Archive for September, 2010

This is just so, so good. I haven’t even progressed very far – I’ve been redoing early missions to experiment with different classes and squad combinations. Even just doing that, though, opens up lovely new cut scenes involving the characters you’ve been using in battle.

I don’t know what it is about this series, but the Valkyria Chronicles games are the only ones where I see sitting through more dialogue as a reward.

You know a game’s got its hooks in you when you go to bed and lie there replaying a mission on the inside of your eyelids, trying to do better. If only I’d started with a lancer and that camp… or if I’d noticed the soldier in the long grass a turn earlier… etc.

It’s very, very, very special indeed – a fact confirmed by the existence of at least one dialogue scene all about knitting. The girls involved sounded just like my wife and and her friends

The original Valkyria Chronicles was a very special game, but it made huge demands on TV time, so I never actually finished it. The sequel is on the PSP and, though it’s had to be squeezed a little to make it onto the format, having it on a handheld format is very welcome indeed.

Not, though, that much has been sacrificed in the transition. The graphics have take a hit (though they still look great), squads are smaller and maps are split up into separate areas. None of this seems to hurt the game. I was slightly worried by the splitting up of the maps when I first read about it, but it works very well in practice.

It seems, though, that developers worried a bit about seeming to have dumbed down the game, so they’ve added huge amounts of new stuff that I’ve not even begun to get my head around yet. New classes, a new school-based interface between missions, tons of way to upgrade classes, weapons and individual soldiers… even having played the first the amount of stuff that keeps being opened up is dizzying.

It’s going to take some time to really become comfortable with all the processes, but the game seems like a brilliant sequel based on the first three hours or so.