Game Review: Valkyria Chronicles, Motor Storm, Eternal Sonota

I have been jones'n for a good RPG/strategy game for a while now. I have had the Valkyria Chronicles demo on my PS3 XMB for a while now, along with several other demos, but have not bothered to play any of them. I have been sick the last few days so I figured I would try them out.

Motor Storm was pretty disappointing. I give it a Lame. The controls were wonky, it didn't feel visceral when turning, it felt very disconnected, very "arcade" style as I call it when there is little realism in a game. Different skins for different vehicles but really the same thing with a different skin. If you are really into this type of game you may find some value here, but as a fan of past Burnouts, Need for Speeds, and Gran Turismos I felt this game had very little to offer. Maybe online gaming would be fun. A good solid Lame.

Eternal Sonata I heard from a friend at work was very good. Playing the demo I was immediately disgusted by japanime of it. The characters cheesy not cool. The voice acting was annoying and cutesy. The names of the attacks were sorry. The graphics were good and as far as true hard core RPG style it appeared to adhere to the blueprint very well. Still, I couldn't get into it. Granted, it's a demo so there was no character development or even a little back story, but when I got into a match that was challenging and I lost I just quit. I had no desire to continue on to through the forest to get to whatever boss or mini boss was there to mark the end of the demo. Again, if you are really into this kind of game there may be some value for you here. I give it a Lame as well.

I am not a hard core RPG fan, but I fell in love with Final Fantasy VII, becoming very attached to the characters (Aeris) and playing the game through multiple times. I played FFVIII to the end but didn't care to beat it. I played some FFIX, if I remember correctly, but didn't care to finish it. I saw a friend playing some FFX and was bored and not interested in pursuing it myself. I played FFXII but again failed to find enough value to continue, and bailed on it relatively early in the game. I blame these failures mostly on story. Not that the stories were bad, I just couldn't get into them, get attached, and become interested. I have high hopes for FFXIII.

As far as RPGs go, I hear great things about Fallout 3 and plan to purchase it sometime in summer. This is because there may be a drought of good new games, gives me a chance to finish the bevy of new games I have right now that I need to complete, the price will come down, and they will patch it to fix a few major bugs and to add trophies. I look forward to this game very much as well.

Now... Valkyria Chronicles. I played the demo for this game and decided upon finishing it that I must have this game. It was very satisfying and brings in a few new elements to this strategy RPG. I purchased the game the next day and spent all day being sick and playing this game. I had a buddy over that is also into strategy games and he was very pleased and impressed with it as well.

It has both real time and turn based elements. You start each turn from a strategic top down map view of the battle field that indicates the positions of all of your units and any enemy units you have line of site on. You choose a unit and are then thrust into a close over the shoulder third person perspective where you have 3d camera control and may move your selected character around the 3d world until you are out of movement points. At any point during your movement phase if you pass within range of an enemy unit you will be fired upon in real time. You may switch to aim mode at any time which freezes the action and allows you to select and study each opponent in view and choose who to attack and where to attack them.

There are several types of characters with strengths and weaknesses. Some have more armor, some can move farther, different weapons like multi-shot rifle, many shot machine gun, single shot sniper rifle, anti tank rpg, some have special abilities like engineers that can disarm mines. Each character has a certain set of personality traits as well, such as some like being around others and will get a defense boost when around team mates or allergies which will decrease accuracy if in pollinated places like grassy areas. This adds a tricky tactical and strategic dynamic to the game. Some characters even like other specific characters better making them better team mates when grouped together. I haven't really gotten a handle on all these details yet but am aware of their existence.

What is most fun is the dynamic way in which game play changes throughout the various phases of turns, 2d strategery, 3d execution in real time, turn based tactics, all great pieces brought together in a very entertaining fashion here.

It reminds very much of Final Fantasy Tactics both in story and feel, as well as musical score; Tactics being one of my all time favorite games.

Each chapter consists of several story elements leading up to and following each battle sequence. The story is entertaining and engaging. The artistic and graphical style is cell shading, which is originally rendered in 3d and then the cell shading technique is applied to give it an anime/comic book style and feel to it. This is done very well here fits very well, making the game entertaining and fun to look at. Some of the story elements play out in cut scene fashion while others are presented in a statement by statement fashion, requiring you to engage to trigger the next statement for the length of the cut scene. Why this latter style is implemented at all is unclear; I personally feel that, since both have spoken parts accompanying the text, there is little need for text by text scenes, except that maybe it saves quite a bit of rendering for those cut scenes... not like storage is a problem on blue ray though.

The environments could be a bit more interactive. For instance there was a rubbled building that looked like I could hide behind a partially standing wall, but I was unable to traverse the varied dirt terrain, instead the game treated this entire structural area as solid surface or wall and I could not approach any further than the boarder of the defined area. Also you can only duck for cover behind sand bags, not rocks or tree stumps or boxes, which is too bad because these elements are everywhere and ducking gives you significant tactical advantages like defensive boosts and critical hit immunity. Short comings are few and far between in my opinion, however.

I give Valkyria Chronicles a solid Great. While not being perfect it is entirely entertaining, beautifully presented, engaging, and satisfying. Down time is not boring or tedious and maintaining your squad simple and rewarding. Note that I am only on chapter 5 and feel that I am still gearing up in this game, meaning that there should be plenty of content still to be had.