Valkyria Chronicles 2 - and the Gallian tale continues

Got my hand on the English version of this game right on the day of English version release, although it's not until like a week later that I actually started playing this game. My first plan is to finish PS3's Valkyria Chronicle before I play this game, but since my schedule is getting busier and spare me little time to play the first game (currently at Chapter 9), and hence I just decided to go with the PSP's Valkyria Chronicles II. I reckon I won't missed that much from the PS3 game since I've watched the anime, although there are some interesting scenes/ dialogues that I recall from the game which weren't included in the anime.

Valkyria Chronicles II is a tactical role-playing game developed and published by Sega for the PlayStation Portable. Released in 2010, it is the sequel to Valkyria Chronicles. Set two years after the onset of the Second Europan War, the game's story focuses on a military academy cadet school as they seek to prevent an ethnic cleansing campaign by a ruthless rebel group.

Two years have passed since Squad 7 defeated Maximillian in Gallia during the Second Europan War. A rebel group made up of dissatisfied aristocrats and like-minded soldiers and citizens calling themselves the Gallian Revolutionary Army begins a civil war to wage an ethnic cleansing campaign against Gallians of Darcsen descent. However, with the intense fight against the Empire having left Gallia's regular army in an exhausted state, there is initially little to stop the insurrection from gaining momentum. Laws preventing the formation of a national militia to fight fellow Gallians force the government to deploy military academy cadets to the front lines in order to combat and defeat the GRA forces. Among the students sent out on the field is 17-year-old Avan Hardins, a young man who enrolled in Lanseal Military Academy after the death of his older brother, Leon.

Developers: SEGA
Platform: PlayStation Portable (PSP)
Genre: RPG
Release date: Jan 2010 (JP); August/September 2010 (ENG)

Currently I'm in the month of August story, which seems to be halfway through the game and more importantly, the time when battle difficulty seems to get harder.

As mentioned, the game took place 2 years after the conclusion of Valkyria Chronicle (PS3). Peace arrived at Gallia after Welkin's Squad 7 managed to repel the Imperial's invasion, only but for a short moment as rebels started to emerge after knowing the fact that the ruler of Gallia, archduke Cordelia is a Darcsen (Darcsen is a taboo race in this game which was thought to bring calamity), aiming to clean the country off Darcsen. We take a role of Avan Hardins, a cadet in Lanseal Military Academy who enrolled in order to find the truth about his brother's death. He was then appointed as the president of his class, which essentially equals to his squad during battles.

So far I have to say that I'm really loving the game. Rather than the full military camp setting used in Valkyria Chronicles (VC), now in Valkyria Chronicles 2 the game opted for (military) student life in military academy. The story itself was interesting and have lots of humours involved. As Avan, we leads our class supposedly consist of rejects, bring them together and overcome obstacles in battle through each missions, spanning from January to...I guess November or December (Persona much?). New stories with new (and lovely) characters, added with great improvement in gameplay department while pretty much utilizing similar graphic from the previous VC1. What more you could ask for a PSP game?

The gameplay retains pretty much most of the principles from Valkyria 1, but with a lot of improvement being made which imo made the strategically easier and fun to play. For one, you don't have to wait 1 whole turn before you can deploy someone from the base camp in battle. I find this tremendously useful because it made battle planning more flexible because now I can deploy and retreat someone to fit the battle needs. Your classmate will also not going to DIE PERMANENTLY if they're defeated in battle and you're unable to rescue them, like what happened in VC1. At worst, they will only be hospitalised for 3 days (meaning you can't use them for 3 missions).

gameplay of VC2, showing one of the mission in mid-game.

Another interesting changes from VC2 is that now we can upgrade classes. In VC1, there are 5 basic classes - Scout, Trooper, Lancer, Engineer and Sniper and that's it. In VC2 though, you have 5 basic classes - Scout, Trooper, Lancer, Engineer and Tech; and then you can even upgrade each into more classes. For example, a Scout can be changed into sniper or scout veteran. Trooper into Trooper veteran or Gunner, which further divided into two more advanced classes. In all, there are a total of 20 different classes in VC2, emerging from the 5 basic classes. Heck, there's even an Anthem Corp class, which roles basically to bufff/debuff. Of course, those variety of classes means that battle is more challenging and require more strategic usage of each classes. Though in the end, you'll pretty much end up using Scout/Trooper and a bit of Lancer more than the rest. On the enemy side, though, you will occasionally face some annoying enemies called V2, which basically is a pseudo-Valkyrie (omg). They have the power of Valkyrie, good thing they're not as invincible as the true Valkyrie and can be taken down with proper ways.

Other aspect about the gameplay that I would like to comments:

• I notice that the Sniper in VC2 is significantly more reliable than in VC1. I remember back then cursing Marina a lot of time because she missed a headshot and waste 1 CP. In VC2 sometimes the snipers do miss, but not as annoyingly often as in VC1.
• You can only have a maximum of 6 units in battle at a given time. Make sense, considering now we can deploy and recall our units at ease.
• More environment integration - the vehicle (aka Edelweiss of VC1) in VC2 can be customised to fit your situation, and it really helps a lot to have them in fights. They can now carry units inside them (useful to bring low-AP units over a long distance) break large rocks/ice, put a ladder/bridge to create shortcut, and even can nullify environment effect through proper device installed. And some of the custom body part also made them cost only 1 CP in battle - a huge buff to tank usage.
• We can no longer save in battle, but hey, it doesn't take long to reload the game if you screw something up.
• Multiplayer. A new feature where you can co-op with friend to do mission together, or even just dueling squad vs squad for fun. Though I personally never tried this.
  
• It's feels very rewarding when we manage to get an A-rank in a mission after much planning for the best strategy to beat that particular mission.
  

What else. Characters. I would say that the characters in VC2 are more appealing to me than those in VC1. Yeah yeah VC1 got Edy Nelson, but hey, VC2 got her sister Anisette Nelson, plus Edy herself made her cameo in Anisette's side story. You can even unlock Edy to be included in your squad. How awsm is that :3 Simply put, in VC2 you can get a better understanding of each of your classmate through their own side story, and this is unlocked simply by deploying them in mission a few times. They're optional, but useful if you want your classmates to unlock powerful Potentials.

Many characters from VC1 do make their cameo in VC2 - Welkin, Alicia and Edy are the prime examples. You can even use codes to unlock extra characters for your squad - Welkin, Alicia, most of squad 7, Faldio, Isara, and of course, SELVARIA : D (unfortunately she got toned down a lot, including her *eherm*) And honestly some of them are better than those you have in your squad, too bad they didn't have side story. Would be weird if Isara actually have a side story, huh.
Oh yeah, don't forget about the Valkyries too as they're still here in VC2.

Overall although many didn't like the fact that VC2 is released for PSP, I have to say that being in PSP didn't really effect the greatness of this game. Nice graphic with beautiful character art, a lot of gameplay improvement and customization and nice story (albeit some predictable twist). Definitely recommended for jrpg lovers, although I would say you might want to watch the anime (or better, finish VC1) first before you play this game, if you don't want to be spoiled.


p/s: Cosette VA = Estelle (tales of vesperia) VA. WIN : D