The Valkyria Chronicles 2 Thread

[SOUP]

The game's finally out in North America, so I think it's about time it gets it's own thread.

Anybody get a chance to play much of it?
Impressions?

I'm about 5 missions in right now.
Visually, it looks pretty great.  Not up to the same standards as the PS3 game of course, but on the smaller screen, the difference isn't as noticeable as you might think.

The basic gameplay in the missions is the same.  The main differences I've run into are the battles being spread across multiple maps (sometimes simultaneously), and some changes to the unit types.  The engineer class's duties have been split up a bit in this game. You've got the regular engineer class that fixes tanks, and can heal allies (from a pretty good distance now), and then there's the armored soldier class.  The armored soldiers have huge shields that take a ton of damage.  They take over the ability to fix sandbags, and disable mines.  Also, they don't have a gun.  Just a wrench to bash people with if they get too close.

There seems to be a bit more time spent outside of missions than in the first game.  More development given to all the extra side characters and whatnot.

The academy setting makes sense given the general premise.  The whole thing so far appears to be holding off a civil war, ignited by one of the big reveals near the end of the first game.
[spoiler:2ns1kyv4]The leader of the country is a Darcsen.  Anti-semetic parallels abound.[/spoiler:2ns1kyv4]
The reasoning is that the countries militia has the responsibility of protecting from invasion, while the academy has to take care of internal problems.

The anime cutscenes are also very nice, and keep the sketch style of the first game.

[SOUP]

I really wish there was a decent faq to be found for this game.
As far as customization goes, it's much deeper than the first title.

I'd been wondering what happened to the Sniper class, but it turns out that under the 5 or so main classes, each character can further specialize in one of two sub classes.
An example being the Scout class.  Now, once you get to a certain point, you can change an individual Scout unit into either a Scout Veteran (boosted stats in accuracy and traveling distance), or into a Sniper.
Levels and experience are still shared between the respective classes, but you can outfit specific equipment to beef up individual characters.
Most of the new classes (like Fencers and Gunners) fall under these new sub-classes.

The majority of the little story sequences between missions are optional, and are just there to flesh out the minor cast members.  However, there are some pretty solid bonuses for following threads pertaining to individual students. Extra missions, gear, orders, etc...

I'm about 10 hours in, but only in the 4th chapter of the game.  There's so much stuff.

[CrazyT]

I own it, play it, and LOVE IT.

I bought a VC game for the first time, on the psp. I don't own a ps3 so sadly I missout on a lot of sega games.

Anyway, I started playing the game yesterday and man, what an experience. At first I needed to get the hang of the system and figure out how it works. I was like, why the hell do I need so many members in my team, but as you progress, it makes sense. The battles are intense and it kind of reminded me of how an advance wars game would work in 3d.

I play this game with headphones on, and the music's just beaitiful. The orchestrated tunes as you battle just make the battles more epic.

Now I just wanted to express my thoughts on this though at the same time I would like to know how the first game is on the ps3.

Is it better? If so what makes it better and what aspects of the game are better in valkyria 2.

Thanks in advance guys

[SOUP]

The first game's got a bit more of a serious tone.  The graphics are nicer (obviously), and the missions are set up a bit differently.
Instead of having the map of the school, where you pick the different destinations, the first game is set up as one large book.  Each dialogue scene/mission is a little section from this larger book.
There are a lot less missions in the first game, but they're a lot longer, and take place on individual large maps, instead of multiple smaller ones.

Gameplay's pretty much the same between both games though.
I'd say both games are pretty equal in all regards.
The only thing that would come down to a matter of preference is the tone of the games.
From what I've played, the second game has more lighthearted moments, taking place in the school, while the first game is a bit more serious.  Things are starting to get a bit crazy though, so I can't really say for sure.

I unlocked a couple new character classes in the second game, and just realized that each sub job class further splits into another two job classes. Lots of choices.

Also: If your character gets shot down, then touched by the opposing team/sits there 3 turns without getting rescued, they get hospitalized for 3 missions in the new game.  In the old game, they're dead for good if this happens.

[CrazyT]

Thanks for your clearification. I have been watching some trailers and wow, wonderful visuals. I just wish ps3 wasn't so expensive.

Anyway, I have been playing the game a bit today and I did the MARCH story mission after a lot of grinding and free missions.

I don't know if you've allready completed it but damn, this is the first challenging hard mission I really had to struggle with. I actually failed the mission tbh lol.

I don't wanna spoil anything to others reading the forum. But if you know what I mean, is it me sucking at the game or is that mission really hard? because they are wooping my ass XD.

[SOUP]

It seems like any of the Story missions so far are significantly tougher than the side missions.  This being your first Valkyria Chronicles game, you've done pretty well to get that far without running into any problems.

March was pretty tough.  The key thing is to make sure to take care of those supply tanks. It makes the rest of it much easier.
Right now I'm stuck on the April story mission. Big jump in difficulty.  I'm doing a few of the side missions I skipped earlier to gain some EXP. Hopefully figure out how to get myself a Fencer. Those guys are nuts.

[CrazyT]

I'm gonna try it later lol.

There are some other things I still need to get the hang of, like for instance, how do you build bridges? I equiped some kind of bridge building part on my apc/tank or whatever, but still don't know how to use it.

I don't wanna turn this into a faq thread lol so this was my last question.


Other than that i'd reccomend this game to anyone, there are a lot of optional silly stuff you can do, like talking to your team members which could throw of people because it's kind of kiddie, lighthearted, you know the whole basic anime stuff. The main story and battles however are really interesting. To those who haven't played a valkyria game, getting used to the system all at once (at least in vc2) takes an hour or 2. When you master it, that's when the "real" fun starts.

 To be honest I never touched the psp around the house but now with valkyria and psp2 there's going to be a tight schedule

[SOUP]

I haven't really bothered with the bridge building yet, so I can't really say for sure.
I'd imagine one of those context sensitive buttons would pop up (like crouch in front of sandbags, or disable mines, etc...), if you've got the right equipment.

[SOUP]

SEGA's starting to release some of the unlockables on their websie:

http://blogs.sega.com/usa/2010/09/10/va ... on-part-i/

Looks like the DLC is going to be detailed next week.
The only code they've released so far is for Isara (Welkin's sister from the first game), but you can also unlock the same thing by copying a gamesave from the first game onto your PSP.

[Happy Cat]

I really hope to buy this game soon.

[SOUP]

This game gets pretty insane once you reach August. Both in terms of story and difficulty. Picture defending 2 bases from a swarm of Selvaria-esque troops. Insanity.

[CrazyT]

Wow your doing pretty good, i'm still at may right now and with all the content thrown at me, like classmate missions and all the conversations(I can't ignore them lol) the counter is allready on 15 hours.

I sure need to keep up lol  :twisted:

[SOUP]

Don't feel too bad.
I'm just starting October, and the counter's at 31 hours, 45 minutes.
I know what you mean about all the side missions and conversations. So much content in this game, and tons of attention payed to the individual characters, no matter how small they seem to be.

[SOUP]

More content released on the SEGA blog

They've got passwords to unlock a new sticker, and Faldio (from the first game). There's even a hint that they'll be releasing an unlock code for Selvaria soon (again, from the first game).

Here are the two new editions of the paper:



Here's the main site for the content:
http://blogs.sega.com/usa/category/valk ... nicles-ii/

[George]

Awesome. I got the game in today. Sort of sucks that my brother hogged it up all damn day. I only played about 20 minutes. I will try to play as much as possible tomorrow.