Valkyria Chronicles it came out in 2008, undeservedly passed on the sly given the little publicity and a very niche genre, it is well known that in Europe, turn-based strategic games do not always have the attention they deserve at the expense of the actual action.
To make up for at least the first cause of the lack of success, his remastered has arrived on the PlayStation 4, with a release of information much higher than the previous release, passing this as an appetizer in the sequel in the works and expected in Japan for this year. Will this version feel the weight of the years?
Gaul under siege
We are in 1935 in a 'Europe (obviously totally fictitious) where there is a division into two opposing blocs: East with the Imperial Federation, while to the West there is the Atlantic Alliance, an agglomeration of democratic states. As in almost every war, the reason for the tension that exists between the factions is a question of resources, in this case of Ragnite, a mineral essential to the functioning of the world's technology.
With the advancement of the empire led by Maximillian, the second great war broke out, passing through the invasion of little Gaul. Our "protagonist", Welkin Gunther, a student son of a great general and destined for great deeds to save his country, is involved in this sudden onslaught.
The story continues through many small cutscenes that can be selected in a book menu, to highlight the fact that this is an old story told, with a succession of emotions and increasingly spectacular discoveries, like mysterious powers against which we will be totally helpless and the search of weapons capable of overwhelming the power of the Empire.
During the story it is essential to upgrade your units and equipment continuously, relying often and willingly on single skirmishes to earn money and experience, since the difficulty of the game is sometimes cruel able to block us several hours to do certain missions several times.
It is usually possible to be engaged in a mission even for over 30-40 minutes and we may lose at the first mistake, so attention is needed and above all, as mentioned above, adequate preparation if not greater than that required for completion.
Tactics is everything
We are talking about a strategic title with a very marked "tactics" vein, obviously let's start from the beginning, the battle is divided into rounds, first we will act alone and then we will change the opponent and so on.
In our turn we have a certain number of CPs, points represented by medals at the top of the screen that correspond to the number of actions that can be used before having to pass the baton.
We can take possession of one of our units on the game map by spending a point or even two in the case of larger units such as tanks.
From that moment we will be visually on the battlefield interpreting the character we have chosen, who can shoot only once and with only one weapon, primary or secondary, being able to move only for a certain distance before completely exhausting the fatigue preventing us from continue further.
A very interesting component is the shooting phase, in fact, aiming with our weapon towards an enemy we will see how many shots we can shoot him down, this number varies depending on the selected body area, in fact the more we tend to aim towards the weak point, the more easily we will be able to kill our opponents with little difficulty , but pay attention to how we move!
If we enter the visual field of an opposing unit it will start shooting at us, defending itself even before responding to our attack, so the approach tactic is all to avoid barbine figures and a notable decifit for the continuation of the fight.
To complete the battle in our favor we must complete the objectives communicated at the beginning of it, usually involving the conquest of an enemy base or the killing of a specific unit, obviously there are also conditions of defeat, such as the death of one of the protagonists or the conquest of our base. Sometimes we will even have a maximum turn limit to finish the stage before automatically receiving defeat.
Finally I would like to talk about the classes, our beloved soldiers are in fact divided into five distinct classes: Scout, Shocktrooper, Lancer, Engineer and Sniper.
Scouts are the most mobile soldiers able to travel long distances on the battlefield, they are equipped with a repeater rifle and a grenade, ideal for exploring the map and eliminating enemies at medium-short range.
The Shocktrooper instead are close combat units being equipped with a machine gun and little mobility, the same thing for the Lancers with the only difference in range, being our anti-tank unit thanks to their spear, even the Snipers can move very little. , but they don't need it given their sniper rifle, potentially lethal against ground units.
Finally, the Engineers, support units for our tanks, being able to repair them, being otherwise very similar to the Scouts in terms of paraphernalia and characteristics per se.
The weight of the years is felt
The technical sector has remained unchanged from the PC version released a few years ago, with the difference of a slightly stronger aliasing in some phases of the game, certainly better in any case than the first version on PlayStation 3, thanks to the switch to 1080p against the previous 720p and a better fluidity.
Despite this, it must be said that the design is simply poetic and fantastic, with really well done cell shading and inspired patterns, creating a totally new atmosphere for you to enjoy.
As for the audio we can only remain absolutely satisfied, the soundtracks are truly noteworthy and the sound effects of the battle, despite being a basically fantasy world, are definitely credible and well audible at any time.
Final comment
Valkyria Chronicles Remastered is a simply wonderful title, there is no doubt about it, the original work was already so years ago and we sincerely hope that this time it will be different, that the title will be given one more chance to demonstrate what it is capable of giving, that is emotion and many hours of fun, with a well-made tactical management and able to satisfy lovers of the genre.
It remains an excellent appetizer waiting for the next chapter of the series that we can not do other than wait with trepidation and in the meantime delight ourselves with a title well above the average of those released in recent years, thanks also to a more unique than rare genre.
