Valkyria Revolution Is More Revolting Than Revolutionary

The strategy RPG franchise, that is the Valkyria series, has a rather odd history. Valkyria Chronicles was first released back on the Playstation 3 but from there on was quickly condemned to the PSP and then only Japan. The series got a new breath of freshness when the original game was rereleased on both the Playstation 4 and also on PC which lead to a, hopeful, new lease of life on the franchise. It’s sad to say that the new lease of life with the Valkyria series is Valkyria Revolution.

Set in an alternate, alternate history, that’s an alternate history to the already alternate history the series is known for, where a mineral known as ragnite has led to a large industrial revolution within the small nation of Jutland. It has also led to the use of magical powers within the military, that’s how alternate this alternate, alternate history is. These magical powers are used by the troops of the Anti-Valkyria Squad, or the Vanargand, whom you are in charge of, and almost exclusively by them. The Valkyria are no longer some mythical force that was thought to bring devastation and catastrophe. Instead, they’re fully real and used by the fake Russians, the Ruzi Empire, to take over fake Europe.

Jutland fight back and start a war of liberation against the grand Ruzi empire in a show of surprising military force for such a small nation. So starts the campaign that puts you against the Ruzi forces as you penetrate deeper and deeper into Ruzi lands, taking them over as you go. The extra layer in this story is that the whole war is orchestrated by a small number of individuals who have made sure to place themselves in various organizations so as to influence the flow of war, all in the name of revenge against fake Russia. Now while the story seems like it has some interesting trains of thought for a game about war, the handling is where the game almost immediately begins to fall down.

While the game repeatedly tries to bring up interesting plot developments, such as the toll on a country’s morale that war brings, Valkyria Revolution will rapidly avoid addressing them in any meaningful way. A common occurrence is that someone will ask whether there is a difference between a war of liberation and invasion, to which there is never an answer given, and this’ll apparently make everyone in the country sad, sad enough to turn the whole town grey. Like someone had such a bad night that they did the opposite of painting the town red. This bout of sadness is almost fixed as rapidly as it came because one of the characters spent about 10 minutes talking non-stop about politics and found some way of wording things that meant the people of Jutland no longer had to feel guilty about sending thousands of their own to their deaths all in a bid to acquire more land and kill a lot of Ruzians. Raisins?

Cut-scenes are aplenty and not even that, they’re incredibly long and rarely animated. The limitations of the Vita come through, Valkyria Revolution also came out on Playstation Vita to appease all two owners of the console, as most lengthy sections of discussion become a group of motionless characters looking at one another, with not even their mouth gums flapping, primarily as you’ll be staring at the back of the speaker’s skull as everyone looks on, emotionless. The once beautiful cell-shaded franchise has become bland and generic in graphics, but with a terrible canvas filter over the entire game. They’re also so woefully boring, characters descend deep into the politics and laws of war, contemplating all the ways to control a war, but with all the excitement of the Galactic Federation’s Senate. Which is none.

So while the hours of tedium that are found in the cut-scenes and story are a total write off, what about the gameplay? It’s also pretty dire. Don’t come looking to Valkyria Revoltuion if you’re a big fan of the original tactical RPG gameplay seen in Valkyria Chronicles. Instead, the wonderful system that revolved around positioning your small squad amongst bushes and sand bags has been replaced with a system that involves running into a large crowd of enemies and swinging your giant glowing sword at them all, and they die instantly. There are a few mechanics that remain of its predecessors; you can still use a multitude of guns and grenades as well as ducking behind cover or around a corner. The only issue is that every single one of these have little use or purpose when swinging your giant sword is a lot easier than rummaging through a menu.

You can use magic as well which ranges from something as simple as a flame sword strike to dropping actual meteorites on your foes, they say war never changes, but I think Valkyria Revolution has made war change for the worse. When you’ve been given magical powers that have the same effects and then some of a gun or grenade I find it hard to see a reason to ever touch that whole side of the ability wheel.

Missions rapidly become repetitive and it’s not just because a large chunk of the game is based around doing the exact same mission over and over. Story missions are forgettable and as generic as the many “Free Missions”, the extra and constantly generated content that allows you to just never stop playing the game and grind your life away. Most missions will involve a simple process of running along the story path and swinging your big sword at everything that comes your way. There’s rarely anything that feels like a particularly unique layout or one where the map’s layout plays any part on how you’ll go about running head first into the enemy and taking them all down with your repetitive sword swings.

Valkyria Revolution is a poor direction for the series to go in, it has so little to do with the previous games that it could have been named anything else and we’d all have been spared the pain. It operates more like a threadbare Dynasty Warriors game, but without even the satisfaction that’s to be seen in the flashy combos and over the top moves. The game is jam packed with needless filler, from the story and cut-scenes, which all go on far too long, all the way down to the gameplay and missions, as each mission is long and repetitive and there are even missions within the story that are completely throw away and act as nothing more than padding.

I cannot not recommend this game enough. Valkyria Revolution was a pain to complete and does nothing to try and win you over to liking it, unless you like giant anime boobs, but even then there are barely enough to redeem this game. I just hope that Sega don’t kill off the entire franchise.



(Check out some gameplay as well, hoo boy)