Valkyria Chronicles 4

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.