Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

[NSW, PS4] Valkyria Chronicles 4

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    #16
    It's 40GB because...I don't really know. Maybe 4k pre-rendered movies? The Japanese voice pack on the Switch (not included on the cart and available as a separate download) is between around 500GB IIRC, and that comes with 5.1 mixing.

    Anyway, you where looking for a physical edition on PC? Even the limited physical edition of Homeworld Remaster came with a Steam code and no physical media with the game on it.

    Comment


      #17
      Game completed. Unlike VC1 here you don't have to restart the story campaign to retry in getting an A in all missions, loading the clear savefile will bring you back to a fully completed campaign you can replay at will with some extras. I still have to dip into most of them but you have hard skirmish missions, a cenotaph (I might know what it does but still have to see it), extra weapons, armour, tank and ship parts to built, and the infirmary.
      The infirmary is...a shop. I don't know why they used the infirmary for this portion of the game, but whatever. In the infirmary you can buy things like higher level cap for all classes, random weapons (really, does every single game need an effin' gacha system nowadays?), and more. What you need to shop in the infirmary are renown points, gathered by clearing missions with high ranks. As I had already cleared all skirmishes available before the endgame with A ranks and of the 20+ story missions only two had B ranks, I reached the infirmary with 99999 points, capping it and probably losing some. Oh well.
      It's nice to see Sega thought about post-game content rather than simply having players replay the campaign and aim for the higher rank. Upon loading the clear savefile for the first time the game also tells that the more you play the more you'll unlock, so maybe there's more content than just new skirmishes and weapons. I know I have to unlock more Squad Stories because I've focused on a small number of characters in the campaign, so I'll probably swap some of the veterans for people without kills. And I really hope hard skirmishes are, well...hard, because normal skirmishes are boring as heck.

      One of VC4's biggest problems for me is how easy it is, but then again I went through VC1 four times and other VC games at least once (yes, I'm counting Valkyria Revolution here) so maybe newcomers will have a harder time with the game. There's no better example of this than the skirmishes: all of them are a one-turn affair where you just order a scout to run for the enemy's camp, often without a shot being fired. Entrenched enemies? APC to the rescue. Even when the game throws in AT guns capable of firing while you move, unless you expose a tank's radiator (one-shot weak spot) you'll be fine. This unfortunately goes for the story campaign as well: tanks do get damaged, but never enough to be a serious problem.
      Story mode starts strong but then holds back good missions for way too long; the first 3 and last 6 or so chapters are great, but the rest is boring. Like skirmishes, the problem lies in most missions having as objective to conquer the enemy's base camp, and VC4 gives you a lot of tools to do that in 1 or 2 turns in every instance. Being it the APC, scouts with movement and defense boosts, the ability for scout to lead other infantry units thus doubling other scout's range, or map design, capturing the enemy camp is simply way too easy.
      The game shines when objectives are different from capturing camps. Some of the later missions are either against strong, durable boss-type enemies, races against time, defence missions, or assaults against an apparently endless waves of enemies. This is where the game gets challenging, a bit unfair (like tanks sniping out crouching infantry with their main guns at long range), but more reminiscent of what made me like the first VC so much.
      It's almost as if VC4 is a victory lap for veternas of the series, one you play because you like the system, the game is still fun, and because it's not too hard you can't really back down from it. I like that VC4 moved away from really exotic tech (somewhat), but in hindsight there should have been more of that to make missions more varied and challenging. Or, even without exotic tech, have much more complex maps, most missions in VC4 are set in kinda flat and uninteresting terrain, the only restriction in moving around being fixed emplacements (al lot of times easily bypassed) or grenadiers.

      The mission design also reflects badly on the new abilities: the APC, the leader system, and ship orders. Starting with the latter, I've used ship orders twice, to see how effective they are. As you might have guessed, after that I've never touched them. I mean, a radar sweep to reveal enemies is useful, but why wasting a command point with that when I can use a scout for the same purpose and kill/damage enemies in the process?
      The leader system allows to veteran soldiers to team up with up to two other soldiers and move as a group for one action. You can only do this once per turn, but it's pretty devastating having a scout lead stormtroopers, lancers, or even other scouts to vantage positions across the map. Couple this with an APC that almost matches scouts in mobility, and maps are essentially yours to conquer at your leisure.
      This enhaced movement ability is almost needed in a couple of missions to counter bosses, and there should have been more like that, and not just where they let you go around the map with impunity.

      Despite all I've said, Valkryia Chronicles 4 is still a VC game, and I've quite enjoyed my time with it and its story mode, whether it was the main campaign or squad stories. Not so much with skirmishes, they could have just been an experience and money reward the moment you unlock them. It's just that I was pumped up for this game and the first missions established complex missions objectives that made me excited about how cool the rest of the campaign would be, instead there's a rather large lull in it where you just need to conquer enemy camps and call it a day. And again, new players might find all missions more challenging.
      I'd say that overall VC4 is just slighty worse than VC1, my favourite in the series, but maybe the extra story squads and endgame content will bring it to the same level. I don't think it'll surpass it due to the aforementioned weaknesses in mission design though.

      I've played VC4 on the Switch in both docked and handheld more, and while the presentation isn't up to the PS4 (on which I've played the Japanese demo), the game runs well. I recall only three points where the game would slow down in handheld mode only, but I really wish terrain and tank textures would be more defined. Handheld mode lacks FSAA and it's used very sparingly (if at all) in docked mode, producing some ugly jaggies, but I like this approach more than Ys VIII's wild dynamic resolution. The art direction shines through whatever technical limitations there might be though, just like VC1 (VC2 and 3, being on the PSP have a largely inferior graphical impact).
      The Japanese voice pack is a free download on the Switch, it's not included in the cart, a solution Sega already used for Shining Resonance; I don't particularly like this (especially when the Japanese pack was first bugged and wouldn't show up in the game menu, requiring to download it again after Sega published a corrected version), but I can understand Sega not wanting to go for larger carts for what could probably be a GB or less.

      I've left story and characters for last.
      Claude, the male lead, is a tad more likeable and relatable to Welkin, but just a tad. Probably because the VC4 crew goes through darker events than the often happy-go-lucky crew and story in VC1. I keep mentioning VC1 because it's most probably what the larger percentage of people played and the game with the better characters.
      Riley, the female lead, is more or less on the same level as Alicia. She starts off rather bland but redeems herself in the end. I also find the relationship between her, Claude, and the rest of the cast better written and explored than, in fact, any of the other games. VC3 had two main heroines and I've always felt the relationship in there was a bit rushed as developers had to split events in two and were chosen by the player.
      Other characters include Raz and Kai, and those aren't bad characters either. Kai ends up a bit clichéed but she's fine, while Raz ends being my favourite character after starting off as a bit insufferable.
      The rest of the crew in VC4 is oh-so-much better than the other games. It's the usual ensemble of very quirky characters, but it doesn't go as far as VC3 or restrained/clichéed like VC2, and the squad stories (short missions featuring three squadmates) really do a good job in portraing the secondary cast. Surely better than the dry logbook entries of VC1.
      The main bad guys are more interesting, story-wise, than any other other bad guy in the series but not as memorable as others. I can't go into spoiler territory in talking about them, but they are fine in here, although the final boss' presence is never really felt until the very end and you might say that the two named enemies you fight the most get their story arc solved, but maybe aren't explored that much. Or at least, that's the impression I get about Crymaria, the local Valkyria. Selveria had possibly the same screen time as her, maybe less, but she had a much more powerful presence.

      What really sets apart VC4 from all other games is how not everything is black and white. Sure all games had honourable enemies and the Empire wasn't depicted as a simple bloodthirsty state, but it was still an invader and Gallia was always painted as the small good guy that can do no wrong.
      But in VC4 you don't play as a Gallian unit, you play as a Federation unit, and the Federation already proved themselves to be as sleazy as the Empire should the need arise. This creates a huge moral grey area where characters have to swim through, resulting in a lot of drama. Well-staged drama that never gets too cheesy or rhetorical, and I've quite enjoyed those scenes.

      Valkyria Chronicles 4 gets my recommendation, despite its somewhat boring mission design for a large portion of the story campaign. I truly hope there will be a VC5 and that Sega will correct these flaws. And, why not, an HD port of VC2 and VC3.

      Comment


        #18
        Good points briareos, pretty much agree with everything there.

        The APC is so good, you're right. I was really looking forward to the Edelweiss DLC so I can get that tank in my squad, but I probably wouldn't use it much 'cause it would mean not having the APC on the feild heh. I like the new command movement system too, it doesn't feel too OP when some missions basically require it. It made me use Lancers a bit more for sure, I used to rock only Largo in VC1 as he could do everything. Way more versatile now.

        I also got A's in everything before the end, kinda. I had to repeat the mission where the bombs where being parachuted in a few times. The final boss took a few annoying runs to get A on, til I found out how to one shot the entire thing in one go lol.

        The devs have shown they don't know how to write characters again, with Riley. Much like Rosey from VC1, who spent a good half of that game being a racist idiot, that you're supposed to like, Riley spends even more time than that

        busting Claudes balls, and still ends up being the love interest. Claude deserves better!

        the main love interest should of been Jean Matrix. fyi if you didn't know, Jean Matrix is a play on Arnold Schwarzenegger's John Matrix character from the movie Commando. During her squad story,

        she quotes the character a lot

        . Therefor, she is best waifu forever.

        Comment


          #19
          Have you unlocked the true epilogue? I've just done that. I think the requirements are

          finish the game once (of course), clear the first three hard skirmished, purchase the "A Steamy Ceasefire" episode from the Infirmary, and watch all of the new main and sub episodes; you'll need to play a hard version of the final mission (can still be cheesed), and then you have the final page of the diary.


          Even after that I think I miss one sub-episode in chapter 18, but I'm not entirely sure. Now everything I have to do is to complete all hard skirmishes (the first three have been rather straightforward and not that hard), grind EXP/money, and unlock all squad stories. I don't know how much that will take, but I'm pleased about the quantity of post-game content.

          Comment


            #20
            I think we're at the same part, I did the first 4 hard skirmishes, and finished the final battle on hard too. Nearly missed the extra cutscenes cause I skipped them, but a trophy popped so I figured I missed something and rewatched it heh. It's good to have that 1 CP back.

            Now that we have access to the whole development trees for each weapon, I just realised how strong the power rifles are (right side of the tree). 7 shots instead of 5 and a pretty decent damage boost compared to the other types. They can even tear up soldiers behind sandbags. Also made me a dedicated anti tank Grenadier, which proved pretty damn useful in the final battle.

            Comment


              #21
              Booted this up yesterday having bought it on Steam.

              Discovered it has Denuvo DRM. Anyone have experience with this? I've read it can damage SSD, which I have. Thankfully, while I needed to load the game while online, it seems to place a token on my computer which allows later offline start-up. Definitely not great - what if their servers go down in years to come?

              Comment


                #22
                Then it will be patched out, like many titles did before. Kinda surprised Sega haven't done that already, a lot of publishers patch out Denuvo once sales fall down a certain threshold.

                Comment


                  #23
                  I've been enjoying this. Reached the Chapter 4b, and it's basically the first game, but with a few extra bits and new missions.

                  I'm glad the they streamlined the classes from VC2. There was so many of them, and you had to evolve them once they reached a specific level. It all got a bit messy.

                  I still think the first is the masterpiece of the series.

                  A lot of reviewers online criticise the story in VC1, saying it's more relatable in VC4. I disagree. VC1 had likeable, believable characters. I grew to know my squad well. VC4 everyone is pure anime arsehole - all tropes and cliches. I don't like any of them.

                  My only gripe is how long the cut-scenes are. It feels like 45 minutes of talking heads, followed by 15 minutes of gameplay as I ace a map in two turns or less.

                  Comment

                  Working...
                  X