Valkyria Chronicles 4

Of the mainline Valkyria Chronicles games, VC4 is by far my favorite one.
VC1 is a classic, but also very simple gameplay-wise. Especially considering scouts are so over powered. I actually recommend watching the anime adaptation of VC1 over playing the game as the anime gives the characters so much more depth.
VC2 is the worst of the mainline games by a wide margin. Very odd choice to make a PSP sequel to a PS3 game. Overall its very generic, even having a school setting. It is the only game in the series to NOT take place during the Second Europan War.
VC3 is the darkest of the 4 games. You play as the Gallian black ops which are made up of condemned criminals basically being forced to go on suicide missions. It shows Gallia in a very different light. Unfortunately its the only game to not have an English release, so you have to emulate it with the fan translation patch.
VC4 is the most well written of the games in terms of characters. The added gameplay mechanics and larger scale battles really do wonders cause this is the first time we are actually playing on the front line of this war. Its the longest of the 4 games and has an admittedly slow start, but once it gets going, its non-stop enjoyment.

Pretty nice game. It's held back by its ranking system, though.
If you want to get higher ranks, you need to finish missions in the fewest turns possible. That means that you have to rush objectives while ignoring most enemies. Not particularly fun :C

Preface this by saying that I played the original Valkyria Chronicles many years ago on PS3, and also played this one on my PS4 a good many years ago. I own it on my PS4, Switch, and on Steam. Just getting around to playing it again and decided to leave a review on it because I feel I have more than enough hours from the years of playing it on and off to make a few quick generalized takes on it. There was little to no thought to how this all flows, and I typed as I thought of things to say, so I'm sorry for any redundancy in advance. I don't usually write these, but I have a real soft spot for this game, so it deserved me wasting a quick ten minutes to type this up.
In a nutshell, this game is anime WW2 with some "modern" twists, like single-man portable mortars, APCs, and other things I won't get into too much. If anime tropes or style of story telling make you roll your eyes, you will have a hard time enjoying the story and majority of its cutscenes. I can't act like this isn't an anime game, because it very much is, and it's not trying to pretend it isn't in the slightest.
VC4 is not ground breaking, as VC1 existed over ten years ago already and literally invented the system this game is based on... Turn based, infantry-focused WW2 with light elements of tactics and decision making. And usually a tank you can control. But VC4 isn't trying to be ground breaking. It's just an easy to enjoy ride, much like VC1, but with a new story and new characters, who are all very lovable for the most part. So long as you don't try to take VC4 too seriously, you're likely to enjoy it.
With all of that said, mechanically, VC4 feels like a much fresher, more streamlined VC1, with some minor quality of life and overall refinement/slight balance changes. That means it took a tried and generally favorable formula, and +1'd it. The game still suffers from some issues that were in VC1 that veteran players will be familiar with, but for the most part, the foundation makes for an enjoyable game all the same, as the formula was always novel and unique.
Like mentioned before, the game tries to tell a serious story, which it sometimes succeeds in, while sprinkling in the usual anime tropes to help ease the tension between story beats. To an extent, this is present in the gameplay mechanics to a degree. Much like how I feel about the story, if you don't try to take the game too seriously, it's a solid gameplay loop, with a familiar mechanics system that can begin to feel very samey, but missions and circumstances around them are always unique, keeping the gameplay loop fresh. The missions usually reflect what is going on in the story well, usually centered around otherwise decent twists and surprises and character growths. Nothing ever seems to get too stale or overstay its welcome, even on some of the longer missions.
With all that said, the game is 100% weeb trash, if I haven't made that clear enough by now. Much like anyone familiar with the life cycle of an anime fan, you will ultimately realize all anime is trash, but it's enjoyable trash, if you choose to enjoy it and not be a total square who can't enjoy things. This game is no different. It's the box mac and cheese of video games. Very much something you can turn on and jump right into with little to understand outside of fundamental mechanics, something that is easy to consume, low effort to play (generally) and not really need to use your head too much to enjoy it, especially if you play on easy.
All and all, a splendid time for those who either played the original Valkyria Chronicles on PS3, or if you enjoy video games with anime aesthetic and think you'll enjoy a turn based strategy game with an action-oriented twist. The game really does climax around the two thirds of the way in, and it's an absolute blast leading up to it and the resolution after. I'll always love this game, even if it's ultimately anime trash by my otherwise much more mature standards these days.

Absolutelly love this game. While I prefer story in VC1, this one is considerably more polished.
I really recommend to try this unique tactical shooter, there isn't anything like this on the market.

Pros and cons are down below) If you want to see a (spoiler free) video review, this game is the 3d (out of 3) that I discuss:
Pros:
1. One of the best games ever, on god. A literal gem. I played through the 1st part when I was much younger and that game still lives rent free in my mind to this day. Story is absolutely brilliant, you can't even imagine how many times it made me feel the feels, cry and celebrate with the characters. My fav part is that every unit that you have and can use in a fight is a person with their own personality traits and friends who they feel more comfortable to fight alongside with. Moreover, if you use a character enough, they reach rank "corporal" which unlocks their respective squad story that makes them grow and develop new character traits or change their previous flaws into something positive. So, every single unit goes through their own little adventure (if you use them often enough to promote to corporal). Absolutely amazing. It's ultimately a game about war but for me it's a game about friendship, love, sacrifices, bravery and what people mean to each other. It also has magic just so you know). Story length is about my playthrough time ~ 60h long but there are also reasons to replay fights and there's plenty of post game content as well.
2. Style. I loved the anime vintag-y style, I think it works perfectly for such game. It doesn't take away from the heavy topics but overall keeps the experience light-hearted, wonderful stylistic choice inmho. Every single character looks great, some models are absolutely amazing. It's just a joy to play as them and to look at the cutscenes and story fragments. Complete edition also has an obligatory anime beach episode if you wanted to know XD
3. Combat. SO MUCH FUN! It's a turn based game. Each unit can move and attack during their action and you have limited amount of actions during your turn. The less actions it takes you to beat the level, the higher the grade and rewards that you get. IF you wanna see more, I showcase stuff a little in my vid, so you can get a better idea. It's a strategy game but it doesn't require you to be a strategic mastermind to have fun and be able to beat the game. It's perfectly balanced, hard enough to be challenging to get a rank A and easy enough to make it possible to enjoy the story without try harding the fights (most of them at least).
4. Pacing. The game managed to keep introducing something new throughout my 60h of playtime to keep fights interesting. It never got boring.
Cons:
1. Main villains of the story are poorly written. (2 of them have the weirdest motivations ever, the rest are great). I get that "they're just crazy" is a good explanation but is a very weak motivation for a good story. Made the ending very anticlimactic imho. I feel like the game should have ended 1-2 fights sooner than it did. But it's just my personal opinion.
2. 2 boss fights (not the same one that I talked about in the previous point) felt very puzzl-y. This game is supposed to be a strategy yet 2 particular boss fights that are happening back to back and were meant to be fun and fresh and unique are actually just puzzles that you have to solve by doing a specific thing in a specific order in a specific amount of turns or you gonna start losing units and will lose. These fights were so annoying, they deserve a place in a "cons" list. On a positive note, you can always look up a playthrough of the fights on YouTube and repeat those specific step to get rank A without any issue.
3. If you dislike standart anime overreacting overacting overgasping etc, then there's plenty of that in this game. I don't mind it that much but sometimes it just made my eyes roll. Still, I don't think it's such a big deal. I'm not an anime fan and it didn't take away from the story a bit. It's still SUCH A BRILLIANT STORY!!! imho of course
Overall we got 8.5 Crymarias out of 10 (to be fair) but it's a 10 out of 10 in my heart!
Thank you for reading my review <3 Hope you have a nice day and fun gaming!

Overall game is good, story is ok-ish.
Still going to recommend it but there's one big gripe: Your evaluation of a stage (A, B, C) is based on the number of turns it takes to capture the enemy's base camp. There are many large scale battles where you are "punished" with a lower evaluation if you don't try to optimize your run by rushing through the most efficient route to capture the enemy camp in the least number of turns possible. Not to mention many camps are barely guarded with only 1 scout. It's your main camp people, station more troops!
I want to go ham, destroying all the troops and tanks on the map with my flashiest Bollywood moves and be rewarded for it, not slapped with a D in the face (oops)!
In that sense, many covert operation stages give me more thrills. You need to solve the puzzle with limited resources, which is fine. You just can't apply the same puzzle-solving formula to large battlefields where there should be other ways to enjoy them.

Great entry level turn-based game that is easy to learn and yet can be pretty hard as you go deeper in the story. I highly recommend it if you enjoyed the first Valkyria Chronicles game since it pretty much uses the same recipe and adds some more ingredients that all make it better. Many aspects of VC that may have been problematic have been addressed in VC4. However this also means that the game isn't as groundbreaking as its predecessor and some of its features, such as the UI, look dated and still crippled with the old console mindset.
The menus are not super fun to go through and you go through them very frequently. There's a lot of little things that force you to wait a few extra seconds whenever you want to do something like upgrading your equipment or vehicles, for example, since there are animations that you can't skip completely. You will constantly press the ESC key to go faster, but even then, it's quite annoying. You always end up with your mouse cursor at the middle of the screen since it goes back there whenever you go in some other menu. They're little details, sure, and honestly I don't understand how some negative reviews are strictly about that, because it's not THAT big of a deal, but it's annoying enough to be worth mentioning.
Gameplay wise it's a very fun game with many mechanics that work well together. You have a limited amount of action points to spend on each round and it's up to you to decide how to use them. You can use them to move and make your units attack or give them orders that grant them buffs. Managing your AP, especially in the first rounds, is a key element towards victory. Each level are puzzle-like due to their designs, but you can solve those puzzles differently on most occasions. The units look cool and are cool to control. Each "job" has its own uses in particular situations. You gain levels in an RPG-like manner and buy yourself upgrades over time and get very powerful, allowing you to revisit earlier levels and raise hell. The tanks are really fun to use and I'm glad they cut the cost ( in VC1 moving a tank would cost 2 AP, now it's just 1 AP ).
Unfortunately the AI in this game is still the same as VC1. It's very stupid. At the start of the missions, they do scripted movements and actions which usually make sense, but as the rounds pile up and the computer has to rely on its own interpretation of the battlefield, it starts making idiotic and nonsensical choices. You will very quickly realize that if you played against a human adversary, you wouldn't have it as easy as you do against this very poor AI. Sometimes however, it can still catch you off-guard if you are careless. Still, I wish they could make a new VC game with multiplayer because there is a huge potential there, in my opinion, for PVE and PVP missions with other players that would make the game more challenging and add a lot of replay value.
Between missions you will get cutscenes which portray part of the story that can't be told with combat, and in-between those you'll get casual cutscenes in which your characters exchange banter. It can look out of place at first glance but when you look back at it later you realize this is what makes Valkyria Chronicle stand out from the other titles. However, you have to know that many cutscenes are light novel-ish because they don't have many animations, and animations are copy/pasted more often than in Bioware games.
The story is really cool and quite original. VC is notorious for giving you a squad full of anime tropes and VC4 is no exception. Each soldier has their own little anime personality. However they all have a decent backstory and the superb voice acting for every single character adds a lot to their depth and you end up really liking many of them which makes you want to bring them in missions. The main characters are well designed as usual and their camaraderie is contagious. The antagonists are great as well and have very cool designs, worthy of any great anime out there.
Of course, anybody who is familiar with Valkyria Chronicles knows it's a funny game for all sorts of reasons. Your squad could drop the A bomb on a city and then bake a cake, eat and laugh a couple of hours later. They're all absolute psychopaths when you think about the swift mood changes the group constantly goes through. But that's just hilarious and protects the game franchise's lighthearted spirit, which is quite unique in the gaming world when it comes down to war games. A lot of jokes are straight out childish and dumb as hell, but if you don't judge too much and enjoy the cringe, you'll enjoy it.
Overall the game is super fun the vast majority of the time. It has its frustrating moments. I think this franchise is ready for a reboot, with a more up-to-date UI and perhaps a deeper gameplay experience, with multiplayer, computer generated maps, etc.. It's a shame this franchise is not as popular as some other games because I always had a soft spot for it. I like how colorful and cheerful it is, and how it's not aiming for extreme violence like so many war games out there. I suggest you give it a try if you feel like you could enjoy it. In my opinion, the negative reviews are very harsh on this game which is very well polished except for its lackluster AI.
Steam Deck: Excellent Steam Deck game since it fits perfectly with your Deck's controls due to its console gameplay mindset. The graphics are not too heavy on the battery, allowing you to play for some time without bothering to recharge. One of the best Steam Deck games out there based on my experience.