Valkyria Chronicles 4 Complete Edition

Put briefly: This is a great game and I give it TWO thumbs up! It builds on VC3 in terms of gameplay, squad building missions (getting to know the whole squad not just main characters) and it has a more serious tone than VC3 that works. If you enjoyed any of the VC games you HAVE TO get this one! Awesome soundtrack too!

At length: The new class of grenadiers is welcome. I liked the squad stories as it fleshes out the other soldiers in your company, which VC3 didn't do. I like the slight customisation that you get to see on your tanks. Your starting tank is kind of light but as you develop it you can see the extra armour and barrel length of the tanks growing until you have a beast of a metal machine. Where VC3 highlighted WW2's anti-semitism with the portrayal of darcsen hatred, this one highlights the Atomic bomb and the human cost of superweapons. The use of ship is cool and the soundtrack is more moving during the sensitive areas and a bit more pumping during clashes. Whilst I enjoyed the protagonist of VC3 a bit more, I like the cast overall in VC4.
This is easily a 9.5/10 game.

a great game for those looking for a turn based tactical game with an anime flare. the cut scenes are skippable which is great cause there are a lot of them and the story is pretty predictable. some weird fan service aside, all around fun time and can be very hard on the right settings.

Your mileage may vary here, as I personally prefer high transparency, low chaos tactics games. Nearly every mission in this game has some unforeseeable gimmick that makes most of the gameplay feel pretty arbitrary. It's nothing challenging, mind, as the AI is very rudimentary and encounters are designed mostly around outgunning the player until some side objective is met; however, with the permadeath factor and the inability to ascertain ranges for movement and attacks, expect a lot of minor frustrations leading to tense situations leading to easy resolutions.
The setting is identical to the prior games, and the writing sits between juvenile and trope-y. If you are going to play, I'd at least consider skipping all the cutscenes. Anything of consequence is repeated during battles, and you'll save yourself some cringe-worthy moments.

One of my most favorite games of all time! Excellent story line, i love this series!

Quite underwhelming if you come from older VCs games, after all these years and 4 main entry game one would hope to have some shake up by this point in the formula. Instead, we've got Waifu War 2. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against appealing character desings, but in contrast to how sober the designs were for VC 1 & 2, it takes away from some the story when you are freezing in basically the russian campaing and the sniper just refuses to cover the bakery in her rear (anime White Death?).

The story is quite messy, I'm not into reading allegories when it comes to narratives, but the many real world references to real world elements and the fact that you are basically taking place in Operation Barbarossa but somehow you are not the evil invading force and...

*spoiler alert, skip next paragraph if you don't want them*
***Trying to transport the quivalent of a human sized Tsar's Bomb to a civilian city to blow it up***

...gets a lot in the way of being the good guys while also portraying the enemies as comically evil if not idiots. Which makes a lot of the main cast unlikable if not questionable with a few exceptions.

The game feels mostly the same as in VC1 with a new class and that's quite it. Reciclying maps in the first game when the saga was not established, and in the 2nd which was a portable PSP game, felt justified. In the 4th entry in a PS4 and with modern hardware, it gets less excusable and the lack of innovation really makes you feel that the game overstays its welcome.

On the flip side, if you liked VC 1 & 2, this is more of it, if you thought that those games were worth it, bite into this.
If you are a new comer to the saga however, I'll say that you go play the first that is cheaper and a more cohesive experience overall and come to this afterwards if you really liked the first and don't mind the more step price and can ignore (or maybe are turned on) the waifu side of things.

I've enjoyed my time with this game and if I am unrecommending this game, is for new comers to go play the 1st one instead and go here only if you liked it.

Great game. its worth the money and fun

Excellent game, Is a good tactical RPG with good challenges.

I like it

Edit: Ok I managed to finish the game, and I Love It. However Please Do Some Compatibility Work. My Pc is Kinda Old and I'd Love To Play Without Random Spontaneous Crashing.

Better than the first series, everything is the same concept but able to skip content, and most important come with auto save

VC4 is a good sequel to 1, more missions, more classes, and the story and characters are engaging. A good mix of RTS and turn-based strategy, and the watercolor art style is good. It's too bad it doesn't have a stronger following, I'm wishing for a VC5. Maybe someday Sega will try reviving again. Well worth the price, there is so much side content and I'm still not finished with it.

RILEY SEEEEEEEEEEGGGGGGGGGGGGGGSSSSSSSSSSSS

This game along with the remaining of the franchise easily got his way amongs my all-time favourites.
My entry of this franchise is quite unusual, started with the VC2 in the psp when i was a kid, then years later down the line, i tried VCV4 and them VC1, then i replayed VC4 again, i do hope eventually SEGA will remaster or remake VC2 and VC3.
I don´t think my words would make justice on how much i liked it.
Now, onto to some points i found:

-VC4 built upon on what VC1 didn´t do, squad stories for each squad member, separate from the main story (each squad story is with 2 or 3 squad members at once), something lacking in VC1, the squad members do show up from time to time in the main story to give a line or two, but they remain mostly inrelevant to the main plot.

-Relative to VC1, there was a huge spike of" fan-service" in the game, not that i disliked it.

-General Dialogue seemed to have improved for me, in VC1, the lines in a few times came out a bit too much cheesy.

-Maps are bigger and more intricate and also more unpredictable which adds only more fun in my opinion.

Really nice combat mechanics.

The localization is garbage and quite often makes things up.

Everything about the first game you loved (moving little doodz around on a map, rochambeau combat, tanks and telenovela romance subplots) but amplified. Eminently replayable. Learning to cheese every encounter is hilarious. The DLC addons are fun and add to being able to cheese the NG+ mode. There's something ridiculously funny about having TWO invincible one-shotters on your team with maxxed-out doodz going up against early game levels in an attempt to one-turn them.

I love this game as much as Super Mario World and it's a cold cryin' shame that Sega has forsaken us and won't give us another sequel.

i like the game a lot and I like how the command system works and the story is well done. Lastly I hope that they have a feature to skip the enemy phase because I am getting bored on watching the enemy movement or action phase

I started playing this game mostly because I heard that the Fire Emblem 3 Houses battle system was based off of this game's and I couldn't keep replaying Fire Emblem. It's definitely fun, but there are some bugs. Like grenadiers being OP as all hell, but only when your computer can keep up with the frame rate, otherwise you get alot of bombs just frozen midair and waste a shot.
I like the combo of turn based and real time strategy elements though and story is pretty good as well. The side stories are also fun, but can be a bit of a pain because you have to go around searching for hidden enemies at times to advance the story.
All in all, it's like an 8/10. If I had a better computer that could actually run this game and give it justice, would be an easy 10/10.

iyts good

love the series, fun re playable game

8.5/10

Very fun game. Since it includes all the DLC there's a lot of content. If you liked the first game it's basically the same so you'd enjoy this as well. That's really my biggest complaint about it as well: it's basically the same as the first game in terms of story, for better or for worse, not hugely mindblowingly different, looks the same and pretty much plays the same. But the original game is very good, fun turn-based strategy mechanics, decent soundtrack, really like the story-book art style.

The story wasn't a big highlight for me, it's not horrible but doesn't feel too original, and some of the themes of the first two games also seems to be lost. Despite that, the characters are very likable, it's probably the highlight in terms of the story. I like how all the characters have boons and banes that are based on their unique personalities and histories, and they have those side squad missions that give you stories for each of the individual characters so you can learn more about them. For example, one character has a bane where if she isn't around other team mates, her stats go down, and in the side story you learn it's because she used to be on another squad where all her team mates were killed and she was the only survival, so she gets bad flashbacks when she can't see her team mates. Another character is like a tank enthusiast so he has a boon that gives him improved stats if he is around tanks.

If you liked the first and want more of the same you will definitely enjoy this, although you probably should wait a bit after playing the first before jumping into this one, because it really is so similar that the mechanics might be feel stale if you play them both back-to-back. Maybe play a different game in between the two.

Typical low budget Japanese game. Avoid Japanese games. They're generally 20 years behind in technology and twice the price that they should be.

very valkyria chronicles, stay true to its core, a very fun and challenging tactical turn based rpg

Tutorial was fine, showed off some basic game play that looked okay, then 5 long chapters of exposition. I’m not even sure if you ever get to play the game again, I would have bought a book(a better book) if all I wanted was a story. Look at other games, the gimmick this game presents isn’t worth the hassle.

TLDR: if you played Valkyria Chronicles, this is largely the same, for better or for worse. For me, it's mostly a good thing. Really the only major difference gameplay-wise between VC and VC4 is that you now have artillery units, which are fun additions.

It's a great turn based tactical combat game. There's definitely a learning curve due to the variety of units and mechanics but you really feel like a commander when you pull off some great moves. I love setting up a defensive position with my shocktroopers that just mow down charging enemies. I love getting my lancer behind an enemy tank and shoving a rocket up its ass. And now in VC4, I love drawing a group of enemies together and blasting them with my grenediers. The combat gameplay is truly the highlight of this game and it's really well done. If you are unfamiliar with the series, check it out on YT or pick up VC and try it out first, as VC4 is a little more complicated and builds on VC. That being said, if you only like constant action, this game is not for you as fighting is slow, deliberate and turn based.

My major gripe with VC4 is the same that I had with VC: The story sections are agonizingly slow. In each chapter, you fight usually one battle and then are forced to sit through lots of long cutscenes. The story itself is pretty good but in true anime fashion, two minutes of content is stretched out over 45 minutes as characters do their required anime gasps, monologues and ramble on and on about the most banal things.

It's not just during the story sections either, but also in the required process of using the menues to upgrade your soldiers and equipment. You want to buy 5 improvements to your weapons? You're going to sit through Miles saying the same two lines of dialogue over and over with every button push. What should just take 30 seconds to click a few things takes 10-15 minutes when it's all said and done. I just wanted to get back to the action. It's enough that after I finish a battle, I would love to go on to the next but sometimes I just save my game and come back later because I'm not in the mood to sit through everything again. You can somewhat speed through by pressing continue and reading the text but there is just so much of it.

I do like the characters and the setting, which seems to be a mostly real life based WW2 inspired world but with some (fantasy?) (steampunky?) elements. Even the world map matches real life Europe to a high degree. The art, music and just environment is charming and I am not even super into anime. But the world is beautiful both in the world building and art style.

Overall, this is definitely a must play if you are into turn-based or tactical combat. Just be prepared to sink as much time into watching wayyyy too drawn out cutscenes and frustrating menues as you do fighting battles.

Do it! It got fancervice missions...

Very Valkyria

What a perfect game with rich story content and fantastic playing methods....

Excellent balance between difficulties and achievements... ENJOY !!

The Minstrel-Boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you'll find him;
His father's sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.
"Land of song!" said the warrior-bard,
"Tho' all the world betrays thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!"

The Minstrel fell!—but the foeman's chain
Could not bring that proud soul under;
The harp he lov'd ne'er spoke again,
For he tore its chords asunder;
And said, "No chains shall sully thee,
Thou soul of love and bravery!
Thy songs were made for the pure and free,
They shall never sound in slavery."

-Lyrics to "The Minstrel Boy"

great game.

good game game, great story which gets deeper and more complex than one would expect. I hope more games like this come out with a difficult tactical requirement and rewarding story

g

Funny grenadier squad go brrr

is good game.

It's a RNG based game that has a ranking system that expect you to complete fast, a game that's obsessed with being unpredictable and has no regard of consistency, you can spend 30 minute on a mission playing flawlessly, and the objective would just change, a tough enemy which you have no clue what it does spawns out of nowhere and runs over half of your squad the next turn.

Alternatively you can play safe and steady and overcome whatever challenge it throws at you, 40 minutes passed you completed it, you had fun and you enjoyed it, then you found out in the end screen that you got less exp and money because you get a B for playing one turn too many, that's the game's opinions of your 40 minutes effort, just not fast enough.

You'll likely find yourself saving and reloading all the time, whenever you miss a shot, or ran into a tough situation and realise that's not the best move, and once you know what's gonna happen the game becomes painfully easy, you can finish most battles with 2 scouts and a defence boost order.

You can skip dialogues but not animations, every time you upgrade the same animation plays, you have to wait a second for the animation to finish so you can do the next upgrade or to the next dialogue in story mode, the game just love wasting your time.

(Spoilers if you care)

The story is beyond bad, absolutely worst in the serie, its not anime "bad" it's a 10 y/o would roll their eyes bad, I don't mind the cliche but nothing makes sense.

In the beginning the game established heroin's hatred towards mc and then explained that reason being mc dragged her away from a fire accident that killed her dad when they were stupid little kids, and not only she blames him for all that, she was being nasty and sarcastic, and the mc who's a dope with negative self esteem keeps apologising and proceed to simp for her for the rest of the game. there is one part where they run into a hanged civilian, she's shocked, mc's reaction was to tell her to cover her eyes, she's been blowing people up with a grenade launcher for weeks at that point, and somehow find that more disturbing, calling them the anime soldier is an insult to anime.

The villain Klaus Walz or Vulkan who is a tank boss that appears so many times I lost count, every fight is long and annoying, and every time you blow him up he just appears on the screen completely unharmed and say something like I'll be back my soulmate, he refers mc as femme fatale, the devs never bothered to translate it, as long as it sounds cool to them I suppose, and even the last time you blow him up, he still manage to survive with the winter witch who killed hundreds of innocent and has nothing redeeming about her other than she was tortured and nobody wants her, in the end they just went off and live happily ever after, Kai was a spy for her brother who turned bad, and partially responsible for an attack that killed hundreds, she felt bad and when mc and others found out they're like haha don't worry about it dummie, we love you remember? she's like awww thanks you guys, and that's that, and that's when I was convinced that the writers are geniuses.

One of the reason I bought the game other than my fond memories of VC3 is Ragnarok the shiba, you would think he'd be a playable character but no, he only appears in stories, also Kai who is everyone's fav girl, maybe the devs have heard the complains about the stick figure body of the previous games, they gave Kai the perfect realistic butt and it's been very distracting, but guess what, she's into your best friend, you are stuck with the unlikable heroin, idk maybe its my pet peeve but that bothers me.

Conclusion: don't play it if you are over the age of 10, it's not worth it.

fantastic game, and the combination of turn-based/third person shooter but pausing when taking a shot is possibly unique. The graphics using the CANVAS engine look great and should be used for more games. Perhaps some of the Orders and rescued units coming back after 2 turns make the game a little too easy but that's a minor criticism

world war 2 but there's anime girls.

haha i love women

It's more of the previous game with a number of game play enhancements.
But unfortunately it's let down by four things
- there is no auto next so you are going to be spending a lot of time pressing next or skip dialogue
- there's no way to turn off the notification spam
- you can't disable the cinematics that play in-between the menu transitions
- the chapters don't reveal all items at once so you have to start every single cinematic to get to the next mission.

This is a really unique and interesting game in my opinion. I enjoy turn-based games and this one happened to be anime-military genre so the thought of it made me excited to play (I'm a fan of girls und panzer). I never played any of the previous games however so I played this having no context on lore or anything. I enjoy the game so far, playing through the 2nd chapter. Gameplay wise it was a bit overwhelming for me.

All characters had their own likes and dislikes which was unique but also frustrating. I had countless misses within point blank range due to a character having a trait like "nervous around women" and just happens to be next a woman. but never really seeing any improvement if I cater towards their likes. The combat is a bit slow in my opinion and that's saying a lot considering I like these kinds of games (maybe its just me). The dialogue is also pretty long and my ADHD cannot handle it so I think I see myself skipping most of it in the future but so far I think I'll leave a good review and update it again once I get more into the game.

This game is good and makes many small improvements on the 1st game. The battle scenarios are for more creative and unique compared to the first game. The story does suffer from more mood whiplash than the 1st, but it's alright for the most part.

I was super excited to play the crossover mission with the characters from the 1st game, but all the joy I would have felt got sucked away because those cheap dastards at Sega of America didn't bother hiring the original voice actors to play the characters from the 1st game, except Alicia. Most don't even sound that close.

Voice actors are important to the essence of a character, and real human beings, not some "tool" you can swap in and out for the cheapest bidder. And don't tell me you can't afford it Sega.

I really liked the game, but I don't recommend it for others who watched the anime, as this is a sequel or an improved version from the R threads.

Anyway, I was looking forward for the two main characters inside the anime to be playable, but it looks like I bought the wrong one...

Nonetheless, this was still a fun game, but I need my points back to be able to play the first one first.
After that, I'll think again if I need to play this, but as I've said, the game looks promising from the start.

Battles & Bonds: The Valkyria Chronicles

In a war-torn world where heroes unite,
Valkyria Chronicles 4 ignites the fight.
Like a Studio Ghibli tale, both fierce and grand,
Strategy blooms on this breathtaking land.

With RPG flair and characters bright,
Command your squad in the heat of the night.
Tactics and heart weave a gripping tale,
Each move a story, where friendships prevail.

So march to the rhythm of drums and despair,
In this epic saga, let courage declare.
For those who seek battles with depth and soul,
Valkyria Chronicles 4 makes your heart whole!

Great game, a bit grindy on the achievement side, but this would be me nitpicking.
If you played Valkyria Chronicles 1, expect to find a lot more of the same, and a few pleasant QOL changes, but largely, the same experience.

👍

This is a great game and highly recommended 😍

I have not played any of the series before, so I did not know what to expect. The graphical style is excellent and the missions are very fun to play. You really get to know the characters from the numerous side stories. It is a long game; my play time here excludes the post-game DLC.

Two small things to take note of…I didn’t really enjoy the last few missions, they depended more on using specific weapons and tricks rather than general strategy and tactics. I consulted FAQs to minimize frustration on those challenges. Also, I don’t recommend trying to achieve perfect grades on all missions, it will spoil your enjoyment of the gameplay. Better just enjoy your playthrough with the ups and downs of fate 😬

Overall, I strongly recommend this one. I’m really looking forward to ploughing through the balance content next year, after a short rest 🤩 I will really miss the characters in the meantime!

It's better than Valkyria Chronicles 1. They have changed a few roles, introduced the grenadier (mortar) which happens to be the best class in this game, now lancers can target infantry using a different launcher that causes area damage, snipers react to enemies walking around them, allied tanks don't cost 2 CP to use them during the turns and other stuff. If you like turn-based with pieces of real time strategy, you can't go wrong with this one.

Not as good as the first game but very fun nonetheless.

Very fun. Needs another entry.