Valkyria Revolution Review

This game was covered with a provided code from Sega/Atlus in purposes of review for this game, a humble thank you to them!

The latest installment in the Valkyria series, Revolution gives more of a super natural vibe then its original installment with death herself. You play the role of a unit called the Anti-Valkryia or named Vanargand Squad. You play a series of characters, the main from this group being called Amleth, and a Princess by the name of Opethlia. Depending on the scenario of course. It presents itself in a action rpg like tactical game. Where combat flexes on a sort of Final Fantasy 12 like combat system, with the older nature you might remember from the previous Valkyria game. Off the bat I was pleasantly taken back by the games combat, thinking I was getting the same style from the previous game. Which in its own right was great. Personally I wanted to come into the game blind as possible to really give myself that fresh slate to everything. The game is a mixture between visual novel, meets really fun action rpg game in its core, with plenty of tactical decisions over time that will keep you on your toes.

The plot in short can be explained like this: you are introduced to two characters explaining the events of a war or uprising over one hundred years prior to their discussion, the story is explained by Richelle Laudrup, who majors as a professor in behalf of their cultural war tidings. She behaves like the games main source of story, the student or her son, whatever his name maybe, I have already forgotten. The game itself branches into insane depth towards some backstory towards characters, time frames, or alot of visual novel story telling that would make Metal Gear Sold 4 seem like it actually had gameplay. Kidding, this game does make a great element of telling you a story, whether its solid or not to you. Its main focus is revenge, diplomacy, and political structure. Since the first game you might remember, in this world a lot is pushed towards fantasy structure, with mana tech mechs, and magic tossed around like Guild Wars 2 was on in front of your face. Charmingly the magic, and action combat feels great to use.This game behaves like a prequel. over one hundred years before the events of Valkyria Chronicles.  Which let me tell you this game goes deep for a back story. It in itself melds all of the loose ends you might want to know about from the previous adventure you perhaps played before this one. If never playing the first game it is a good stepping stone into the other game. It does not overly focus itself on pushing you through the story if you do not feel like it. Instead it offers options to level up a bit. I found these subtle options marvelous when I wanted a break from the constant political ramblings. Just simply grinding out material skill stones, and smacking down enemies on the battlefield.

One thing I felt in the game at points was the difficulty was a bit easy. Even with your usual progress and light grind, your characters keep each other alive via heal casts constantly. It was not so much of the factor this was unbalanced due to my set up was making sure the casters were on their game. You are offered up to four characters as a unit/team that three other characters follow along with you that you may swap between to cast or ease up tension. By default the team without some toggling feel a bit derpy. Which is expected for games that allow you to adjust the Ai’s behavior. So it really just bends to how you know how to build a character.  Unlike the other game, you are given mostly melee weapons, with your secondary weapons that are bazookas, and rifles, along with grenades. You perform in a beat em up style of combat, where every character has a tick of how many times they may attack, before a cool down ensues. Enemies are usually stationary, you just run up on them, or take a defense position, and order units to play aggressive, or defense like yourself. Usual stage runs last about eight or so minutes and they end once you kill a certain enemy. Or capture a enemy base along with optional objectives. Every time you complete a series of these missions you are given a bonus mission which involves control of the portions of the map, which really just plays a role in the sense of the story. The impact of all this gives you a sense of a risk like gameplay. It works out pretty well with leveling and consistent working through the kinks in your lack of status points your characters have.

Some great news to be mention prior to the games release when writing this out is the game is going to be getting a hefty amount of .. FREE DLC content. So basically for forty dollars your given quite a bit even if the content is delayed a bit.

In Closing:

Valkyria Revolution is a slight departure from what you remembered from the first Valkyria game. It keeps the style alive, and fluid with tons of replay-ability. Keeping on top of your characters armor, stats, and relationships also add a ton of depth to this games backstory, and structure as a whole. If you love action rpgs like myself, then it does not take anything away from its style shift, if anything, keeps you going with replaying missions a few times to get stones and loot.With plenty to do and see, the price, and the fact your going a pile of FREE DLC to boot is a steal of a investment if you ask me. Pick it up today currently on Xbox One, PSvita, and Playstation 4.

– Highly Recommended!!! –