Valkyria Chronicles 2

[saturn-gamer]

As has been said on 1ups ATB podcast a couple of times, the PSP is the new Saturn, loads of great games coming out but largely ignored in the west. I have this pre-ordered so hope to get it soon as it sounds great. That said I'm not sure when I'll get to play it as I'm currently into Ys Seven, which I've not even seen a first play thread for here.

Pretty much. PSP obliterated the competition in Japan for this week, yet again. PSP is in its twilight over here, but if you ask me has the best upcoming releases out of all systems. Its very much like the Saturn in 1998; truly magnificent games.

WKC Prequel
Birth by sleep
Ace Combat X2
Last Ranker
Parasite Eve 3
Tactics Ogre

Peace Walker stands as one of the finest games I've played this year. Persona 3 I haven't even bought yet. Ys 7 is supposed to be really good too. If there is no First play thread -> make it

[teddymeow]

The presentation of this is great! The character portraits are very nice an the music sounds fantastic.

Having the full tutorial helps with getting to grips with the game - I'm sure there's a couple of bits that weren't mentioned in the demo that I needed.

Very glad I picked this up. It's a shame that the PSP has been so horribly overlooked despite some great software recently. I played the Everybody's Tennis demo the other day and that's another must buy PSP title having loved the Golf titles.

[Sketcz]

OK, so I tried a whole bunch of online places and NO ONE will post to me in France. Can some kind soul please buy me a copy in exchange for money directly into their bank account? I bank with Barclays, but live in France, and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to get this.

Obviously I would cover your postage.

I made a wanted topic:

http://ntsc-uk.domino.org/showthread.php?t=105421

[Kaladron]

Found these unlock codes on gameFAQs. They work a treat. Just remember to use block caps.

Blitz Logo Sticker VWUYNJQ8HGSVXR7J
Edy's Squad CR6BG1A9LYQKB6WJ
SEGA Logo Sticker 6RK45S59F7U2JLTD

[BearBoy]

OK, so I tried a whole bunch of online places and NO ONE will post to me in France.

Where have you tried? Amazon, HMV, Zavvi, Play etc all ship games to France. For Amazon you'll have to make sure it's actually supplied by Amazon and not a Marketplace order "fulfilled by Amazon". For Play you need to select Euros as your currency.

[Sketcz]

Where have you tried? Amazon, HMV, Zavvi, Play etc all ship games to France.

GAME cancelled my order 4 times despite assuring me everything was fine (no idea why).

Zavvi claimed to be out of stock last time I checked.

I'm using a British bank card and PLAY wanted payment in Euros, which would have resulted in me getting a conversion charge (it's a UK card for goodness sake!). Plus the price is higher in Euro than it is in pounds.

I might try HMV or Amazon, but I have this weird set-up where I have a UK card registered to a French address. It's probably just easier to get a UK resident to post it to me, and I do a bank transfer to their account (I have a UK account). I can pay in advance! Assuming you're a well known forumite who I trust.

[MisterBubbles]

Its awesome buy it, who's up for co-op as well?

[briareos_kerensky]

Played with VC2 for a bit thanks to a long car trip.
Despite the school setting and the character design that had gone a long way from Raita's work for the original Valkyria Chronicles, I'm thoroughly enjoying the game.
Scouts still look the best overall class, with great movement and a precise rifle with great accuracy...probably they are a bit fragile but they are still great camp-snatchers and with segmented maps their usefulness is even greater than before...hopefully advanced missions will require some heavy firepower.
I also hope that armored techs will find their place, so far I'm struggling to see situations where only they can save the day.
So far the game looks even more grind-intensive than VC1. You have to collect experience, money and class-specific grades to have characters switch to advanced jobs.

[Sketcz]

This topic is quiet... Is no one playing this?

I've gotten to June and am now ignoring main missions to grind out each character's personal mission - as they pop up I cycle through my squad so a new one pops up. Jamil the tech is cool - "I don't listen to you, I listen to the dice!" Love the blonde Shocktrooper prince's British voice too - sally forth men! Vicky is infuriating. She's like an amalgamation of all the worst cliched stereotypes the Japanese have about indigenous Afrikan people: incompetent savage who breaks everything. Worse still, her traits result in her giving a LOWER ragnaid boost than normal, since she believes the weak and injured mustn't be helped. All in all, an infuriating and embarrassing character to feature. On a more positive note, Sophia so far fits into the classical dominatrix archetype game developers love so much - expect fan art of her in latex thigh highs at some point.

Generally I don't like how you're rewarded for repeatedly using the same characters, but you're expected to then switch to someone else to unlock their private missions. Once a character ends up super powered, he's kind of redundant since he won't yield any more missions.

All my shocktroopers and lancers are done now, leaving me with basically 8 engineers to grind out solo. Why the hell are there so many? They were the most useless class in VC1, and are even more useless now that they don't carry grenades and can't disarm mines. Basically they're like utterly crap scouts - and their ragnaid ability is useless since scout veterans can carry ragnaid anyway.

There appears to be more default engineers than any other class.

I still think is one of the top 5 games on the PSP, and essential for fans of the first or strategy games, but the grinding and unbalanced number of class characters is bothersome.

I'm actually enjoying the plot in this now that various characters are having interesting personal moments - then again I also think VC1's story and characterisation are some of the best this generation. Hoho, and I'm not even sorry about it.


EDIT:
I like how you can see poster's review scores for this. Kaladron gave it a 7!

[briareos_kerensky]

I am, but not as much as I did for Valkyria one...am I wrong or the game starts slower than the PS3 original?
Up to February all battles have been infantry skirmishes: I solved them all by (ab)using Scouts, throwing in a couple of Stormtroopers for the odd credits the missions might give. Enemy tanks are usually bypassed and only once I had the need to take one out with a Lancer.
And not once I had to use the tank outside its training mission, skipping its deployment altogether. There are a couple of introductory maps that should take advantage of the tank's newfound flexibility, but spending two CPs to lay a bridge is means I can't move two scouts...which will often reach their destination anyway, clearing more enemies in the process.

Hopefully advanced missions will be more interesting and will actually make use of each class...without friendly tanks deployed Engineers and Armored Techs are useless.

[hush]

Am sorry to say i've not had time to play this hopeing to sink some time into this and PSP2 over the weekend

[Fuddle]

i just got up to June.
its very good, i just dont really like the way you upgrade the characters. it could do with putting all the upgrade bits in a collective pot, rather than assigned to individuals. its a bit annoying that i'm purposefully using worse characters than i need to.
i'm tempted to just ignore the character specific missions for now, and plough through the story with my main team.

hopefully we wont see too much delay between japan/west release dates for the third game, as it looks even better!

[Sketcz]

bunch of stuff

You soon get an APC which takes 1 CP, can carry 2 people, and has an awesome flamethrower turret. Also, if you take out enemy aces, sometime around April or May, you get the plans for a "light tank" which only uses one CP. It can't hold much, but I think I managed to put the most powerful cannon on it (1200 against armour), and the bridge building kit, and it's basically like a tank killing version of Metal Slug, or the chubby tank from Dominion Tank Police.

Around May it starts getting tricky to acquire A ranks, and June has some genuinely challenging missions in the dessert. I can't wait to get a tank sniper - will come in mighty handy!

It does take a long while, but wait until the first Baldren mission. I was determined to A rank it first time, and it took me a good afternoon of strategising and experimentation to nail it.

[teddymeow]

This, for me, is perfect "before bedtime" gaming much like
I found Prof Layton to be.

I can get a couple of missions done while laying in bed waiting for the tiredness to hit properly.

Only up to March but it truly is amazing stuff.

[briareos_kerensky]

You soon get an APC which takes 1 CP, can carry <snip>chubby tank from Dominion Tank Police.

Bonaparte.

Already got the APC, I think that and the standard tank body come together, and it's the tank used in the training mission. I was pretty amazed of its firepower against other tanks, but right now I prefer infantry operations.

Just got to March; February's story mission was fun, kinda surprising to see enemy Lancers nailing my troops at long range...but not as much as Colette discovering one of her traits, feeble attack. She was nicely positioned behind a tank and she skips the attack. Oh the joys of VC characters and their crazy traits.