Valkyria Chronicles 4

The Atlantic Federation has launched a massive counter-offensive against the East Europan Imperial Alliance, driving its armies back as it makes a determined push against the enemy capital of Schwartzgrad. Squad E of the Ranger Corps is part of the attack, known as Operation Northern Cross. Early successes are followed by difficult reversals, and the revelation of a second, even more dangerous Federation offensive. Squad E is pushed to the limit as the Federation seeks to end the Second Europan War before it can become a global, bloodier conflict.

Valkyria Chronicles was released in 2008 and was a modest success on the PlayStation 3 console. The publishers, Sega, decided to continue the franchise on handheld, with Valkyria Chronicles 2 and 3 being exclusive to the PSP (and Valkyria Chronicles 3 never being released outside of Japan). The franchise remained a low-seller, and may have faded into obscurity if a PC port of the original Valkyria Chronicles had not been a surprise massive success in 2014. This led to the release of a spin-off game set in a completely different universe, the ill-conceived Valkyria Revolution and, finally last year, Valkyria Chronicles 4.

Set alongside and after the original game and before the events of Valkyria Chronicles 2 and 3, VC4 is effectively the second game in the series, as well as being the closest in tone, style, interface and controls to the original Valkyria Chronicles, so it can be played safely without any knowledge of the other games in the franchise.

The dog is the best character in the game. Alas, he is not a controllable character.

As with the original, the game is set during the Second Europan War and sees the player control a squad of soldiers in the fight against the Empire. You have a large roster of soldiers to choose your main squad from, consisting of important story-critical characters (who can't die, but sometimes losing them mid-battle can result in an instant fail) and other recruits who can be killed permanently. In Valkyria Chronicles 4 these side-characters are much more important, with many of them having their own solo or group missions which will not trigger if any of them fall or aren't levelled up, so both preserving your troops and using a wider variety of them is encouraged.

As before your troops fall into several classes: Scouts can move huge distances but do relatively little damage, although once you upgrade them they can be formidable; Engineers can move almost as far but are less effective in battle, and are better-used for resupplying troops with ammo, repairing tanks and healing; Lancers are hardy anti-tank troops; Snipers can take out enemies at extreme range; and Tanks are, well, tanks, formidable machines with great anti-personnel and anti-armour capabilities but tend to attract the fire of every enemy on the map. To this roster this game adds an Armoured Personnel Carrier (which can pick up troops and deposit them elsewhere on the map) and the Grenadier, a formidable class which can target enemies at range with indirect fire, and can specialise in anti-personnel or anti-armour tech trees.

The game does continue the original's veritable obsession with quality baked goods.

On each turn you have a number of ability points. You can move each character a set distance and then either fire their weapon, throw a grenade, heal or use a special ability. Classes vary wildly in their capabilities: Snipers can't move far but make up for this with lethal range, whilst Scouts can move halfway across most maps in one go, but are less capable in combat until they've upgraded their weapons and skills. Characters can move more than once per turn, but on their second turn they have half the ability points of their first turn, then half again and so on. You can trigger reaction fire from enemies if you get too close, so you have to be wary of where you're moving troops to, what enemies they may encounter and if there is cover they can use (which dramatically reduces damage).

Valkyria Chronicles 4 improves on the first game by re-balancing the classes, so units like Shocktroopers whose low movement points made them relatively unappealing are now much more versatile, whilst upgraded Scouts can no longer win entire missions by themselves in the late game stage, which was an issue in the first title. Otherwise, Valkyria Chronicles 4 plays exactly like the first game, down to even using mostly the same music, sound effects, UI and controls. I must admit it's a bit odd playing a game released in 2019 to find it being a virtual clone of one released in 2008. Even the usual difference you'd expect - much better graphics - isn't really the case because the Valkyria Chronicles series uses a highly stylised, painting-like style for its art which means the two games do look very similar.

As with the original game, missions become vastly less interesting when the super-powered glowing women from beyond the dawn of time who can one-shot your entire army show up.

The game also plays the same off the battlefield. You have a headquarters where you can research new technology, unlock new characters, train up classes using experience points gained in battle and read the news about how the war is going on the larger scale. Before each mission there are also numerous, numerous cut scenes expanding on the plot and story. I'd have more time for these if they didn't use somewhat stilted and repetitive animations for the characters and you didn't have to manually hit enter after every line of dialogue. This wasn't too bad in the original game, which lasted for a breezy 35 hours with only a moderate amount of dialogue before each battle. In Valkyria Chronicles 4 the game lasts for around 60 hours and there is vastly more dialogue before each battle and sometimes after. There's also far more side-missions in VC4 (optional missions which are not part of the main storyline), more character stories and more skirmishes of differing difficulty tiers. Valkyria Chronicles 4 is a much longer game than the original, which is good in some respects, but it also massively expands the amount of tedious cut scenes you have to sit through.

It doesn't help that the writing and characterisation in Valkyria Chronicles 4 is a big step back from the original. The new characters are mostly walking archetypes with little or no actual character (lead hero Claude is an absolute blank slate with no discernible character traits other than "good leader"), or are horrendous cliches (Raz is appallingly badly-written throughout the game, and his character's eventual fate seems based on the mistaken idea that he is likeable at that moment). The secondary cast of optional recruits is a lot better fleshed-out than in the original game, which is good, but when the main cast is so bland and they're the people that 90% of the game and it's stories revolve around, it's a big problem.

A cameo appearance by the cast of the original Valkyria Chronicles doesn't exactly help this game stand out from its shadow.

It also doesn't help that VC4 leans into the worst excesses of anime tropes, which the original definitely didn't do. Apart from some questionable uniform choices, the original game was pretty good in depicting a mixed-gender unit fighting in a decidedly grim conflict which raised questions about bigotry and xenophobia (through the uncomfortable but relatively sensitively-handled parallels between the Holocaust and the treatment of the in-game Darcsen race, a storyline that the fourth game barely even acknowledges). VC4, on the other hand, is outright sexist, treating its female characters pretty poorly throughout. Early on it appears that the game is actually trying to address sexism as a key theme of the game in a similar manner as racism was in the first title, with Raz's uncomfortably sexist harassment of Kai clearly being condemned and Raz eventually cleaning up his act. However, later side-missions and optional, fanservice-oriented DLC depicting the female characters in various stages of undress rapidly see this excuse dissipating.

If it was possible to ignore the ham-fisted writing and the cliched storytelling and just enjoy the actual gameplay, Valkyria Chronicles 4 (***) would be an easy recommend, especially to people who already enjoyed the first game. The combat missions are pretty solid, the new Grenadier class is pretty cool, the side-characters are much more interesting and the individual missions are a bit more forgiving than the first game. But as it stands, you can't, with the story, cliches and more obnoxious characters rammed down your throat at every opportunity and a good quarter of the game spent clicking through story episodes before you can actually play the missions. Combined with an absolute overload of content which makes the game seriously outstay its welcome, and a decidedly ridiculous price tag (at this time of writing), these make the game less attractive than simply firing up Valkyria Chronicles for another run-through, which is a huge shame. The game is available now via Steam on PC, and also on PlayStation 4 and X-Box One.

World War II and Epic Fantasy

Epic fantasy is, arguably, a form of storytelling highly influenced by the Second World War. World War II remains unusual in military history for being a conflict which can clearly be divided between the “bad guys” (Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan) and the “good guys” (the plucky Brits, the brave French Resistance and the heroic-if-a-bit-tardy United States of America) with a minimum of moral uncertainty. Popular narratives of the Second World War show the heroic, democracy-loving Brits and Yanks storming the beaches of Normandy to save Europe from the diabolical and evil rule of the brutal Third Reich.

Christopher Lee as Saruman in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. Lee fought in the British special forces in WWII, in operations that he refused to discuss even decades afterwards.

This is of course monstrously simplistic, and ignores the morally murkier elements of the conflict, such as the Allied mass bombing campaign that was designed to slaughter as many German civilians as possible, and of course the involvement of the Soviet Union in the war. The USSR committed many atrocities of its own (including being complicit in Germany’s invasion of Poland which started the war in the first place) and was willing to accept staggering military and civilian losses to finally defeat the Germans and capture Berlin (a fact glossed over in western accounts of the conflict, which tend to suggest that the US and UK were the primary architects of Hitler’s downfall rather than relative bystanders). Still, the sometimes almost cartoonishly evil nature of the Nazi regime (“Are we the bad guys? If not, why do our uniforms have skulls on them?”) allows it to be presented as an irredeemable foe who must be destroyed at all costs with a minimum of moral qualms, very useful for propaganda, morale and rousing novels, films and video games.

Epic fantasy written in the post-war era feels like it is influenced by this conflict. People writing fantasy in this period either fought in the war directly, were children during it or were born in the aftermath of the conflict and grew up with stories of it from their parents and grandparents.

The fantasy saga sometimes said to have been most influenced by the war is The Lord of the Rings, although J.R.R. Tolkien was scornful of this. He started writing the book in late 1937, two years before the conflict even began, and the story and themes of the book developed out of The Hobbit, mostly written in 1930-32 or thereabouts. The titular One Ring itself is sometimes compared to a nuclear bomb (in its ability to end the War of the Ring in a single stroke rather than actual destructive power) and much is made of the Scouring of the Shire and its similarity to the military occupation of a formerly peaceful territory. However, the Ring was created for The Hobbit and its powers established long before the outbreak of the conflict. Tolkien himself was furious with the idea of the book being an allegory (noting he detested allegory wherever it was found), but did acknowledge the idea of “applicability,” and the disturbing feeling that real events were conforming (somewhat) to those in the book rather than vice versa. Tolkien did acknowledge a much greater influence on the book by his own experiences in World War I, particularly the several months he spent on the Western Front during the Battle of the Somme. The Frodo-Sam relationship is reminiscent of that between a gentleman soldier and his batman, and the Dead Marshes with their hordes of corpses (and semi-undead) lying face-up in the flooded marshlands being an image that stuck with Tolkien from the aftermath of bloody engagements.

Skipping ahead a few generations, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance Chronicles feels like a revamp of the Second World War. The forces of evil gain a series of military advantages from the return of the dark goddess Takhisis and the ability to control evil dragons in battle. This allows them to overrun half the continent of Ansalon and push the remaining nations and our heroes to the brink of defeat. However, our heroes gain the favour of the god Paladine, the allegiance of the good dragons and then the ability to use the fabled dragonlances in battle. This turns the tide and routs the enemy. This can be seen as a reflection of the military technology in WWII: the Germans’ early innovation and technical ingenuity gave them a keen early edge that allowed them to defeat everyone they faced in battle, but later in the conflict the Allies first matched and then exceeded their technological advantage, which the Germans could not sustain and ultimately lost.

Many epic fantasies feature narratives not dissimilar to this. The Wheel of Time shows a growing threat from a powerful opponent who is allowed to go unchecked because the nations that should be unifying against them can’t stop their squabbles with one another, even when the threat becomes blatant. This is an echo of the way Hitler expertly exploited inter-war rivalries between nations such as Russia and Poland to stop opponents joining forces against him (and, indeed, struck an unlikely alliance himself with Russia which prevented them from joining France and Britain in the war). The decision of the forces of “Light” in the books to join forces with the morally highly dubious Seanchan to fight the Dark One can be seen as a reflection of the reluctance with which nations like Britain (whose leader, Churchill, held a deep and abiding hatred of Communism) allied with Russia to fight the greater threat, and the repeated warning that this alliance could sow the seeds of a greater conflict later on (as it very nearly did, with the Cold War almost going nuclear-hot on several occasions, and various visions in The Wheel of Time showing a future where the Seanchan and the other nations resume their conflict).

George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is rather different, however. The conflict between the Great Houses is of course most strongly influenced by the Wars of the Roses, but there is also a strong influence from World War I: the Houses go to war against one another in a manner reflecting their inter-war alliances and fuelled by grievances (just and unjust) extending back generations, with Jon Arryn’s death and then Tyrion Lannister’s arrest setting in motion a series of falling dominoes leading to conflict as much as Franz Ferdinand’s assassination in August 1914.

The most notable fantasy novel series directly based on World War II is Harry Turtledove’s Darkness series, a six-volume series set on a continent resembling Eurasia which is riven by war. Technological developments are replaced by discoveries in the field of sorcery but every nation has its real-world analogue (albeit often inverted; the war in the desert in Africa is replaced by a war on a southern polar continent) and the conflict unfolds in a very similar manner. Turtledove of course likes to revisit WWII in his alternate history fiction, with his splendidly readable, pulp Worldwar series being set during a WWII interrupted by the arrival of an alien invasion fleet, and his darker Southern Victory series in which the Confederacy survives the Civil War as an independent state and becomes embroiled in further conflicts leading to the establishing of a North American theatre in WWII (which, due to a German victory in WWI and no rising of the Nazi Party, unfolds very differently).

A recent fantasy which directly echoes the war is the video game series Valkyria Chronicles. Set on the continent of Europa, the story charts the outbreak of war between the East Europan Imperial Alliance (a blending of Nazi Germany in ideology and Soviet Russia in size and manpower) and the Atlantic Federation (a mixture of western European nations such as Britain and France, and NATO of the Cold War period, albeit with an American analogue which is very reluctant to get involved in the fight). The war opens with the Empire invading the Federation and the small neutral nation of Gallia (based loosely on the Netherlands and Belgium), the latter both to seize its deposits of ragnite (a valuable ore which powers advanced technology) and to allow it to invade the Federation on a second front. Unlike the real war, where the Low Countries were overrun quickly, in the game the much smaller Gallian army is able to rally around the nation’s complex geography (particularly its rivers and canals) and prevent the numerically superior Imperial army from seizing the country. The Empire’s insistence on deploying increasingly insane and impractical tanks on the battlefield and its constant hunt for superweapons is an echo of Hitler’s insistence on deploying increasingly unreliable new technology during WWII rather than refining existing designs, not to mention his increasingly desperate search for “doomsday weapons” that could end the war quickly. Even the Mamota, an insane “land battleship” which the Empire uses at the end of the game, is based on a real idea, the Landkreuzer P.1000 Ratte, a 1,000-ton tank Hitler heartily endorsed but whose development was cancelled by Albert Speer on the reasonable grounds it was ridiculous.

Valkyria Chronicles (2008) is unusual in combining both direct WWII elements – guns, artillery, grenades, tanks, propaganda and pogroms against a scapegoated minority (the Darcsens replacing the Jews) – and traditional fantasy tropes. There is an ancient magical race, the Valkyrur, whose power lingers into the modern age and at key moments both protagonists and antagonists gain access to their power. There are magical items and hopeless struggles by a plucky band of up-against-the-odds heroes against monstrous enemies (although some of them are shown to have a code of individual honour at odds with the atrocities their forces commit). Surprisingly cynically, the Federation, which becomes prominent in Valkyria Chronicles 4 (2018), is shown to sometimes be brutal and cold as well, willing to sacrifice vast numbers of civilian lives and infringe the borders of sovereign nations in order to get an upper hand against the Empire and is secretly developing a weapon of mass destruction behind the scenes. The oddest element of the Valkyria universe, given how closely it parallels WWII, is the near-total absence of aircraft from the conflict, with the few aircraft mentioned or appearing being WWI-style biplanes.

Of course, the straightforward (if not exactly accurate) good vs. evil nature of WWII gave rise afterwards to much more morally murky conflicts where the notions of good, evil, justice and injustice became far more fluid: Suez, Vietnam, Bosnia, the Iraq War and clashes of religious fundamentalists. This can be seen in the type of fantasy fiction that has followed: the Black Company (by Vietnam vet Glen Cook) and Steven Erikson’s The Malazan Book of the Fallen (inspired by a lot of war fiction, and indeed The Black Company) are much less clear-cut tales where good and evil are less of an issue. Joe Abercrombie explores some of the same issues of morally flexible real politik in his First Law world. Scott Bakker’s Second Apocalypse series (including the Prince of Nothing and Aspect-Emperor sub-series) delves deep into religious fundamentalism and fanaticism. Mark Lawrence’s Broken Empire series presents the world with a monstrously damaged human being who commits atrocities but who, ultimately, may end up saving the world. The moral relativism of post-WWII conflicts has been well matched and explored by fantasy fiction, perhaps too much for some as we’ve also seen a re-emergence of throwback fantasy, more concerned with more straightforward tales of good vs. evil (such as Michael Sullivan’s Ririya series and Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere works).

WWII will remain a rich source of inspiration for fantasy fiction, although it is refreshing (if perhaps a tad depressing) to see other, less clear-cut conflicts being mined for different kinds of stories.

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Valkyria Chronicles

The small Republic of Gallia has been invaded by the forces of the East Europan Imperial Alliance, which is determined to conquer the entire continent of Europa. Welkin Gunther, the son of a former war hero, is pressed into service as the commanding officer of Squad 7 of the Gallian Militia. Gunther has to overcome prejudice from the regular army in order to guide his squad, and ultimately his nation, to victory.

Valkyria Chronicles has an interesting history. Originally released on the PS3 in 2008, the game sold modestly but not outstandingly. Sega commissioned two sequels for the handheld PSP, but only one of these was released in the West. Despite critical acclaim, the series would have likely faded away (save for the odd 'best game you've never played' feature) if Sega hadn't been presented with a petition asking for a PC port of the game. With the PC an increasingly important format for Sega, they surprisingly agreed and the resulting release was a big hit, hugely exceeding Sega's sales expectations.

The game itself has been described as a turn-based strategy game similar to the XCOM series, although that's not entirely accurate. Each mission presents you with a series of command points which you can spend however you wish. You can move and attack with one unit as many times as you wish, although their range of movement decreases with every extra move you make with them. Some special weapons (such as sniper rifles, grenades and rockets) can also only be fired a couple of times per turn (though these can be replenished by using an Engineer). Units can use cover to better protect themselves, although bizarrely only behind sandbags; other forms of scenery (such as garden walls or crates) can't be used as cover.

Europa, which is basically Europe to the point of having some of the same names. Why they just didn't use Europe and call it an alt-history, I don't know.

Your military force consists of four basic unit types: Scouts have a tremendous range of movement but are fragile and easily killed by almost any other unit type. However, their rifles become incredibly powerful as they are upgraded and they gain the ability to use grenade launchers. If they can outflank an enemy and get behind them (where the enemy can't shoot them on crossfire, this game's version of overwatch) they can usually kill them before they can get a shot off in return. Shocktroopers have more limited movement but are armed with heavy machine guns and, later, flamethrowers. These are the bread-and-butter combat units but it's surprisingly how infrequently you use them for anything more than base defence. Lancers deploy extremely powerful anti-tank rockets, although they can also be used against soldiers. Whilst powerful, they lack any kind of defence (they can't use crossfire) and are vulnerable to enemy attack. Finally, Engineers are used to repair tanks and re-supply other troops with ammo in the field, although they also have a moderate attack and defence ability. All units have the ability to use medical equipment (on themselves or allies) and also use grenades. Units are not killed upon being downed and can be rescued by a medic if another unit is able to get to them; they can be killed if an enemy unit reaches them first though.

As well as the soldiers, you also have the ability to command tanks. Early missions see you using Gunther's vehicle, the Edelweiss, whilst later on you get a second, smaller vehicle, the Shamrock. Tanks have formidable anti-armour guns and anti-personnel mortars and machine guns, but use up a lot of command points and are vulnerable to enemy Lancers and tanks.

Scouts feel a bit pointless at the start of the game but rapidly turn into the most devastingly effective units, if upgraded and used right.

Unlike most turn-based strategy games, there is no grid for movement. Instead you have a certain number of movement points which are used up as you move around in a third-person view similar to action games. You can't tell how far you can go in a move (without actually moving), so the game encourages you to move cautiously and use cover where possible. When you attack, you use a more action game-like direct control mechanic. Your ability to hit a target depends on range, cover and how well you have upgraded your characters and equipment.

Between battles, you can retire to the capital city to rest. During this phase you can upgrade your equipment by spending money on R&D, hire and fire soldiers, visit your fallen comrades in a cemetary, train up at boot camp or pay a visit to a friendly journalist who is relaying your exploits to the nation. The non-battle parts of the game are depicted like a book, with you turning to different pages to visit different parts of the city, continue with the main story or play skirmishes. Skirmishes are optional (sort-of) smaller engagements between the big story battles, but still give you important EXP and money which you can use to prepare for the next battle.

The overhead tactical map, from where you select which unit to use next. Your remaining command points are shown at the top of the screen.

 
The biggest difference between Valkyria Chronicles and similar games, like the XCOM series, is the lack of any grand strategy layer. The course of the war is completely set and you roll from mission to mission through cut scenes. Aside from deciding when to do skirmishes and in what order, you have no real control over the bigger picture of the game. Whilst some may bemoan this, it does result in a much more detailed, hand-crafted approach to the game. Each battle is meticulously designed to be different to the one before whilst still building on what you have learned. This results in a - mostly - smooth difficulty curve and tremendous variety in the types of battlefield you encounter.

Tanks are formidable, but very vulnerable to Lancers if left exposed. Like here.

There a couple of issues here. First, the game does have two rather ridiculous difficulty spikes. The seventh mission is punishingly hard to the point of lunacy. This happens again later on on the seventeenth mission, although this is less of a problem because greater experience by that point should allow players to overcome it. Secondly, the game clearly states that the skirmish missions are optional, and indeed, you can get to the final battle straightforwardly (despite the two above tough missions) if you don't bother with them. However, the final mission becomes extremely difficult without the extra equipment, potentials (special abilities) and experience gained from doing the skirmish missions. The problem with the skirmish missions is that they often take place on the same maps from the main campaign and soon repetition sets in, which the main campaign avoids through either not re-using maps, or changing things up meticulously when they do.

Still, if you can accept that limitation the game emerges as a lot of fun. The different art style, which makes the game look like an animated painting, is highly effective and distinctive. The music is excellent, although some of the sound effects grate after a while. The characters are archetypal and don't stray far from cliche, but are still distinctive and memorable for that. Where the game does break down a little is the plot. Early on the game is a surprisingly realistic take on WWII, with tanks, blitzkriegs, rifles, machine guns and hardcore moral dilemmas. The appearance of concentration camps and firing squads takes the game in a grim direction which, whilst often at odds with the cartoony graphics and questionable uniform choices (that female soldiers can fight alongside the men with no limitations is great, but why are they all wearing miniskirts?), is highly effective.

When the weird people with crazy hair show up with the blue lances of death, the game definitely gets bit more boring.

However, towards the end of the game all of that goes out of the window as the story turns to embrace ancient alien superweapons, people flying around with glowing eyes and cartoonish villainy. It's all good pulp fun, but I think it would have been far more interesting to have stuck with the more realistic 'fantasy WWII' from the early part of the game, a great idea which is thus left chronically underdeveloped (at least in this first game in the series).

Valkyria Chronicles (****) is a very different type of strategy game, one which employs its own style of combat and a distinctive graphical style to make something unique and memorable. The combat is engrossing, the story reasonably interesting (if becoming more predictable towards the end) and, despite some tough difficulty spikes, it all flows together reasonably well. The game hits that design sweet spot of being built from some very straightforward building blocks, but then combining them into something compelling. The game is available now on PC and PS3 (UK, USA).