dave-80382 Review of Valkyria Chronicles

Valkyria Chronicles (2008 Video Game)

Mandatory cut scenes destroy what could have been a great game

[5/10 · 31 March 2020]

I usually play first person shooter games, this was my first attempt at a turn based strategy game. In fairness, there was a lot I liked about it. The gameplay was good, requires you to think strategically without being too difficult for a newbie like me. The story was fine. It had an element of cloying sentimentality that you often get in anime, but it was still good despite this. I loved some of the characters in it. The artwork is really well done in a sort of watercolour animation that doesn't make the environment seem too insubstantial. The reason I give this a 5 is because of there being no way to skip the cut scenes when you fail a level. It can be up to five minutes of arse numbing repetitive dialogue leading up to a battle, much of which seemed redundant the first time, before you can get back into the gameplay. This is particularly soul destroying for someone who's new to strategy games as you're naturally going to make a lot of mistakes as you learn. Eventually this got just too frustrating to sit through and I gave up on it.