Valkyria Chronicles 4

Story is only about 80% of the original's in terms of how great it is but it makes up for it with 120% of the gameplay. And not to say the story is bad, it's just a little over ambitious. I will keep buying it for friends until I have other people to talk about the series with, I'm looking at you Johnny.
Sega pls keep making the games, as much as I love John Yakuza I need my WWII Fire Emblem more it's my favorite series

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 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.

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.

Valkyria Chronicles 4 definitely deserves its Very Positive Steam rating. It has the same great gameplay as the first game, but with alot more stuff that makes it better and a more challenging story that gets really hype and crazy.
The gameplay is just better. Tanks costing only one action point, APCs that can carry squad members around, the ability to form squads that can move together mortars, and much larger maps make for more interesting missions with alot more options. Scouts are still important, but they cannot be used to just win battles by sneaking around all of the enemies like in the previous game. Winning a battle in a few turns to get an A-rank requires alot more planning and actually using a variety of units and orders. The game is also significantly longer and has better menus that make replaying battles and using DLC content much easier.
The story of the game is also great. It still has a cast full of anime tropes like the first game, but it also has better fleshed out character arcs for more characters and uses characters to explore more challenging ideas. It was very hard to predict what would happen in a good way.
Hopefully the series gets another game one day because it deserves it.

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 game like no other I've played. It mixes visual novel and RTS somehow?? Polished to the extreme. The menus are easy to use, the voice acting is superb (if not a tad cringy at times), and the art style? I'm totally swooned by the watercolor look.