I have long held a deep love for strategy role playing games, particularly Japanese strategy role-playing games. This love sprouted back in 2008 when I first happened to glance at a game shelf and pick up a copy of the then-newly released Valkyria Chronicles for PlayStation 3. Intrigued by the CANVAS art-style and in desperate need for a new tactical role-playing game to play, it seemed as if it was a match made in heaven. This was possibly the best random game purchase I have made in my life.

While it came out relatively quietly, Valkyria Chronicles grew to be a massive hit. It had it all. The combat was responsive, controlled and demanding. The AI was intelligent, particularly on higher difficulties, but fair. The level-design was unique with each level bringing its own particular twist. The characters were lovable but most importantly individual. The voice-acting helped a great deal in this factor as well. The art-style is timeless and fantastic. Even the newly-announced Valkyria Chronicles HD Remaster for PlayStation 4 hasn’t really updated the graphics. It seemed as if Valkyria Chronicles and developer SEGA with it, could do no wrong.

This was all to change in 2010 however, with the release of the sequel, Valkyria Chronicles II on PlayStation Portable. I struggle to understand what happened within the two years between these releases but nothing seems to justify the choice to change from the ultimately superior console to the handheld. This wouldn’t usually have been a problem however by downgrading, it removed a lot of the charm that had made the original so endearing in the first place. There was a fine balance in the original game between cartoonish graphics and heavy-hitting European war themes. The second game was rid of this line entirely. Set in a high school environment, it seemed more pre-occupied with developing the puberty blues of each character rather than emphasising upon the bleakness of the war they were fighting. The first game stood out here in its brilliant display of both the light-hearted side of things as well as its appreciation of the horrors of the war. Valkyria Chronicles II’s characters seem to be cheap cardboard cut-outs, the graphics had taken a significant hit to the point of the art-style being almost entirely unrecognisable and there were multiple uses of the same level within the game. A seemingly minor complaint but definitely frustrating when you’re half-way through your fourth level within the exact same lifeless arena. However, for all the aspects of it I didn’t like, it would be hard to deny the fact that Valkyria Chronicles II revamped the combat system for the better. Introducing new classes and an upgrade system, it felt like the logical successor to the first game’s combat system. My only wish was that they had implemented it in a game where you cared about the characters you were upgrading, like in Valkyria Chronicles.

It would seem to be common sense then that Valkyria Chronicles II didn’t do as well as the first. This is true, particularly due to the fact that a portion of diehard fans of the original took it upon themselves to boycott the PSP game, in the hope that it would force SEGA’s hand to begin work on a PS3 sequel instead. The lack of success for Valkyria Chronicles II would come back to have major repercussions however.

Valkyria Chronicles III released in 2011, for the PlayStation Portable, only in Japan. Due to low sales of II in the West, developers SEGA and Media.Vision decided not to localise the third game in the Valkyria series. I didn’t really know what to think about this turn of events at first. Released so soon after the second game, most of the assets were re-used leading to a very similar aesthetic which was something I wasn’t too pleased about. However, Valkyria Chronicles III seemed to resolve the one major problem I had with the second game, the theming. Placed alongside the conflict of the original, the game was set to have a darker tone to it as it dealt with the realities of death and war. The characters themselves seemed designed around this as well, each of them being seen as ‘expendable’. From what I have seen and read of the conversations between characters, they seem alive and unique again. The combat system from II has been re-vamped yet again to allow for new possibilities but it is essentially the game that I had wanted II to be from the very beginning. Albeit still on the inferior handheld console. That was why, I was particularly heart-broken by the decision not to localise the game as I felt like III was the one that could have brought a lot of fans back into the fold. It seemed like all hope was lost for a localisation of the only PSP game that I still wanted almost six years after the first release of the handheld console.

Five years have since passed since then. A fan translation for the Extra Edition of Valkyria Chronicles III was released in 2014 but with no easy, reliable way to purchase the Japanese edition in order to patch it, the problem for many remains unsolved.

However, a new hope has appeared over the horizon. Valkyria Chronicles has recently re-surged in popularity. The release of a port to PC as well as a Remastered PlayStation 4 game should hopefully allow SEGA to test the waters of the West once more to see if there’s a fan-base for their games. A particular point of interest comes in their new announcement of Valkyria Azure Revolution, a game in the Valkyria series but not part of the Chronicles sequence. This experimentation by the developers is promising to see as it shows a willingness to try new things, potentially leading to a willingness to re-try old things.

It has been eight years since the first release of Valkyria Chronicles and it seems as if since then, the series has been pulling further and further away from its roots. The past two years have seen a great drive for a renewal of SEGA’s creation. While there has been no further discussion as to whether a remastered or localised version of Valkyria Chronicles III will see its way to the rest of the world, I can sit in desperate hope that the Valkyria series of games gets the legacy it deserves and is enjoyed by gamers for years to come.