Valkyria Chronicles 4

Here's the situation...

In order to get SEGA to make a 5th Valkyria Chronicles game, I'm going to personally John Wick my way into their office whilst carrying a basket of cinnamon rolls. I will then forcefully offer them cinnamon rolls (bribing) and they're not gonna be able to do anything about it. If they don't want to comply with my request about a 5th VC entry, then I will take my leave from the office by jumping out of a window, perfectly landing on a car's roof. Once I get back to my secret laboratory, I'm going to take down the address of that office and send multiple bags of marshmallows to their door until they surrender. They will then invite me back to their office and I will indeed return, dressed in a fine suit and holding a luxury briefcase made of crocodile skin. The briefcase will contain ten bucks as my investment into their next game (I'm broke, spent all my money on the suitcase). We will shake hands in agreement and their CEO will shout: "Squad SEGA, move out!"

By the time the fifth game comes out, I will most likely be an exile somewhere in the northern forests of Norway. This game series is ruining my life and I love it.

A great follow up to a highly underrated franchise that upgraded the artstyle, graphics and gameplay to an entire new level. A system of gameplay that have yet to be replicated anywhere else. This game is a gem.

i have been looking at the reviews for a little bit now some of them shock me. Like to me everything about this game is great. I love everything from the main cast and the side characters to the story and art direction. People are saying the story/characters are garbage, I would have to completely disagree. I would say you get pretty close to the characters and even the side characters. The story is amazing, your pretty much watching friends from when there were kids slowly growing up because of how war changes people. I do got to say though, since it is a anime style game it will have those anime cliche moments but it doesn't ruin the game what so ever as some reviews claim it does, they do it well and gets some laughs from the scenes when necessary. Overall i would have to give the game a solid like 8.5/10 maybe a 9/10. I hope my review makes you give the game a solid chance.

I wasn't expecting Valkyria Chronicles 4 would get made, ever. After:
- a PSP sequel that was too harshly judged,
- a third entry that never made it out of Japan,
- a browser card game that was too early to ride the gacha wave (but served as a pretty good excuse for character designer Raita Honjou to draw more art of the characters, for which reason alone its existence was justified)
- and a spin-off that was Valkyria Chronicles in name only
there didn't seem to be any point in Sega moving forward with the series. That is, of course, until the high early sales of the first game's remaster kicked in, as people uncovered this gem of a series. I'm fairly sure that alone was the impetus for Valkyria Chronicles 4's creation, and I'm thankful for that. Like the first game, Valkyria Chronicles 4 is somewhat flawed, but is a unique and beautiful experience that I highly recommend.
I last played through VC4 in 2020. Four years have passed, and I thought I was no different, until the very end. The anti-war, anti-nuke message of the ending struck a much more powerful chord with me now than it did four years ago. I'm glad to have matured in that way. VC4's plot is actually pretty good: much more grounded, showing heavy influences from European anti-war films, right down to a guy being hung with a signboard saying, "I sold out my country for scraps," around his neck. Amateurs borrow, professionals steal, as they say. It was also one of the few games to make me teary-eyed at a character's death. The localization is pretty good too, with puns aplenty. You can tell the translators had fun working on this game, and I salute them for not bowdlerizing it.
That said, the story does have its weak points. Both the hero and the Valkyria are the dullest of their ilk in the entire series. Claude is a decent protagonist, but he doesn't seem half as memorable as Avan, Kurt or Welkin from previous entries. Despite (and partially due to) her unique design, the Valkyria - Crymaria - is the worst in the series as well, unless you count that chick from the Valkyria Revolution spin-off, which I don't. Crymaria is such a pointless pile of PMS that if she had been removed from the story, it wouldn't have made much difference. All she does is cry and bitch and moan and whinge about being damaged. Go to a therapist, lady. She cries so much her character model has red, puffy eyelids by default. I find it amusing that Selvaria from the first game has such a stranglehold on the series that, despite only appearing for two milliseconds' worth of flashback images in the main campaign of VC4, she recently had yet another figure made of her, being sold under the fourth game's brand. I like her little cap.
On the other hand, the character design and characterization of the femme fatales - the 'girlboss twins' as my friend calls them - is excellent. Raita Honjou is a hentai artist by day, and his character designs straddle this fine line between sexual and grotesque that absolutely fascinates me.
VC4 is the most beautiful-looking game in the series, and is able to simulate battlefields, storms, blizzards and such in a way that the previous entries couldn't - the technology simply wasn't there yet. This game looks absolutely amazing, and is worth checking out for the graphics alone if nothing else. The tank designs, especially in the final levels, are extremely cool too. I love the design of the Ultimate Tanks, with their turrets on backwards. Because they move so fast, I like to imagine their turrets were affixed that way to reduce air resistance. They look backwards and only swing the right way around when they're planning to fire. I just find stuff like this cool.
One small pity is that, halfway through, the story dictates that all levels from then on will be snow levels. After enjoying so many beautiful and varied landscapes in the early game, it's a pity that the second half is so samey. People still harp on about IGN saying that Pokemon game had 'too much water,' but if they had said Valkyria Chronicles 4 had 'too much ice,' I'd wholeheartedly agree.
But hold on, friends and neighbours! I've always waxed poetic about the gameplay of this series. So how is it in VC4? Well, it's very good. If you're a veteran player you'll appreciate the amalgamation of all the positive features of previous games - the always-compelling gameplay improving incrementally throughout the series. However, with VC4 it's apparent that this franchise will never fix its propensity to being cheesed. Nearly every single level in the game can be rendered trivial if you know what you're doing. That is part of why I hold that the PSP games are better gameplay-wise than the console ones: with their divided maps, VC2 and 3 aren't quite as easy to break and beat every level within a couple of turns.
If you're a new player (and VC4 isn't a bad place to start, though I do recommend playing the previous titles anyway) you'll hopefully just be awed by the unique hybrid of real-time and turn-based combat these games have. That was one of the major things that made me fall in love with this series to begin with. So don't even worry about scout-rushing, kitten. There's also a new unit class in this game, the grenadiers. Who are the grenadiers? Just listen to this song and you'll get the gist.
There may never be a Valkyria Chronicles 5. As someone who's loved this series for over a decade, I'm fine with that. If a new game comes out, I'll be happy. If it doesn't, at least it ended without becoming a franchise zombie. VC4 is a gorgeous game with a stirring soundtrack, and an eighth-console-generation experience that I consider a must-play. It tried very hard to amalgamate the gameplay features of every game that preceded it to make it a definitive experience. But it's also flawed, and some flaws are harder to forgive when the series has had 10 years to fix them. Don't let that hold you back from trying it out though. This is a wonderful game.

TLDR: if you played Valkyria Chronicles, this is largely the same, for better or for worse. For me, it's mostly a good thing. Really the only major difference gameplay-wise between VC and VC4 is that you now have artillery units, which are fun additions.
It's a great turn based tactical combat game. There's definitely a learning curve due to the variety of units and mechanics but you really feel like a commander when you pull off some great moves. I love setting up a defensive position with my shocktroopers that just mow down charging enemies. I love getting my lancer behind an enemy tank and shoving a rocket up its ass. And now in VC4, I love drawing a group of enemies together and blasting them with my grenediers. The combat gameplay is truly the highlight of this game and it's really well done. If you are unfamiliar with the series, check it out on YT or pick up VC and try it out first, as VC4 is a little more complicated and builds on VC. That being said, if you only like constant action, this game is not for you as fighting is slow, deliberate and turn based.
My major gripe with VC4 is the same that I had with VC: The story sections are agonizingly slow. In each chapter, you fight usually one battle and then are forced to sit through lots of long cutscenes. And really, only a small fraction are animated cutscenes you can watch. A majority of the story is just dialogue on screen read by the voice actors. The story itself is pretty good but in true anime fashion, two minutes of content is stretched out over 45 minutes as characters do their required anime gasps, monologues and ramble on and on about the most banal things.
It's not just during the story sections either, but also in the required process of using the menues to upgrade your soldiers and equipment. You want to buy 5 improvements to your weapons? You're going to sit through Miles saying the same two lines of dialogue over and over with every button push. What should just take 30 seconds to click a few things takes 10-15 minutes when it's all said and done. I just wanted to get back to the action. It's enough that after I finish a battle, I would love to go on to the next but sometimes I just save my game and come back later because I'm not in the mood to sit through everything again. You can somewhat speed through by pressing continue and reading the text but there is just so much of it.
I do like the characters and the setting, which seems to be a mostly real life based WW2 inspired world but with some (fantasy?) (steampunky?) elements. Even the world map matches real life Europe to a high degree. The art, music and just environment is charming and I am not even super into anime. But the world is beautiful both in the world building and art style.
Overall, this is definitely a must play if you are into turn-based or tactical combat. Just be prepared to sink as much time into watching wayyyy too drawn out cutscenes and frustrating menues as you do fighting battles.

Everything about the first game you loved (moving little doodz around on a map, rochambeau combat, tanks and telenovela romance subplots) but amplified. Eminently replayable. Learning to cheese every encounter is hilarious. The DLC addons are fun and add to being able to cheese the NG+ mode. There's something ridiculously funny about having TWO invincible one-shotters on your team with maxxed-out doodz going up against early game levels in an attempt to one-turn them.

I love this game as much as Super Mario World and it's a cold cryin' shame that Sega has forsaken us and won't give us another sequel.

First of all, please ignore Sega’s wtf naming sense: you don’t have to know anything about VC2 or VC3 (both PSP-only titles) to play and enjoy VC4, since it really is a sequel to VC1. It’s also a full sequel only gameplay-wise, while story-wise they happen in parallel, so you can even start here if, for some reason, this installment specifically captured your attention (though, since both games are equally worth playing, I’d say most people might as well start at VC1).
Having cleared that up, this is a great continuation that iteratively builds upon the original in all the right ways. You get a new unit class that distinctly changes the battlefield, bigger maps and much more varied victory conditions. At times it can appear overly safe, clearly not having courage or budget to stray too far from the winning formula, but considering the quality of the said formula (and since they aren’t exactly churning these games out every 2-3 years like a few other JRPG franchises), this is hardly an issue.
Just like in VC1 or perhaps even more, the tactical gameplay is smart and well-balanced. On one hand, it always makes you think, calling for different approaches on different missions, inviting to not waste a single action so you can reliably get good ranks and rewards. On the other hand, it never turns into a strict puzzle with a single solution, leaving enough leeway to recover from mistakes and even options to straight-up cheese through stuff if you’re so inclined.
Conveniently, you can save/load at any point during a mission, though I’d recommend everyone not to rely on it too much, since situations where you really mess up but then still somehow manage to turn it around usually lead to the most memorable battles. It also helps that "instant defeat" conditions got toned down considerably (even losing the main tank isn’t a game over now).
The story has some rough patches, but for 90% of the time it’s a well-paced tale that mixes anime-style JRPG storytelling with the more cynical realities of war. The main characters are a likeable, honest, moral bunch, striving to win without compromising their ideals while muddier decision-making is left to the higher-ups. Simultaneously, the game isn’t afraid to sour their victories or remind that war is hell, quite brutally so (yet never enough to outright break them). The antagonists too are presented in good detail, even when they go off the deep end, leading to a balanced narrative about how one might or might not stay human at the times of conflict.
…up until the final stretch, at least, where it forces a big, crappy, "damned if you do" decision onto the main character, making him anguish and mentally give up on the golden ending (instead of insisting on it despite the odds like a big damn JRPG hero would do) – only to get saved from the worst of it at the very end anyway. Coupled with some excessive screaming and a few unneeded bait-and-switch moments, this manages to sour the late-game impression, but thankfully it’s not enough to ruin the whole story, and I guess it deserves credit for drawing bold parallels with sensitive historical topics (starring Riley Miller as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the waifu edition).
In any case, the best narrative improvement isn’t even related to the main characters but to the side characters instead, and that is squad missions: unlockable chapters that pair your secondary teammates into groups of three and tell short stories about their circumstances. Despite having simple, archetype-based characterization, they do a wonderful job at fleshing out personalities and sneak in some surprisingly earnest, humane moments into brief cutscenes. Since they unlock only if you use at least one of the involved party members enough during the battles, I’d highly recommend to regularly rotate your roster, because almost every single one of those chapters is worth seeing.
There’s also an impressive amount of post-game content that doesn’t feel like a repetitive grind, especially if you include all DLC. Skirmishes smartly alternate between enemy-heavy, "go all out" scenarios and limiting, puzzle-like scenarios, while extra scenes continue to flesh out the characters unobtrusively.
My other recommendation would be to play with the original voices, because this is awesome work even by the Japanese VA scene’s standards. You get Kazuya Nakai, the person behind One Piece’s Zoro and Gintama’s Hijikata, sounding more expressive at times than Hijikata did during his retorts. You also get the silky smooth voice of Show Hayami, whom some JRPG fans might know as Umio from Neptunia VII (funnily enough, he also specializes in underwater stuff here).
The visuals likely need no extra praise, carrying on with the same eye-pleasing watercolor style and showcasing solid graphic design like stylish uniforms or expressive biography-page poses (though the limited budget rears its head here and there as well).
Overall, this is certainly a worthy title to spend your time with. You can find a number of much less generous reviews or impressions online, particularly in regards to the story and its tropes (probably because the game attracts some stricter realism-oriented audience due to the war themes), but honestly, by the genre’s standards this is nothing; maybe just a tiny extra suspension of disbelief is needed.