Entry 121: "Valkyria Chronicles" Pt. 8 End

Dear Internet

                I finally finished "Valkyria Chronicles" today.  Just an hour ago by the time I type this sentence.  I am sure you can guess my impression of the game having read the previous entries.  Then again, you may just be impatient and have already scrolled to the end to see my general score instead of reading the review first.  I cannot stop you, but I am still going to write the review.

                "Valkyria Chronicles" is a rare gem among games.  It has everything going for it.  It has a pleasing art style, a simple yet complex battle system, a fantastic musical backing, and a moving story.  The most important aspect would be the gameplay.  I say this because the game does not hold the player's hand nor push them off a cliff.  I lost a lot in this game.  I cannot even remember how many times that I had to restart a battle because I failed or realized I was heading into a dead end.  Every time that I restarted, I never once felt like the game was acting unfairly or in a way against the rules of engagement.  I never felt cheated because the game decided to change the rules mid-battle without fair reason.  I failed because I acted foolishly, forgot the game's rules, or attempted a risk with only a low chance of success.  The game is one where the player actually has to get better at the gameplay instead of just grinding away, hoping to win by brute force.  Tactics are required to advance properly.  And sometimes those tactics is how to properly use brute force.

                "Valkyria Chronicles" might have problems with its story, but that only stems from the slightly awkward English voice acting.  Often I found the speech sound bits being stretched out.  This might have been a technical solution where they stretch the sound clips out to fit the amount of time that the original lip movement was done for the Japanese audio.  The result either way is less than pristine line delivery from most of the cast.  While the acting never got horrible enough to make me want to rip my ears off, the occasional bad line made me at least want to clean out my ears lest some earwax was preventing the emotion from the line being stopped.  Sadly, my ears were clean and the emotion was never there.  It is not something that I want to strike against the game considering that words themselves usually convey enough of the character's thoughts and intentions.  Take for example Maximilian's repeated use of the royal plural pronoun usage when referring to himself.  It conveys his arrogance and royal up-brining much better than the actor's ability to portray the character.  While the character is supposed to be aloof and have a stonewall personality, when it comes to his presence in the story, Maximilian's actions and manner of speaking does a better job of conveying the character.  Most of the characters are like this, and the game places the importance on those aspects rather than the voice acting, which is a good thing.

                The story overall does its job well.  The WWII/fantasy aesthetics do a good job of creating a unique setting.  Instead of trying to focus on the entirety of the EWII, the game smartly focuses on a single squad with only half a dozen characters being showcased.  The love story between Welkin and Alicia was handled with a maturity that I do not see often in other games.  Instead of ending on a cliffhanger as to whether or not the two get together, there is a very real ending to their relationship, and there is even a climactic event that defines their relationship.  The various other spotlight characters from Squad 7 are well enough developed to make them less like cardboard soldiers and more fleshed out characters.  Even the antagonists have some depth to them instead of becoming Saturday morning cartoon villains.  The story got me to empathize with them.  At the same time, it remembered not to overshadow the reasons that the heroes were fighting for by stressing the antagonist's reasons too much.  The story was never about EWII.  It was only a backdrop to the tiny narrative the game gives.  The game was not shy from this fact and had stated this much within the opening segments, so it should not have been a surprise.

                I should mention the music for a bit.  The game makes full use of an orchestrated soundtrack.  The opening sequence that plays before the title screen appears has a beautifully arranged song.  What struck me about that sequence is that it plays independently of the visual hodgepodge that is stitched together.  Most opening sequences would play some sort of music that is synchronized with the events being displayed.  Instead, the game plays a soft melody while past paced action occurs.  The effect highlights the music even more because of the juxtaposition.  Elsewhere in the game, the music is much more in context, playing melodies that align with the scene's or event's theme.

                Overall, I enjoyed the game immensely.  "Valkyria Chronicles" will be a highlight of my collection that I would recommend to others.  I will have to try and watch the animated adaptation that was created or read the comic that stemmed from it.  I wish I could have played the game outside of the Backlog and have devoted more time to it, but I am ready to go onto the next card.  

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S Next is the film "The Monster X Strikes Back/Attack the G8 Summit".

Entry 120: "Valkyria Chronicles" Pt. 7

Dear Internet,

                Well, I did not finish "Valkyria Chronicles" today.  And I will tell you why.  Paritally because I am trying to weasel out of having not done what I said I was going to do, but also because it leads into something that I should touch upon concerning the game.  That reason is side-quests. 

                While I knew that I was only three or so chapters away from finishing, which means fighting about five battles, I did not know how many side-quests there were available.  Before I knew it, I had an extra three side missions that were available.  Side-mission examines a specific character and elaborates upon their growth within the greater narrative.  They are completely optional and have no large weight to the main story.   However, the game uses these side-missions in a way that add a greater depth to each character that it centers on.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  I should mention how the game separates the side-missions from the main storyline.

                Instead of making the side-missions available as the story progresses, they have to be bought from the news reporter Irene Ellet.  This works within the context of how the game is told.  Considering that the game is told through the use of a book, having the side-quests as purchasable and insert-able "reports" makes sense.  The player can choose to purchase the reports if they want to play them.  This can cut into the funds for a better upgrade early in the game.  The player always has the opportunity to do skirmish battles for extra money to buy the reports, so the decision is not an either/or situation.  The player does not have to choose if character exposition or battle benefits are more vital.  Later on in the game, the amount of money that missions hand out well exceeds any early financial problems.  So, it really is a moot point later on.  In fact, I have more money than I know what to do with.  After purchasing, the side-missions handle like main plot missions.  The can only be played once and non-essential team-members can die permanently.

                From a story-telling standing, the reports are a nice add-on.  They act as both sidestepping narratives and as adding information to more minor elements of the main story.  Take for example the Cpt. Varrot report.  It tells more about Varrot's past and why she had stayed on with the military after the first Europa War.  The game gives a hint to this in another side-story where Largo mentions the name Frederic.  Varrot requests that Largo refrain from mentioning that name.  The player can reason that Frederic was somebody close to the two of them that most likely died in EWI.  The player can take this as it is and be content with an ambiguous character since there is enough information to be able to draw enough of a conclusion to read between the lines.  The Varrot side-mission elaborates upon Frederic's death by telling how he died and relating it to the current situation.

                Or you could take the Signs of Awakening report.  It is not in any way essential to the main storyline, but it does give big hints as to one climatic plot reveal.  I did not get the chance to play it until after the big reveal, so I was not spoiled too much concerning that event.  I am not sure exactly when the report was available for purchase.  This could mean that it was only available to buy after the big event occurs.  The report occurs much earlier, so when I played it, I was going back in time to witness events that had already occurred.  This non-linear storytelling works well here.  Since each mission chapter and side-mission is a self contained event, they are already broken up for the player.  Inserting a side-mission between the main missions can be done since there is already an implied amount of time between chapters.  Side missions can fill in those gaps.

                Then there is the obvious numerical advantage of these side-missions.  They make more money than what the player puts into them provided that the player does well.  The side-missions deal out extra EXP and cash in the same way that other missions do.  I already covered mission grading yesterday, so I will try to be brief.  The more missions that the player has access to, the more they will have to gain EXP and money.  Some of the missions can be relatively easy for getting an A rank, and the rewards can become disproportional to the difficulty of the mission.  I think of the Hostage Rescue Operation, or the Varrot report, when I say this.  The mission brief tells you to sneak as close as you can to a building without being detected.  If the turn ends and any of your soldiers can be seen, the mission is a failure.  With this in mind, I merely followed instructions and only moved while hiding in tall grass.  After letting the enemy do a patrol and allowing them to expose themselves, I went on the attack.  I wiped them out and got an easy A for the mission.  Afterwards I got more EXP and money than I think was proportional to the mission.  It was less than what I would get for an A rank main mission, but I will take the easy road if possible.  The EXP at least helped me upgrade my troops a few levels.

Easy-peasy.

                Side-quests are a great way to add depth to a game's narrative and give extra content that would detract from the main story if it was shoehorned into making the player go through it as necessary content.  "Valkyria Chronicles" makes sure that the side-missions do to detract but add content by remembering that they are non-essential.  Unlike games that wish to showcase the side content by forcing the player to sample each one before continuing the game, "Valkyria Chronicles" remembers to make side-missions add to the game rather than be a distraction or an alternative to the core gameplay.  What is the point of playing a game's side-quests if it is radically different than the core gameplay?  One should just go play a different game at that point.

                Hopefully, I only have got one more day for "Valkyria Chronicles."  I do not have anything against the game nor am finding it to be boring at this point.  I say this because just when you think that the game is going to be over, more content starts to pour out.

Yours in digital

BeepBoop

Entry 119: "Valkyria Chronicles" Pt. 6

Dear Internet,

                Have I run out of things to talk about concerning "Valkyria Chronicles"?  It sure feels that way.  Should I just end my reviews in this format and go back to daily talks about how I liked the day's playtime?  I would rather not, considering that by doing this game's review in a slightly different way I have been able to examine specific aspects of the game much better than how I normally can.  I am almost done with the game and I suspect that I will be able to finish it off by tomorrow if I am lucky.  With that being said, I should talk about the one thing that I cannot speak on because of a lack of authority.  That thing is the game's replayability.  I cannot really talk about how well the game plays a second time since I have not finished the first go.  To add to that, I probably will not play this game again anytime soon.  This has less to do with the game itself and more to do with the fact that I have too much in the Backlog to return to anything a second time without an outside prompt.

                "Valkyria Chronicles" does at least one thing in particular to add incentive to multiple play- throughs.  I do not mean the game's "New Game +" feature.  I am not even sure what gets carried over since all I know about it is that it exists.  What makes the game replayable is the mission grade.  The game assigns a mission grade going from A to D depending on only one circumstance.  The number of turns that the player took to finish the mission is all that determines the grade.  The game also deals out extra EXP and cash depending on that score to give some incentive to playing the first time.  The amount of turns that the game allows for an A ranked mission often requires a different plan than the safe and cautious playstyle that the game pushes.  It requires the player to push the soldiers to head straight into danger instead of waiting behind sandbags for backup.  Take the first and second repeatable skirmish of the game for examples.  Both skirmishes can be completed in a single turn to ear the A rank.  The first one can be done with only using a sniper and a single scout twice.  The third skirmish can be done in two turns if you push scouts deep into enemy territory.  However, the main story missions cannot be done over and over.  The player can go through them, learn all the secrets, and then start over to try and get the A rank, or he can try and get through the mission as best as he can the first time around.

                The information that the player accumulates by playing the game is something that adds to a second play-through.  The techniques and strategies are something immaterial that the player can call upon again in a second play-through to attempt to get the best outcomes.  There are even events that occur in the mission that can be capitalized only by knowing what is going to happen.  This can best be illustrated in the second Naggiar battle.  Mid-way in the battle, the player is ambushed by two heavy tanks that appear at the outer edges of the map when a certain event occurs.  This event only happens with a prompt by the player.  With prior knowledge of the ambush, the player can position troops behind where the tanks appear or at least close enough to expose their weak spot.  Only by knowing this and placing troops accordingly can the player gain an A rank for that mission.  Otherwise, the player will have to face the onslaught as best as they can.

                This leads into one thing that I wish the game had done.  Prior to deployment, the player is shown a general map as to the battle ahead.  The map shows where the player can deploy troops and where the enemy is gathered.  Beyond that, not much as to the nature of the battlefield is given beyond the brief descriptions that are gathered by what the cast discusses.  This might seem like a sufficient amount of information to begin the battle, but I found that this was often not enough.  I look at the first Naggiar battle specifically when I say this.  After deciding where I wanted all my troops to begin the battle and starting the battle, I was surprised to see a sniper's tower placed right next to one of the starting positions.  I had decided to make use of a sniper for that battle, but I had placed him on the other side of the map.  There was no way that I could have known a sniper's nest was available so close.  After realizing that I was practically being given a free head start, I loaded up my save, and restarted the battle with the sniper placed correctly.  The result was much better and the battle went much smoother with just a single change.

                It is not as if the game decides to throw curve balls constantly in an effort to plague the player with restarts.  Even when it decides to switch things up it gives the player ample ability to overcome the obstacle.  The mission rankings are not what determines if the player has succeeded.  That is what the mission objectives are for.  The rankings are there to spur on the player by granting proportional rewards to do better.  This adds replayability that is determined by the player's desire to repeat the game rather than the game's problems causing everything to be played twice due to last minute twists.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

Entry 118: "Valkyria Chronicles" Pt. 5

Dear Internet,

                "Valkyria Chronicles" continues.  I have already covered the gameplay twice along with the story and art direction.  At this point I wonder about what else I could cover without repeating myself again.  I could talk about how the game adds smokescreen coverage into the mix in a way to overcome heavily dug in enemies.  I could mention how the game has a Normandy Invasion level where the squad has to attack a heavily defended beach.  I could mention how the game throws the player back into the first town.  I could mention how the homecoming is less like "See, the conqu'ring hero comes!" but more, "See, the hero comes to re-conquer."  But I will not do so.  Instead, let me talk briefly upon the Darcsen people in the game.  I might have only gotten a brief part of the picture, considering that I have not finished the game, but let me try and convey a few of my thoughts concerning the game's use of the Darcsens.  Needful to say, I will be talking about an event in the game that would spoil the reveal to those that have not played the game.

                I mentioned previously how the game was sidestepping or basically ignoring the Holocaust.  Well, that did not last very long.  Eventually the game gets to the point where the Empire is shown to have driven the Darsen people into work camps.  The game goes one step further by alternatively calling them concentration camps.  So, far there have been no death camps, but I do not think the game will have any of this.  The game's age rating does not seem to indicate this.  The Darcsen are shown to be working in the mines and are said to have been pushed to exhaustion enough to die from it.  This of course mirrors the real life camps that were in use in WWII.  However, the game has some problems with the parallels that it wishes to showcase.  It gets especially problematic if the game is trying to make the Darsens into a Jewish substitute. 

                The first problem that the game has its representation of the Darcsen people comes from the origin of the people.  The Darcsens are told to have been an action people that were overcome by the Valkyrur, another ancient race but with near-magical abilities in war.  This and their dark hair are about the only distinction that the game gives for them.  There might be some sort of religious distinction, but the game has not said anything so far that I have noticed.  Short of one moment where one Darcsen mentions how violence is not in their nature, the game seems to make little philosophical distinction between Darcsen and everyone else.  This non-violence philosophy is also invalidated before and afterward it was mentioned.  Beyond the Darcsen Calamity, which occurs thousands of years ago, there is next to no reason as to why the Darcsen receive such cruel treatment or even as to how they continue to exist as a separate entity.

                The Jewish people continue to this day because they are primarily a religious group before being an ethnicity.  Anyone can enter into their faith, provided that they meet the requirements of belief and understanding.  Even Jewish ancestry is plenty mixed enough around the world that it is near impossible to create a portrait of a "Jew" without it being an archaic caricature.  If the game wants to make the Darcsen to be a direct parallel, there needs to a greater emphasis on religious differences, but even that is only half of the reason as to how anti-Semitism comes about.  The primary source comes from the fact that numerous Jewish people in the Middle Ages held strong positions in the community because of the skill set that comes from being a people of the written word.  Requiring the average Jewish male to be able to read the Torah teaches something that many individuals for many centuries were unable to do.  They could think and write in the written word, and usually not just in Hebrew.  This ability, compounded with having mathematical aptitude, allowed the Jew to enter into work for the leaders of the land as moneylenders and scribes.  The Jew held high positions but received little support from the common people.  "Valkyria Chronicles" goes the complete opposite route without elaborating on it.

                The Darcsen people are said to have been subjugated millennia ago.  Afterwards, they typically became manual laborers or technicians instead of those in power.  This is directly contrary to the people that the game is trying to parallel.  Jews have been advisors to kings and regents.  A Darcsen can best hope for a position as lead mechanic before hitting the glass ceiling.  The opposite position in society between the two groups causes a few problems.  It brings forth the question as to how an apparently purely ethnic group could have survived for so long without intermingling of races.  Even the Valkyrur blood is said to have been mixed to the point that no pure-blood remains.   It also raises the problem of how a subjected group was not driven completely out from the society without some sort of caste system in place.  As it stands, the game does not distinguish the Darcsen enough to show how the racial prejudices have continued for so long while they have not been in enough of a superior position to gain ill will.  Having a sense of superiority over them can be plausible provided that the continual subjugation is elaborated on, but the game seems to paint over the few thousand years since the last notable event.  After looking into the Darcsens, it seems that they were at first going to be another race entirely, marked by animalistic ears atop their heads.  Such a physical difference would have worked better than just having the Darcsens being marked by dark hair.  

                Since the game is not using the fictitious Darsens to stand in for the Jewish people, or even the rest of the people subjected to concentration camps because of how the game does not indicate any non-Darcsens were placed there, they should be better examined as an entirely different entity.  With this in mind, the game should not be seen as attempting to elaborate on the WWII atrocities but should be purely seen as how well it does telling the story it presents of itself.  Take the Fouzen town arc.  The game portrays the first half of general concentration camp conditions before the main cast appears in the town.  It does so rather generically at that.  There is the evil taskmaster that drives the enslaved to their deaths.  There is the innocent child that must face the cruelties of man.  There is the one leader of the bunch that has to speak reason to the bad guy so to save as many people as he can.  It has all been done before, but at least the game does not make it overdramatic and instead lets the drama do its job.  What happens with the intervention of the main cast is nothing short of what I would like to think as a "Bridge on the River Kwai" moment.  

                The game then does something that I was expecting, or at least was wondering when it would occur.  A number of Darcsens were moved into a building and left to burn alive with the construction ablaze.  What I did not expect was how the game then turned it around onto a specific character that had been openly racist for much of the story.  What pleased me even more was that the game did not have that character blatantly do a 180 degree turn.  It acknowledged the difficulties of changing long-held preconceived notions.  It was done with respectfully with all the understandings of reality instead of becoming an after-school special.  This made it all the more poignant when the event that completely turns around that specific character's feelings to Darcsens occurs.  

                Overall, the Darcsens have no real-world counterpart when they are examined under a fine microscope.  But that does not mean that the game has to speak directly concerning history.  Instead, it tries, somewhat awkwardly, to create a general ethnic group to show how racial prejudices have an impact on both people receiving and giving unwarranted anger.  "Valkyria Chronicles" does something that has been done by numerous other games, but at least it does so in a manner that makes me connected with the characters it presents.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop