Valkyria Revolution Game Review

With around four members of your squad, it is possible to get some variety in these skills — there are four character classes, with specific rate talents being restricted to certain classes.  However, the rest of the gameplay features — cover, stealth, the armor you build or purchase and the “possible” modifiers that either boost or lower your abilities based on specific contextual cues — appear to be little more than window dressing.  They are there, yes, but they have so little discernible impact as to sense tokenistic; you may also ignore them.

The levels where your brawls occur are largely forgettable, often having only one viable path plus lots of discretionary areas where you could discover bonus items or an enemy base to catch to be able to obtain more rewards at the end of the assignment.  I found myself avoiding these goals, trying to complete the levels as soon as possible to be able to get on with the rest of the story — not a good sign when this is supposed to be Revolution’s meat and potatoes.

The strategic gameplay that made Valkyria Chronicles so persuasive has been crushed beneath the wheels of an awkward real time system that simply is not enjoyable or engaging.  In its moderate difficulty setting — the only other option is “simple” — that the game is usually a breeze: charge at the enemy, hit them till they die, move on and repeat with another group until the level ends.

The only truly challenging experiences are the distinctive boss fights — and frequently then the challenge is staying focused through a seemingly interminable slug-fest with an enemy whose endurance bar depletes far too slowly.

If one of your small characters does fall in battle, they are gone indefinitely (major cast members possess the famed plot armor in their stocks, though).  No issue with that on the surface, however, the cut-scenes are produced in such a way that dead characters pop up, albeit at a greyed-out “ghost mode” to exemplify how they are real, well, dead.  To call it immersion-breaking would be something of an understatement.

Talking of cutscenes, they are regular, long and stiffly animated.  It is not a winning combination, and you will probably find your attention drifting off as figures reiterate a point made over and over in previous cutscenes, or go off on a florid tangent about some facet of the game’s history or the world.  In hindsight, these diversions felt like enjoyable world-building — but here, they feel OTT; and there are additional optional cutscenes, in case you would like to sit through more of them.

The game’s story is reasonably interesting.  In actuality, regardless of the outdated graphics — that are PS3-grade — the presentation is very attractive, and the music is appropriately stirring and styled with a neat device: these are 100-year-old events being recounted by a history professor.  Were the cutscenes a bit more dramatic, pacy and concise, the plot could be Valkyria Revolution’s saving grace — but like a lot of aspects of the game, it ends up being a disappointment?

Valkyria Revolution is a mediocre game, wearing the clothes — or, some may say, riding on the coat-tails — of a much superior predecessor.  It is no exaggeration to say that the HD remake of Valkyria Chronicles for the PS4 (a 2016 rehash of a 2008 match) is also far prettier than Revolution.

It is not clear why this real time game was made at all when the world would be much happier with the other BLiTZ system name.  It makes it hard to recommend, even for a Chronicles aficionado, since the other items that went into creating the prior game so enjoyable — a jaunty alternative history/fantasy plot populated by an interesting group of characters — feel half-baked here.  Everything, from gameplay to graphics to the narrative, is worse.

It is time for Sega to pull its finger out and get around to making a really worthy successor to Chronicles.