Overall, Valkyria Revolution does many things differently than Valkyria Chronicles and will be quite divisive. As a fan of Chronicles, I found that game to be better overall and yet the faster pace of Revolution makes this more fun to play – the story just doesn’t hold up as well and the graphics are less impressive here than Chronicles. The action RPG shift works at keeping things interesting on the battlefield at all times and keeps you on your toes too. It does suffer from some iffy textures, but the game is greater as a whole than the sum of its parts. It’s a fantastic gateway game for the franchise for newcomers and offers veterans a completely new gameplay experience in many ways while also keeping some elements similar enough to make for a smooth transition.
A touching story and decent gameplay aren't enough to lift Valkyria: Revolution out of the uncanny valley. The whole thing just feels a bit off, which is a damn shame.
The complaints about this game are completely unjusitified. The story is truely amazing. If i had to compare it to something it would be persona 5. It has a similiar feeling of 5 people manipulating things behind the scenes to get justice. Except in this game it also has a world war 1 feeling to it. The story telling is not for most. It is very long spoken. But if you like a good story
You realise how good that actually is. Its phenomenal story telling and presentation. Along with combat that quite frankly improves upon the slow paced nature of the previous games. All in all. It is a grest package. I loved it
Disclaimer:
Only giving it a 10 to bring the aggregate score up closer to what I feel it should be. About an 8.
My history with the franchise.
Let me start off by saying that I'm not a "true" fan of this series that has played VC 1, 2, and 3. I only just recently played VC 1(remastered) a few months ago but I liked it. However, I can say that the combat pacing for me was slow, and especially so with trying to go for the platinum which I did achieve. The story for the game was decent and had an emotional touch to it which made it beautiful.
Gameplay.
Then I saw that they were making this game and it was more action/fast paced with a less strategic direction. I can understand that strategy fans would be disappointed in the direction of this game's gameplay but I'd say fans of games like Dynasty Warriors wouldn't mind it at all. Now, starting off, the combat is really simplistic 1 button press to win type game and I believe many were immediately turned off by that. However, as you continue and begin upgrading the character's weapons, you get more access to different magic/secondary weapons and then it starts getting fun. I loved the amount of ways you could take out a platoon of enemies by the end of the game with flashy animations and powerful magic. I honestly might make a youtube video of my endgame level 70 characters with max weapons/magic. From that statement, yes, I just achieved the platinum for this game as well and immediately came to my computer to write this review.
Story.
All I have to say is that the effort that went into the storytelling is absolutely amazing. This game's story completely outdoes VC1's story in my opinion. The point of view that it is being told from is after everything has already happened( about 100 years into the future). It has a similar premise with VC1, where a small country ends up defying/destroying a much bigger nation. The story's strength isn't in its originality or plot twists or anything. The strength is in how its meticulously told from practically every point of view, from allies & enemies alike. It won't make you feel like there are any plot holes at all throughout your playthrough, but it managed to have 1 or 2, involving the Valkyria & the princess unless I missed something. And then there are the emotional touches to it accompanied by such an amazing soundtrack, I couldn't bring myself to criticize/hate the developers effort, despite the lackluster body/facial movement animations. (And it's disappointing because if they definitely put more budget in getting that right, then everything about the story would be perfect, in my opinion). Everyone seems to complain about the long cutscenes (due to some to most being poorly animated) but that is woefully subjective, because I loved them and found a few like-minded souls that like them as well, so consider that anecdotal evidence. I guess you can say I tolerated them because I was loving the overall story and wanted to see it through to the end.
Difficulty
The game only has 2 difficulties on the first playthrough; Easy & Normal. The people complaining about how easy the game is might've been on Easy or never played past chapter 4 or 5 on Normal( which you can actually tell from the trophy achievement list. The 2nd story trophy which is literally in the beginning (about Chapter 1 or 2 I believe) has 91.2% of achieving it. But then the 3rd one (out of 5 story trophies total) only has a 20.6% achieved percentage that is acquired in Chapter 6 or 7. That's a massive 70% drop off of players.
Anyway, the game does start off piss easy with little variation but it's crazy how the story spikes from chapter 6 onward. I found the bosses annoyingly satisfying because you had to go through a whole stage first fighting enemies without saving, while conserving your items/ammo/mana, and then take on the boss which at times I found myself running out of ammo and items to replenish my mana.
Characters
The game has less overall characters than VC1 but the character development for each one was really good for me. However, they didn't put any(or very few) of the quirky get-to-know-your-characters development scenes in the actual story or else it would have been even longer.
Those scenes were reserved for the free fully voiced DLC they slowly released over the course of a few weeks. Some of them actually did have really good body/facial animations and others still suffered from lack thereof but the voice actors did a great job with them though. However, they did have some some non-voiced group sessions (officially called "Circles") where your characters talked about various things like love, patriotism, art, family, weapons, childhood, fashion, jobs, food, and books. I'm not lying when I say that I really knew the characters by the end of my first playthrough. And in a way, they make you have to use all of the characters because that's the only way to get the secret ending :-)
Valkyria Revolution seems like an experiment to get new fans for the main franchise, although we don't think it's going to achieve it. It isn't a bad game, but it is far from the quality of the original trilogy.
Valkyria Revolution is nowhere near as good as Valkyria Chronicles and luckily it may be just a short detour into a hybrid musou/action territory. Story is kind of OK but plagued by overstaying cutscenes and loading screens, while everything else is shallow and very low budget.
Valkyria Revolution is a game that is just wrong in so many ways, we wonder how it could end up this way. The cutscenes are way too long, the story is bland and it is just so frustrating all together.
An inexplicably dull follow-up to Valkyria Chronicles, that jettisons almost everything that made the original interesting in favour of bland Dynasty Warriors style combat.
Solo por la banda sonora magistral, y salir a precio reducido, merece un 10. Y la critica en castellano, por todos los castellanoparlantes que entramos en metacritic y merecemos que se considere nuestro idioma también.
The dead on arrival game that went out with a bang,
Valkyria Revolution is a very interesting Spin off title set in the world of Valkyria Chronicles. The game is an hack and slash adventure title with some strategy features. the game almost plays like a visual novel due it's big amount of cutscenes. Valkyria Revolution has you follow a set of characters with each their own ambitions in a world driven by war and greed. Now the problem for many players is that the game isn't anything like it's predecessors. But again it's very clearly a spin off title. The game also suffers from some very jarring animations and a lot of loading screens. Past the slow start you are greeted with a very beautifully written tale that puts a interesting spin on the game. The combat really isn't anything special. But both story and combat open up as you progress further in the story. But the boss battles in this gamer are utterly bad. They are just bulletsponges that will spam the same attack on your brainless party. You could always grind on the same 5 maps which gets extremely repetitive. It's horribly bad towards the end game with slow bits and it's reusing every single location from up to chapter 5 in the later story missions. Valkyria Revolution is a interesting take on the Valkyria saga and is held together by it's story despite the many flaws.
(Pros)
- A very well written story
- excellent art direction
- A amazing composed Soundtrack
- Future DLC will be free
(Cons)
- Jarring animations comparable with late PSP or early Vita era
- Loading screens that should of been cut for the PS4 and Xbox versions of the game
- Slow start
- Combat improves but is still not great
- Some odd pauses between lines in earlier cutscenes
- Bullet sponge bosses
- party won't follow orders
- party is brain dead and will get themselves killed
- End game is terrible
For the first time, the scores aren't completely off the rocker. They're lower than I expected but people's reasons (generally) are acceptable.
First context. This is NOT Valkyria Chronicles 4, so if you're going in expecting that, you'll be disappointed. No...this game might as well have been a totally different spinoff because it only shares very light things with the original series.
In Revolution, you're actually a guy who is being told the history of a war in the 19th century when "The Traitors" were involved. Think of a 19th century version of Three Kingdoms; it's actually very similar. The story is told in terms of flashbacks and book segments that collectively put everything in perspective.
I'm on the fence with the graphics. This is a game that could easily have been on the Switch. They're not bad, but certainly nothing here that screams next gen. Yes, the cutscenes are lengthy, but I love cutscenes anyway. People likely forgot that Valkyria Chronicles 1 had cutscenes nearly as long; they were just spliced together better. In Revolution, the only thing that makes them really annoying is the load times in between each one, which seems to indicate that Sega didn't put enough time into optimizations.
The music is evocative of war and isn't bad, but there are very few distinct tracks. Chronicles had the same issue, but it had the advantage of unique songs per storyline battlefield. I would also point out that it's fully English voiced even at a low $39.99 price, unlike Koei who can't be bothered on their Musou games anymore at $60.
The characters have personality, but they're explored very infrequently, even less so than Chronicles 2 (PSP). The development improves as the game goes by, but you start out as just a ragtag group with no real backstory.
But the **** my, what a story. The game plays this out like you're in a digital novel, and it's captivating. The lack of character development hurts it a bit, but the underlying conspiracies and dark tendencies make you want to see more and more. It's easily the best part of the game.
When you first start out, the battle engine will feel very pithy and light, but certain scenarios will result in your team members getting knocked out. There's a severe difficulty upswing with the storyline battles, especially with the Valkyria. Even some optional battles are hard enough that you'll run out of ammo and grenades, forcing you to fight toe-to-toe. It's not like Chronicles where rifles essentially had unlimited ammo; nope. I laugh hearing people say this has no strategy; the hell it doesn't. When you're surrounded by tanks and soldiers shooting and mines on the ground, and you're clean out of magic power and ammo and forced to melee, it's quite exciting. I like it. A bit slow, but some battles are really engaging. Don't judge it on the first few scenarios - trust me, it WILL get more challenging.
Overall I haven't been able to stop playing the game, and I am eager to learn more about the characters. I doubt any of them will leave an emotional footprint like Isara, but perhaps they'll leave their own variation.
Despite all the bad reviews, I have so much love for this franchise that I just HAD to try this game out. I was sure I'd like it, somehow. It did not happen.
This should not even be called a "Valkyria" game, in my opinion. It shares the same universe, sure, but nothing else. Everything that made "Chronicles" so much fun, such a challenging and engaging game, is gone. The graphics are ok, I guess, and the gameplay is more Dynasty Warriors than anything else. But the rest is really a very mediocre game.
And that is sad, really. I don't understand where Sega wanted to go with this. Everything feels messy and unfinished. A story that does not make much sense, a cast of forgettable characters, a confusing set of menus and upgrade options that never get a proper explanation. You are just thrown on the battlefield and press X until another (lazy, mostly) cutscene pops up.
This is one boring, uninspired, game. Got tired of it really fast. And it **** that such an amazing franchise is probably dead after this. Then again, there will always be Valkyria Chronicles to remind us how incredible a proper sequel could be.
Avoid this game, really.
the story of the game is the strong point, the combat is lackluster, and the reason why im giving it a 4 is when nearing the end you have to fight Gilouche i got bugged out twice, his hp stays at 0
and not in the mood to redo this again, as you have to clear 2 stages again before you reach him.
tough luck but overall i would have given it a solid 7... have to watch the ending somewhere online :p
SummaryJutlands elite soldiers, the Vanargand, must band together to defeat the Ruzi Empire and stop death itself - the Valkyria. This grizzled anti-Valkyria squad is equipped with advanced mana weaponry and has the powerful ability to wield ragnite spells to combat this terrifying threat. The unit is comprised of soldiers who have a high affin...