Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3 Preview

It seems like the War-Strategy-RPG is picking up in popularity. Apparently Sega’s Valkyria Chronicles (??????????) was originally developed for the XBox, but switched to the Playstation 3. For whatever reason this has stirred up some controversy in the gaming community. If I had to venture a guess as to why the developers made this decision, I would say it’s because Atlus has a title that looks eerily similar for the XBox.

Valkyria Chronicles is about a fictional version of 1935 Europe which is divided by war. The red portion of the map is the East European Imperial Alliance, the white portion is the Atlantic Federation, and the tiny blue spot is the country of Gallia.

Gallia is rich with a substance called Ragnite, which can be used to increase the power of weaponry, explosives, and tanks, making it a valuable substance in a war-torn world. The tiny country soon finds itself being pushed around by the East European Imperial Alliance (EEIA), but it will find little help from the Atlantic Federation, which is already engaged in heated combat with the EEIA. The player assumes the role of a group of Gallian nationalists who decide to take up arms and defend themselves from the intruding EEIA.

The battle system is called BLITZ (Battle of Live Tactical Zones), and consists of two modes to make battles feel epic, yet keep the player involved. First the player views an overhead map with symbols representing the different kinds of units in battle. This is called the Command Mode, and allows the player to consider his/her actions based on the locations of all units in combat, and the varying terrain of the battlefield.

The player can then zoom in on a friendly unit and give it commands via the Action Mode. This mode is basically real-time but with some Action-RPG elements.

Actions are restricted to the amount of AP a character has. Performing actions such as moving or firing a gun consumes AP, and getting shot consumes HP.

A video with some combat scenes (Sorry I could only find it in Spanish)

There are 3 Main units:

• Infantry Units
  • Sniper Rifle
  • Machine Gun
  • Assault Rifle
• Tanks
• Anti-Tank Units

Each unit is weak to another: the Infantry units are weak to Tank fire, and Tanks are weak to Anti-Tank units, which are weak to Infantry. Balancing an army will be important to success in battle.

There is not a concrete release date for Valkyria Chronicles, but it has been officially announced for Fall of this year. The game’s Japanese website can be found here.