I’m glad Valkyria Chronicles is back, I didn’t think Valkyria Chronicles 4 was actually going to happen, it’s still great despite having some flaws and not evolving much from the first game.

The first thing I want to write about is the look of this game. I loved this style back on the PS3 and I still love it now. It’s like a hand painted, water colour story book come to life, which is mixed with an anime/manga style. It’s charming, timeless, colourful and full of personality. This style is carried through into every part of the game; from the UI to the little sound effect words that pop up during gameplay. It perfectly suits the games fantasy World War 2 setting. The environments and characters look excellent too but it’s a shame a lot of characters and enemies don’t get a unique look or at least some variation. The weapons and tanks got plenty of attention and look great as well. The game could use more varied animations and in general the gameplay needs work to look smoother. A lot of the game is presented in a stilted way with only some moments getting fully animated scenes. I also had this weird issue at times during gameplay where things would pause for a second during a turn change or after I selected an action which just added to the overall stilted feeling of the game. So I would sum up the look of the game as cosy and beautiful but stiff and at times a bit awkward.

When it comes to gameplay Valkyria Chronicles 4 is a good strategy RPG. You run your characters and tanks around small maps and then stop to take actions against the enemies or heal. But you need to be careful as the enemies will fire upon you if you are in range. Of course your side will do the same during the enemy turn too. So positioning your characters is vital to ensure both good offence and defence. There is cover to crouch behind and grass to hide in. You can take advantage of the environment and your own tanks. You have a small variety of classes at your disposal with their own purpose and strengths and weaknesses. Figuring out what to do and in what order to do it is satisfying. You have limited movement, actions per turn, health, some ammo types and range. Some units can command and bring another unit with them. Characters get benefits if they fight alongside other characters they like and you can also give out orders for buffs or other benefits. On the whole there is a decent amount to be considering each turn and when picking your team. It’s really enjoyable when it all comes together and rewarding when your plans work out. Even when you are careless and things go wrong trying to plan your way out of your own mistakes is fun too. The game does a thorough job of teaching you how to play and there is plenty of post game content as well.

As much as I do enjoy the combat it does have some issues and it just doesn’t feel like much of a step up from the first game. I wish the maps were bigger with more epic battles and more units. A lot of the battles have like a gimmick or specific way they should be played which got a bit annoying. I would have liked more open battles with a lot of freedom in how to tackle it. Don’t get me wrong though there is usually still a good amount of freedom within these ‘gimmick’ battles. The other thing is jank/awkwardness. Your characters will often get stuck running at cover for a moment before jumping it. Characters also can’t move through small spaces even if they look plenty big enough. So for example if you put your tank near a wall but leave a gap, you need to make sure it’s a really big gap for characters to fit through. It looks awful and is very frustrating when you try to move a character through a space that appears big enough but you just get stuck. There are awkward times when aiming too. Sometimes bits of the environment will be in the way even when you don’t think it will be when positioning your character and what makes it worse is that occasionally enemy fire will pass through and hit when you thought it was safe.

Outside of the main battles you’ll find yourself watching the story and side stories, visiting the headquarters and doing skirmishes. The way the story is played is in little chunks. So you have to keep clicking on the next bit to watch which means seeing more loading screens and wasting time. But I guess that also means you are never stuck in long bits of story. The headquarters is where you organise and upgrade your squad and equipment. You upgrade classes and get new orders with experience and buy upgrades to uniforms, tanks, weapons, etc. with currency. It is a bit simple and has you hearing the same dialogue over and over. It would have been cool if it was like a hub you could walk around in and hang out with the squad. In the headquarters you will also find a wealth of information to keep you up with the story, terms, weapons, world and characters and how to play as well. Not much really needs to be said about skirmishes; they are side battles to test your skills and get more experience and money.

So how is the story? Well it’s not too bad. I enjoyed the journey and there were many good moments but is has its problems. There are times when it feels like there is needless padding. It’s a bit too contrived and Squad E has some ridiculous luck too often. I lost count of how many times they were saved by the weather. It is a bit predictable too and has an underwhelming ending, even when you put in the extra effort for the true ending. Despite the visuals it’s still about war and has no problem going into darker themes but doesn’t do a whole lot with it. I didn’t have an issue with the goofiness or tone changes and actually think that’s part of the games charm. The characters do a lot of the lifting here and they are a diverse, fun bunch to spend time with. Each character, even the side characters, gets just enough development to push them past merely being the stereotypes they start off as. This ties back into the gameplay as well. The characters potentials and preferences change after using them and going through their stories which makes them better. It would have been great to see this pushed even further. The voice actors do a great job and the soundtrack is good but many tracks are repeated a bit too much. The major bad guys are a bit of a letdown though. When comes to story and characters I prefer the first game but this isn’t a bad time.

Valkyria Chronicles 4 is a solid, enjoyable game, that is easily worth playing and it is fantastic to see this series continue. However this isn’t much of a step forward from the original PS3 game and I still prefer that original too. It feels like there’s so much untapped potential here. Valkyria Chronicles could be a top shelf series if given a bigger push, bigger budget, more polish and a bolder story. I’m hopeful it continues and I am keen to see a Valkyria Chronicles 5. I would recommend Valkyria Chronicles 4 to everyone that played any of the previous games and enjoyed them but you’ve probably already played this. So to everyone new to Valkyria Chronicles I would recommend getting the remaster of the original first but you could jump into this one if you like without a problem.

8.1/10

So the gameplay itself was mostly ok. It is kind of a turn based strategy where you control different members (including tanks) from Squad E, a military unit in the ficticious "Second European War". The battles typically involve capturing or defending certain points on the map or destroying some unit or other. It gets somewhat repetitive from about halfway but, all in all, is mostly ok. It ends up not really being much of a strategy game though. Most missions hinge on figuring out the newest gimmmick the the game is throwing at you. It often makes new missions somewhat irritating since you know you are going to have to figure out some new mechanic (probably by trial and error) that will usually not reappear again. The game rewards you, not for playing strategically or carefully, but by doing things as quickly and dirtily as possible (higher scores come from doing missions in as few turns as possible not from having the fewest casualties). The gameplay is also hindered by being slow and cumbersome with numerous unskippable animations that bog down an already repetitive system (especially if you need to repeat a mission).

However, what really killed this for me was the absolutely appalling story, tedious dialog and dull as dishwater characters. And the game really wants you to care about these things and leans on them a lot. The characters slot into strictly typical anime tropes and they play out 100% as you would expect. There is a beach episode and a hot springs "episode" for crying out loud in the middle of a war. The dialog is the usual stilted overly explainy translation from japanese that is intent on very obviously spelling everything out in large letters. Truly the "Tell don't show" school of storytelling.

Finally the actual plot/story is nothing short of reprehensible. The "Second European War" takes place in a ficticious anime version of Europe where the "evil" empire (seemingly based on Russia/Eastern Europe) is attacking the "good" federation (apparently Western Europe). It is sort of midway between WW1 and WW2 in terms of technology (ie. with proper tanks but no trenches and no air force) with the inclusion of a sort of magical energy substance known as ragnite that powers most machines. So far, fine... The setting seems at least mildly interesting... The story progresses with few surprises and is somewhat contrived and predictable. However, towards the end of the game, everything gets a lot worse. The twists, contorsions and nonsense plot points keep stacking up until one reaches the convoluted and absurd finale. Unfortunately, I can't really explain it without going into plot details. Without giving much away, the grand "plan" of the "good guys" is to commit an atrocity and war crime to win the war. An atrocity that ends up being neither necessary nor would it actually work. You might think that this is some sort of commentary or critique of this plan and this "win at any cost" attitude. But no... at least to me, it seems to be presented completely straight. I was already quite done with the story by this point, but the finale was just insultingly bad.

Unfortunately, I can not recommend this to anyone.

The AAA game space is notorious for churning out unambitious sequels that maximize general appeal at the cost of creative gameplay ideas. Valkyria Chronicles 4 by Sega is one of those games. Sega has developed a game so shockingly similar to the first Valkyria Chronicles that it feels more like DLC content than a new game. Other than a new class, more highly detailed characters and larger maps, I had a hard time differentiating what was actually new about this game. For newcomers to the series, Valkyria Chronicles 4 is an excellent hybrid turn based action strategy game that falters with a bland good guys vs bad guys plot and an antiquated UI system.

Valkyria Chronicles 4 takes place in a fictionalized version of World War 2, where the Empire (Russia), who are the evil ugly bad guys, invade peaceful Gallia, a country of the Federation (Europe) full of green meadows and pretty anime girls and boys. The Empire wants to have a monopoly over the Ragnite ore situated in Gallia because it is used to power all modern machinery. You play as Claude, a platoon leader from the Federation army. He drives a tank, is known for his famous accolades and can somehow talk to the wind. Basically Claude is “The Man“, so the Federation army assigns him a secret plan known as Operation Northern Cross. The details are so confidential that the generals don’t disclose any details of the plan to Claude (which sounds like a terrible tactical decision) only that it will end the war by delivering a full assault to the capital of the Empire.

The gameplay is identical to past Valkyria Chronicles games. There is a top-down overview of the battlefield and by selecting a unit, the player can actively control the character as if it were a third person shooter. Units are allowed to move as much as their given stamina bar allows and can attack once per turn. The objectives vary, but generally revolve around capturing the main enemy camp or eliminating all enemy soldiers. Each unit you command, falls into one of six classes such as the speedy Scout, the tank buster Lancers and the support Engineers. The new class in Valkyria Chronicles 4 is the grenadier. The grenadier is a siege unit capable of attacking enemies without line of sight, which makes them handy units to blow up enemies over buildings and hills. Outside of these units, there is also the tank that Claude pilots as well as orders that Claude can call to buff units.

The other half of Valkyria Chronicles 4 is the Book Mode. The Book Mode is where players can watch the cutscenes. The cutscenes are lackluster, have a Visual Novel like presentation with canned animations and tend to be filled with typical shonen Anime (Anime for young boys) dialog. To make matters worse, each cutscene is broken up into chunks. After finishing a cutscene, the player is back into the Book Mode area and is forced to manually select the next cutscene. It makes no sense why there isn’t an option to simply play all the cutscenes in sequential order. And to put more salt into the wound, most cutscenes have to be watched to trigger the next battle mission.

The Book Mode is also where players can upgrade/manage equipment and assign troops. The UI to handle these things is antiquated and cumbersome. It is a tedious step-by-step procedure of clicking through menu options and confirmation boxes. To give an example, this is a 12-step procedure to upgrade the rifles for your Scouts and then get back into Book Mode.

1. Starting from the Book Mode, you first have to open the Menu dialog.
2. Select the Headquarters option
3. Select “Yes” to confirm the choice
4. Select R&D Facility
5. Click through NPC dialog
6. Select Develop Equipment
7. Upgrade a rifle for your Scouts
8. Click through some more NPC dialog (this happens every time a weapon is upgraded)
9. Select the option to exit the R&D Facility
10. Click through yet more NPC dialog
11. Select Book Mode
12. And finally select “Yes” to return to the Book Mode

The menu navigation is an insulting procedure designed to waste the players time and what’s even more unbelievable is it hasn’t gotten any better after three games and a spin-off title.

Valkyria Chronicles 4 is a reskin of the original Valkyria Chronicles. The new additions and gameplay tweaks are welcome, but are simply not enough to justify being a standalone title. There is a remarkable lack of innovation and ingenuity in Valkyria Chronicles 4, and it plays almost identically to the original developed 10 years ago. The core of the gameplay is satisfying and fun, but the surrounding elements are remarkably dated and tedious. The story is better left ignored as it stumbles into pure nonsense by the end. Valkyria Chronicles 4 is a game that scratches that nostalgic itch for fans of the franchise, but doesn’t deliver anything particularly novel to lure new gamers.