Valkyria Revolution - PlayStation 4

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Product Specifications

Taking place in an alternate world based on the European era of industrialization, players will band together with Jutland’s elite soldiers as they fight against the merciless Ruzi Empire.
Valkyria Revolution eschews the original series’ traditional turn-based strategy for a new hybrid of fast paced real-time combat and tactical acumen across battlefields.
The world of Valkyria Revolution is brought to life by the unique visual style provided by a new graphical engine and a vibrant soundtrack composed by the celebrated Yasunori Mitsuda.
The powerful drama can be experienced in its original Japanese voice acting with English subtitles or in a brand-new English dub

Product Description

Platform:PlayStation 4 The Valkyria, the embodiment of death, is returning to the battlefield in Valkyria Revolution, and players will have to do-and sacrifice-whatever is necessary to liberate their homeland. With an engaging story full of political intrigue, a battle system that mixes real-time combat and tactical strategy, a gorgeous visual style, and more, the game will immerse players into the frontlines of a desperate war. In the wake of a revolution, Jutland’s elite soldiers, the Vanargand, must band together to defeat the Ruzi Empire and stop death itself-the Valkyria. This grizzled anti-Valkyria squad is equipped with advanced mana weaponry and has the powerful ability to wield ragnite spells to combat this terrifying threat. The unit is comprised of soldiers who have a high affinity for ragnite, and even Jutland’s own Princess Ophelia has joined the ranks. The princess carries the utmost love for her country and has answered the call of duty to liberate those who are suffering from the Ruzi’s tyranny. However, Amleth Gronkjaer, the commanding officer of Vanargand, hides a terrible secret. Is he friend or foe to the country he has sworn to protect?.

Product Reviews

A Game That is the Very Definition of Mediocre

In 2008, Valkyria Chronicles launched and though it was critically praised for it’s innovation and style, it initially didn’t sell that well because it came out among several other high profile games at the time. Despite that, the game garnered an impressive cult following and eventually found its audience. Valkyria Chronicles II was released on the PSP to low sales but, again, found its audience. It’s not uncommon to run into fans of Valkyria Chronicles now. Needless to say, when Valkyria Revolutions was announced, it only seemed right to pick up what was being advertised as a spinoff to Valkyria Chronicles. Unfortunately, the game is the very definition of mediocre. It’s got moments that keep it from being a bad game, but it doesn’t have enough of them to make it a good game either. The various problems with the game will seem like nitpicks until you realize just how pervasive they are.Revolutions is a game that focuses on Jutland. A land that has been at odds with Ruzhien. The nation of Jutland decides to fight for their own freedom from Ruzhien. The story is framed as being told by a professor, but centers on the character of Amleth more than anyone, who is out for revenge. The sounds like the most basic story setup in the world, but Valkyria Revolutions actually has a pretty good and rewarding story. It has political intrigue, drama and betrayal. The characters are often charming and relatable. It’s just a shame the story isn’t presented very well at all. The story itself is good, but the presentation lacks in so many areas it might be difficult to tell you’re experience what amounts to a pretty good story.To begin, the voice acting is a little shifty. Various characters speak in a monotonous tone, but what really makes it head scratching is how often the characters pause unexpectedly in dialog when delivering lines. This makes tense situations lack intensity, emotional situations lack emotion and often you get the sense that the only reason these abrupt pauses happen in dialog is because the game is loading the next line or cut. Several of the games cutscenes are also interrupted by loading screens in areas which a PS4 game should not have to tax itself with load times. Where as most games find a way to transition smoothly from one scene to another, Valkyria Revolutions always has to load. The load times themselves are not bad, but the frequency with which the game must load is a problem. It interrupts the flow of an otherwise good story and often times stops the momentum the story has going dead in its tracks. This includes moments where it might have to load a scene being shown from a different angle. In one instance I saw my characters talking, then the game loaded, showed a panning shot, loaded again, showed the villains talk for a few minutes, loaded again, back to my characters, loaded again, showed my characters from a different angle, loaded again and we saw other characters talking. That’s five loading screens in a span of only five minutes. Where as most games opt to use fade ins and fade outs to mask loading times, Valkyria Revolutions does no such thing. It never uses any creative techniques to mask its load times and there are SEVERAL cutscenes throughout the game. This is a game that, cinematically at least, lacks a lot of polish.This is also seen in how characters move and animate in cutscenes as well. They just aren’t lively in anyway. Their animations look stiff, most of them assume only one pose during scenes, and the awkward pauses in dialog make these moments even more noticeable. And for a game that has so many scenes to show us, there’s a strange lack of background music in many of them. If there was more background music in cutscenes I might not have even noticed the awkward pauses in dialog. There’s a gem of a story hidden in Valkyria Revolutions but it’s marred by these glaring faults. Again, however, it is more how pervasive these faults are more so than them just appearing. If the game loaded less frequently, the “Now Loading…” screen wouldn’t be bothersome. If there was background music, the dead air in cutscenes would hardly bother me either. The game’s story begs to be taken too seriously for the pervasiveness of these issues. The worst part, though, is that because of how sluggish and awkward dialog is presented you WILL be reading the dialog faster than the characters talk. But you can’t skip lines of dialog if you read faster. Unlike say… Tales of Berseria, Valkyria Revolutions has you watching every last moment, but they’re presented so stifly you’ll wish the game had more gameplay to break up the cutscenes or at the very least that the cutscenes had more energy to them. I would surely not mind so many cutscenes if they were well voiced, well animated and had some heart to them. There are genuinely good moments in Valkyria Revolutions story, but they’re few and far between largely because the presentation is so shoddy.One would think the gameplay would more than make up for this, but not exactly. Rather than utilize the innovative tactical combat of Valkyria Chronicles, Revolutions opts for a more Dynasty Warriors like approach. You mostly run around hacking and slashing at your enemies on the field. You can use magic, or switch between your AI characters, but largely you will be running around the field hacking and slashing. The game will hardly present a challenge, though. Most enemies won’t see you coming, and more than that, most of them hardly do any noticeable damage. Most missions are easily completed in a matter of minutes thanks to enemy AI that doesn’t put up a fight. While encounters with bosses can be difficult, there isn’t much in the way of strategy here. You can cast magic, throw grenades or shoot guns, but all of these options feel rather ineffective when compared to your melee weapon. Guns in particular feel useless because they neither do as much damage, nor are as accurate as your melee weapons. The limited supply of ammo you have in them will ensure you don’t use them as much, but using them is the only time the gameplay comes close to its brethren. While magic and grenades are far more useful, there just aren’t many moments when combat calls for their use. Likewise, while guns aren’t very powerful, magic and grenades are. While those are also in limited supply, it’s not hard to make use out of them.So there is variety in the gameplay, but the game doesn’t do a lot to encourage players to play that differently. Dynasty Warriors can get away with this approach because it’s fast paced and arcade like in its style. Valkyria Revolution, however, is fairly sluggish in its gameplay, and is a spinoff from a genre that has often required a far more meticulous approach. Slow paced gameplay can most certainly work in games. The original Valkyria Chronicles or any tactical RPG shows just how well slow and methodical can work. Valkyria Revolutions is slow, but it is most certainly not methodical. But even combat is also interrupted due to dreaded load times. You’ll have to go to certain objective points only for the flow of gameplay to be broken up by a “now loading” screen, a cutscene and a “now loading” screen to return to your characters. Even Dynasty Warriors figured out a way to mask the loading and make the transition feel smooth as far back as its second installment.Technologically, Valkyria Revolutions isn’t a great game. This even pertains to its visuals. I can appreciate the art style, but a lot of the environments are rather bland and empty. It has an interesting style, but it doesn’t do much with it, and that’s a shame. A game need not be a graphical powerhouse to be engaging visually, but it would be nice to see developers really utilize the style they’ve got to really bring the world they’ve created to life. Valkyria Revolutions rarely does this. Like everything else, it’s not really bad, but it is far less pervasive than the problems with the presentation of its story. You’ll settle in to the game’s visuals and not really mind so much. Likewise, when you actually get to hear music it’s a great soundtrack. If there’s one thing Valkyria Revolutions provides that I have no criticisms of it’s the soundtrack. It’s a beautiful soundtrack. While there isn’t music heard much during cutscenes, it plays a lot in battle and it’s great music.It’s hard to judge Valkyria Revolution. It may seem like it falls short in comparison to the Valkyria Chronicles series, but really, it just falls short on its own. Not because it’s an actively bad game–it isn’t. But it is pretty close to being the definition of mediocre. There is a lot of potential here for a good game, it just never lives up to it. There’s so much the game does that is never really bad, you just get the sense that there’s little reason they couldn’t have done it better. The story in the game is good, but it’s presented in such a sloppy manner you may not realize that it’s good. The gameplay is competent, but sluggish and doesn’t encourage the player to play in a variety of ways. Much of what Valkyria Revolutions does is competent… it could just be better.

Ya buy this game when its super cheap basically no strategy required

Ya buy this game when its super cheap basically no strategy required, basically bad guys are too easy to kill and bosses can 2 shot you and are annoying to kill not hard but just annoying like have to spam attacks for 15 minutes annoying. Anyway the story is the only great thing about this game the art if they would have stuck to first would have been good but they did not so everyone kind of looks like dolls and the Valkyrie they chose basically is a stick with boobs that are so gigantic its awkward

great mechanics bad cut scenes

The game has a great battle system but the cut scenes are horrendous. The former Valkaria chronicles had better cut scenes for an older game. Most of the cut scenes have very little animations motion. It does have good battle mechanics but poor cut scenes.

Great addition to the series!!

I’ve only played a couple hours of the game so far but I’m definitely loving the new direction the Valkyria series is taking. I say go into the game with an open mind the battle system and story are completely different from the original but that is not a bad thing, it in its own way makes this game different and unique, a great edition to the series.

Ruined the game

Why remove the best part of a Valkyria game? Take out the turn-based strategy, and you have removed the heart of the game. The rest is just a mess. Can’t really think of a worse way to screw up a franchise, than to mess with a near perfect combat system. What a disappointment. Shows just how game developers listen to their fans these days, as in, not at all. Waste of money this one.

Mistakes were made

I went into this game knowing it was a vastly different experience to the main series. I went into it with an open mind and didn’t quite know what to expect.Apparently I should have expected garbage.A quick synopsis of my opinions on this:-Overabundance of cutscenes that spend a long time not saying or explaining anything-A really poorly paced plot-Incredibly brain-dead game play where enemies are only a threat to your poor AI-controlled squad-An abundance of background mechanics (crafting, spells, etc) that pretend to add depth to the mundane game play-A poor cast, especially the main leadsSkip this whether you’re a fan of the series or not. I can’t recommend this to anyone, unless you like spending $40 for the included soundtrack.

I love VC. I was hoping for a spinoff that …

I love VC. I was hoping for a spinoff that was more action oriented. Be careful what you wish for. As someone who likes hack n slash & ARPGs this game manages to fail at both. Do you like a billion cut scenes because you I hope you do as this game is LOADED with them. Remember the Sonic 06 load screens? It’s liek that but instead of load screens..it’s cut scenes! When you do finally play..it’s dull as dirt. It doesn’t control well. Enemies are sparse at times. Music is dull. Visually dull unlike VC. Forget this game even exists. Go get Persona 5,Nier Automata,FFXV,DQ Heroes 2 any one of those instead of this.

Eeehhh… Wait for a sale if you really want it, pass on it if you’re unsure.

It has a good story hiding behind an insufferable amount of exceedingly long, dreadfully boring cutscenes.

Five Stars

Great

NO vanaguard edition

The price keep lowering wait until 10 if you want it…. i bought it at 19 and im kinda salty that in less than 1 week its even lower

Five Stars

Product in great condition. Little bit disappointed there is no manual. Great game series.

Showed up in excellent condition brand new as advertised

Showed up in excellent condition brand new as advertised, game itself wasn’t as good as expected, enjoyed playing it but seems really Repetitive lost interest very quickly

A good game as far as battle mechanics go

A good game as far as battle mechanics go. Movement speed is a little slow for my tastes but doesn’t totally take away from the battle experience.

It kinda feels like I’m watching a movie more then I’m playing a …

It kinda feels like I’m watching a movie more then I’m playing a game for like the first 5 hours.

Two Stars

Bad acting and story line. New gameplay style for the sequel, which is boring, confusing, and not fun.

Selvaria not Selvaria–wait–Maria?

A poorly executed RTS using the good name of an actually good game or i.e. beating a perfectly good stallion to death and then kicking it because it refuses to run.