Valkyria Chronicles is a must have for those who enjoy a great story and excellent art work.
Valkyria Chronicles' story centers around a young man by the name of Welkin Gunther, the son of a famous general. When the Imperial Army invades his home town of Bruhl, Welkin, along side his sister, Isara, and with the help of a town watch member Alicia Melchiott, together must do what they can to help get the towns people to safety.
Afterwards you go on to join the Gallian Militia and become the leader of Squad 7. This is where the real story begins, as Squad 7 does what it can to stop the invading Empire.
Now, let me talk about the artwork, because you can't really call it graphics. Imagine taking a water color painting and then giving life to it. That is what this game is. And I have to say I hope more games come out using this method because it was an excellent idea that really added to the experience. Now some people might be put off by the comic book style words that appear during gunfire and engine rumbles, but they didn't bother me at all, and kind of added to the anime feel. The character designs were really well done, and though some of the characters seemed to be sharing a common model, they all had their own characteristics that made them unique. The locales for the missions, were also done incredibly well. Some missions have you sneaking through a forest with poor visibility, while others have you walking in desert in view of everyone that wants to put a bullet in you. This variety is what kept this game from getting tedious. In never really felt like you were doing the same thing over and over again.
The audio for this game was also great. The music was never repetitive and always fit the visual cues. The sound effects, though pretty basic for the most part, did what they were designed to do, which is to add to the game without annoying the player. The voice acting was also done well. Though I did find myself not using certain soldiers because I couldn't stand their voice, the main characters' voices were excellent. They always conveyed the right emotion for the current situation and they did a really good job lining up the voices with the lip movements. Pretty much, this is a game that is best played with the sound on.
Now for game play. The game is setup like a book with each chapter having one or two missions as well as telling the story. The story is told with the use of episodes that you can view repeatedly after the initial viewing. However, during your first play through, you can only do the missions once. The missions are set up like any other tactical RPG. The player uses CP or command points to move the units on the battle field. The amount of CP you have is controlled by how many "leader" units you have on the battle field. Welkin gives 2 CP, while Rosie, Largos, and Alicia give one point each. When you use up all your CP the Player Phase ends and the Enemy Phase begins. Now one CP allows one unit to act. A unit can attack once and move in the action. Their movement is limited by a meter on the bottom of the screen that decreases as the unit moves. When it is fully depleted, the unit can't move any more during that action. You can use the same unit multiple times in the same Phase, however, the movement meter doesn't fill up all the way, so you can't move as far with each consecutive action. That's where the strategy comes in, as you have to make sure your units aren't standing out in the open at the end of the Player Phase, or else they will be feeding the worms during the enemy phase. It takes a little getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, everything will go smoothly.
When your not in a mission, or watching a episode, you are most likely at Headquarters. This is where you swap out units in your squad, equip your squad members, buy upgrades for you units as well as your tank, and also where you level up your units. Unlike most RPGs, where each character levels independently, here you level up by class. There are five classes that your units belong to, and you can't change what class each unit belongs to. The five classes are Scout, Shock-trooper, Lancer, Sniper, and Engineer. Each class has there own strengths and weakness. Scouts have high accuracy and can move great distances, but they aren't as durable as some of the other classes. Shock-troopers can hit hard and take a pretty good beating, but can't move as far as scout.
Lancers can take out a tank single handed-ly but they have low accuracy, can't move all that far, and can't provide any cover fire.
Snipers, obviously, can take out a target on the other side of the map, But they can't provide cover fire, nor can they take a lot of damage. Engineers provide support by repairing your tank, healing troops, replenishing ammo, and disarming mines. They also can take out enemy troops, if need be. Now, back to leveling. When you complete a mission, you earn experience that goes into a community pool of sorts. When you go to the training grounds you choose a class then you choose how much experience to put in that class. You don't have to use all your experience in one class, you can divide it up if you want. When a class gets enough experience to level up, every unit in that class levels up, so there is now worries if you want to swap out units of the same class, because they are the same level. The max level for a class is 20 by the way.
Ok, in closing, the only bad thing about this game is the lack of publicity it received. Anyways, if you like anime or a great tactical rpg then you really need to check this game out. However, these are just my opinions, make your own decisions.