Topic: Valkyria Chronicles 4

Why is there not a thread for this? This game is releasing... like, now. Hopefully my pre-loaded copy will unlock at midnight.

Anyway, the game has an 86 on metacritic right now, with a lot of people saying it's the best entry in the series.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/valkyria-chroni...

I am playing it and until now I must say it doesn't disappoint though certainly it feels quite overly familiar. It' a joy to play, so I'll see where it leads me.

@Feena Got your copy early?

From the demo, it feels very similar to the original game.

Yeah, I’d like to read people’s impressions on it. Due to time and money constraints, I have opted to not buy it just yet, but I am curious how it is being received by the real (non-journalist) community. It looks beautiful. It’s been a while since I played the original game, and the second game, both of which I liked a lot. For those who are playing it I would like to hear thoughts about this newest entry, how it compares to previous ones, the improvement, the shortcomings, and how much fun it is. I’m not sure when I will jump in and buy it, but the plan has been to wait it out and just pick it up on sale in about 6-9 months. For me, this is another unfortunate victim of releasing in a busy window... if this would have come out in July, I very well may have picked it up day 1.

It's really good, and my favourite of the series - although I haven't played 3.

If anyone wants to know anything or whatever just feel free to ask.

I hope they have a discount for all the DLCs cause buying all of them would be around $30.

The characters feel a little more grounded than they did in the original. Though, on the flip-side, the characters in the original were VERY lovable, and a big part of that game's appeal. I like this cast so far. I'm interested in seeing where the game takes them.

I started out liking the gameplay more - largely because the grenadiers mix things up a bit and mean you have to rely on different tactics to win - but I wasn't as warm on the cast. I liked Claude and Kai but the others not so much. I did think that the game does a good job of getting you into the characters through the course of the story, and the side characters are given more to work with than in the original thanks to the Squad Stories feature.

I also like the story more in this one.

@Ralizah midnight digital delivery.

Loving the gameplay even more than the first but the cast is a whole lot less endearing. Claude is the exception.

Just finished chapter 7, loving the game! So far I managed to get an A on every map but I had to redo a couple of them. Impressed with the variety of the mission design.

@Feena I'm in the middle of Ch. 7. I'd be a lot further along if A) I wasn't deeply invested in NieR: Automata and B) I didn't keep going back and perfecting previous chapters. But I'm not in too much of a hurry, as this is basically my "short bursts" game for the next few months. The segmented cutscenes and ability to save pretty much anywhere make it a perfect Switch game.

I really like the squad stories so far, and have been trying out different combinations of soldiers to unlock different ones (unlike the first game, where I never had any system to change my squad setup).

@Ralizah yes, I am taking it pretty slowly as well and trying to unlock squad stories: so far I just got 3 of them. I am enjoying the game at this pace cause God knows when we’ll get another one...

Finished the game. I was delicious ! I can't understand how a gem like this doesn't get higher praise. Not saying it had bad reviews, on the contrary, but it's definitely the best game I played in a long while...I am going to do all the extras, then pray for a remaster of VC3...

@Feena On Ch. 12 currently. Although I went back and A-ranked all the previous missions to this point. Same with Squad Stories, which I'm gradually unlocking a bunch of.

Does the last stretch of missions suffer from annoying boss-itis like the original game did? So far, only those twins have fulfilled the annoying boss role, and they're still more managable than, say, Selvaria from VC.

@Ralizah There are a couple of battles that seem extremely hard if not unmanageable until you find out what the heck you are supposed to do...after a while the game provides big hints through some dialogue cutscenes and on retry they are OK. I currently got A on everything but one map, I'll retry it after clearing some of the (plentiful) post story content. Having gone through that insane battle with Selvaggia and Maximilian's tank in the original game helped me out in one occasion tbh.

And yeah, that sniping duo...ugh!

@Feena What post-game content is there besides the squad stories? Expert skirmishes?

@Ralizah Expert Skirmishes that are new maps and unlock new recruits and interludes (well, reused maps from the game but not the hard version of the normal skirmishes maps), a cool new "shop" that lets you buy new features etc. It's very well made.

So, after 60+ hours, I've finally completed Valkyria Chronicles 4. It seems like there's definitely a lot of post-game to dig into. I'm more than mildly amused that you can resurrect dead soldiers at the cenotaph, except for Raz, for some reason. Christel being one of the names (the other being Azusa, who I sent to fight and die alongside Raz in the suicide mission) actually surprised me. Imagine the emotions Minerva would feel after Claude lets it be known that he just paid money at a sort of "pet sematary" to resurrect her fallen comrade!.

Amazing game. Definitely my personal GOTY. I like it more than the original in pretty much every way, although I will admit, as sad as it is to see Raz bite the bullet, nothing in this game is as gut-wrenching as Isara's death in the first game, and especially Rosie's reaction to that.

I played the demo yesterday, I liked it but it's one to pick up on the cheap down the line for me.

@Ralizah There's loads to do post-game. I still haven't done all of it. I need to go back at some point to polish off the platinum.