Well I’ve been putting off this game for quite a while. I finally received it on rental about a week ago, but have been too engrossed in Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter 4 (yes, still) to touch it. The lacklustre demo didn’t really impress me that much, in fact it downright put me off it. But since playing the demo, numerous people online and friends I’ve talked to have been nothing but telling me to ignore the demo and play the game.

So here I am, playing the game. Like always, this review will contain updates as I play:

Update 1 – 28/09/09: Oh its Valkyria not Valkyrie

A problem that is becoming all too frequent with PS3 games is trying to get into the actual game for the first time. I put in the bluray, start it up and immediately I’m prompted to install an update. 5 minutes later the game loads. I know it’s optional, but the bluray is so slow that, if given the option I’ll always install to the disk. So another~15 minutes go by before I can actually load into the game for the first time.

The game is set in some pseudo/fantasy WWII scenario, but instead of the Nazis we have the "Imperial Alliance"  and instead of the Allies we have the "Atlantic Federation", and instead of soldiers we have teenage girls and boys. The whole war has started over some fantasy mineral called Ragnite, about which I know very little at this point in the game.

I watch a fair bit of anime so the plot is really of little concern to me, they all follow a relatively linear progression. I’m mainly interested in the gameplay, something I’m finding, thus far, there is very little of.

I think I’m maybe 2 hours into the game and I’ve played all of 3 short levels. In between which there are a plethora of cut scenes and inane conversations between the characters (just watched a nice verbose discourse between the 2 main characters over the specific details of the uniforms they are wearing).

Coming off the back of MGS4, I’d really hoped the cutscene to gameplay ratio would be higher. Admittedly I’m just over the tutorial phase hump of the game, where they try to teach me the game dynamics whilst also instilling in me the overarching purpose of it all, so, for now, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.

I just really hope the game starts to increase the number of playable levels soon, without having to wade through 4 or 5 separate cutscenes to get there.

Update 2 – 01/10/09: Who doesn’t love loads of menus

Played a bit further into the game now. I’m just about to invade some forested area and break the enemies supply routes. The number of cutscenes between each playable level is a joke, and the dialogue is mostly inane jabbering that adds nothing to the game for me.

On top of this, as I’ve been progressing, they’ve been adding more and more menus, and sub menus that I have to load in and out of frequently. For what? There is no reason for them. Rather than having a separate menu for equipping weapons, another menu for upgrading weapons, another menu for upgrading my squads stats, another menu for assigning squad members to my team… etc, they could of just combined all of these areas into 1, easily. Further, when you load into a menu, some character pops up to welcome you before you actually get to do what you wanted in that menu, they always have to be skipped or listened to and can’t be disabled. They remind me of the paperclip in Windows XP, except I know I am going to have to suffer them until the game is over. The Drill Sargent is particularly irritating, popping up multiple times while you are in the training menu.

The sad thing about all this, much like MGS4, is that the gameplay is actually very enjoyable. I find myself loading up the game in the time before I go to work in the morning and playing through one of the skirmishes (missions you can play as much as you want to earn XP and money). I only hope the game gets it together as I progress and ratio of time I spend in and out of menus and watching cutscenes starts to lower in comparison to how much of the game I’m actually playing.

Update 3 – 16/10/09: A.I stands for Astounding Ineptitude

Wow, has it been over two weeks since I last updated this post? This game has really been a slow burner for me. I only complete about 1 or 2 actual gameplay missions a day, at most (it’s usually just 1). My routine is this, before I go to work in the morning, I start up Valkyria Chronicles and watch the inevitable 10 minutes of cutscenes before I get to the next playable mission in the game. I then change to the HQ tab and upgrade weapons and unit stats… etc, reorganizing my squad for the next mission. I’ll then try a skirmish to get some points so I can train more and develop my weapons. I then go to work. I come home and I play 1 mission, I then see the plethora of following cutscenes laid out before me once again and go "forget this I’ll watch them in the morning"… and the cycle continues.

The game plays out like a very bad anime. Like Pokemon or Bleach (oh no I didn’t!). It tries, nauseatingly, to mirror WWII with set pieces and plot lines (i.e. I just played through an area that was supposed to be a parallel to the Nazi Jewish Concentration Camps) It all feels wrong, very wrong. I’m playing as these kids developing weapons to more effectively bludgeon and kill the enemy, whilst I’m supposed to believe they care that a building with some miners in it was burnt down. These children are sociopaths. They get up in the morning, put on their prissy outfits, makeup and do their hair into fancy buns then proceed to march onto the battle field and shoot anything that moves in the face. They then go home and talk about bugs and trivial teenager issues.

I dunno, I’ll stick with it to see it through to completion. I just hope I’m past the midway point already.

Update 4 – 16/12/09: Done!

So, 2 months later, I’m finally wrapping up this post. I can’t finish the game. Truth be told I haven’t even had it in my possession for a few weeks. The initial copy I got was a rental, then I sent that back and got a lend of the game off a friend. It sat there gathering dust for a few weeks until I gave it back to him. This game goes up there with Doom 3 and Battle Axe: Beast Rider as 1 I just could not bring myself to see through to completion.

I just had too many issues with the game; the unnecessarily involved menu system, the asinine dialogue, the clichéd anime characters, the rubbish AI and the slow, predictable and basic gameplay. I stopped just after we’d freed the Jews Darcsen from some concentration camp mine. I’m sure fanboys of the game will tell me “Oh man, it gets so much better after that point”, but I don’t care. I was a good few hours into the game and it still wasn’t pulling me in, how many hours should I of given it before calling it quits?

Anyway, for me it was a complete let down. Perhaps the hype of this being an undiscovered gem led me to expect greater things (I expected gameplay equalling Advance Wars at least) and clouded my judgement. Whatever the cause, it’s definitely a game I won’t be picking up again or recommending.