but I'm not very good at them. I especially don't have tolerance for a drawn-out sprite-based spreadsheet - much of NipponIchi's library.
Valkyria Chronicles gives me my strategy by mixing it with a bit of action and keeping it from being overlong. It's very different from just about anything else out there and what works, works really well.
There are some things I'm not such a huge fan of; slogging through the slow menus comes immediately to mind. You can't scan the 3D battlefield except from the point of view of characters. The 20 turn limit on every battle seems really weird. The lancers and the snipers are horribly, horribly inaccurate. You can only crouch or crawl when the game says you can. You can't pause mid-battle and there's no autosave. These all irritate the crap out of me.
Some of that stuff just seems to be what I'd call "relics of Japanese game design," something I accept as part of the deal - whether it should be there or not.
Regardless, my current recommendation on this game is buy, buy, buy. It's horribly underselling compared to its quality as a game. This is one of the best things to come out of Sega in a long time.
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