Valkyria Chronicles 4

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

Such and underrated game and series. Don't let it's anime-themed characters turn you off. This is a very addictive strategy, turn-based tactical shooting game that rewards your planning and thinking 3 turns ahead (like chess). Easy to pickup and play with many different ways of approaching missions. (Just don't expect the best narrative in the world.)

An awesome military-themed turn-based tactics game, with lite RPG elements. This fourth entry of the Valkyria Chronicles franchise refines the gameplay formula and is a noticeable improvement, compared to the first game.
It's not an easy game, especially on the final levels, and you practically must make mandatory use of Orders and specialized anti-tank or anti-personnel equipment or you'll get destroyed... especially against bosses which frankly, have too much HP, and they can be a bit annoying to fight. You'll face off against a certain boss a total of four times, which can be tiring.
Like in the first game, you command and manage a platoon of soldiers. You pick and choose who you want to have from your available roster, who will be deployed on missions or remain in reserve. Each squaddie is unique, has their quirks and people they get along with (or not) which will assist/hinder you during missions. Take care of your squadmates, since they can permanently die if you don't rescue them in time when they are critically injured.
The anime-like story can be a bit corny at times, but there are some really cool moments, especially near the end. The squad stories allow you to play side missions involving up to three of your squadmates as the protagonists, which gives them much needed characterization and will improve their stats (potentials) upon completion. They're tons of fun and will make you bond with your squaddies, which lack the spotlight in the main campaign.
Overall, if you like turn-based tactical gameplay, it's recommended you pick it up, especially if it's on sale. Here's hoping for a sequel, or at least a remake of the third entry in the series.