Valkyria Chronicles 4 confirmed

Yeah, I realized this might well turn out to be just a re-make of VC1 with a new story, but to be honest I’d be pretty much on board with that because the first one was brilliant based on the combat design alone. This is from someone who completely hates anime with a passion.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts in a couple days when it launches.

I would totally be on board with this. Just give me different scenarios and I’m good.

I’m torn between this and Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Has anybody had a chance to dive into this yet?

I have not played it, but the ResetEra thread has a lot of info already. It seems like the biggest change is that they’ve shored up the combat so you can’t cheese by rushing scouts into battle. Tanks are a lot more viable. Sounds like the story is good too. I’m sure anyone that loved the first game is going to love this one.

I’m cracking into this after work today and am using some time off this weekend to try and get through as much of this as humanly possible.

This is turn based.

Pathfinder is Real Time with Pause.

Therefore this game is better.

Well, it’s turn based but the turns themselves are real time.

As disturbing as it sounds, this is absolutely true :O

Think this one has launched, any first impressions yet?

Supposedly my copy is coming today.

I suspect my productivity for the rest of the week will take a hit.

I got through the first couple of plot missions before the first skirmish unlocked, which I promptly played to death for a mountain of XP and to finish relearning the controls.

So far, it appears to be the sequel to VC1 that so many people wanted and never got. Scouts are nerfed and mission design has been changed up to make it basically impossible to scout rush (helped by the fact that you don’t have a leader scout this time). Having two of your leaders be support assets (sniper and grenadier) slows the pace of the game down a bit and encourages what most would describe as “proper” play.

Grenadiers are, as far as I know, the only new class (with all the others being from the first game). Imagine a one soldier mortar team which can provide intercept fire to anyone both in range of the grenadier and in line of sight of another squad member. They do a lot of damage and have great range, but are slow, vulnerable and have to stay behind the front lines while maintaining a clear arc of fire (since their projectiles have collision on walls, rubble and such).

Without getting into it too much, the game’s plot overlaps with VC1’s in terms of timeframe, and a few of the major characters seem to be from a city in Gallia so everyone has a keen interest in how that whole mess plays out. There’s some angst early on as the main cast appears to have had some historical bad blood, but the main character is still a Welkin type as he laments crushing some flowers in the first mission, so it’s not as if this whole thing is a VC3-style festival of edginess.

From what I’ve seen, we’re dealing with what VC2 really should have been the whole time. The only two gripes I have are (very) occasional hitches in menus while the game is clearly loading stuff in the background, and some minor graphical weirdness with anything that flaps around (long hair, flags and coattails, for example). Looking forward to clocking more time after work today.

I think Otagan’s post is an accurate description, based on my experience so far (3 or 4 plot battles plus skirmishes).

If you are looking at it on Switch or XBox, I highly recommend grabbing the demo (not sure if it is available on PC). You continue your save in the main game, and it provides a generous slice of the game to play through.

How’s the tactical layer in terms of adding new challenges along the way?

It’s been a long time since I played the first game (a decade?) but I recall all the battles feeling really samey after awhile except for a few story battles.

Eh - not 2018 in Japan. #metoo went by with barely a whimper. (probably a topic for the politics board though)

It’s not like the article doesn’t have a point, but of all Japanese releases it’s this one that gets singled out???

I’ve read some about it and I don’t think the picture is entirely clear on this character as no one had gotten far enough in the game yet to see how his whole arc played out?

A little different, but there was a kerfuffle over Xenoblade Chronicles 2 as well, so I don’t this is getting singled out. More like Japanese and Western (American?) cultures are clashing a bit after the rise of awareness of this sort of thing recently.

The game’s been out in Japan for ages

I could understand it over XC2 (even if I don’t care, I see how it can be problematic), but this is pretty mild given the game’s cultural context and narrative.

So far, at least.