In outline, at least, the story's fascinating.
The problem, then, is not so much the content of the story but how it's told. Valkyria Revolution often feels as though it's three-fourths painfully bad cutscenes and one-fourth gameplay. Some of these cutscenes drag on for as long as 15 minutes, but only rarely does the action rise above watching a bunch of characters standing around a table with nothing moving but their mouths.“
Often you won't even see the speakers speaking as the camera's pointed at the back of their heads, as though to save on even that degree of animation. Also, you either have to sit through the whole cutscene or skip it entirely: there's no option to skip over lines of dialogue if you've read the subtitles faster than the character speaks them. Adding insult to injury, an endless parade of short loading screens interrupts the flow as one cutscene transitions to another. All this, all while the characters are spouting politics that sounds as though it was ripped from accounts of Europe on the verge of the first World War or Bismarck-era Germany. Even as a degree-holding historian, I found the presentation often couldn't hold my attention, and I find this especially shameful since Valkyria Chronicle's somewhat realistic World War II elements were so appealing.
The action-oriented combat doesn't do much to make up for it. It has its moments, particularly when you jump into the midst of a enemy bunch of soldiers with Amleth – he of the imitation Buster Sword – and cut them all down in one tidy swing. And generally, I'm a person who prefers big swords to big guns. But gosh, it's repetitive, regardless of whether I'm in many story missions or in the "free" missions I too often found myself grinding for stay strong enough to handle the story missions.
But there's very little in the way of variation: It's always about jumping into maps with often low-resolution textures, plowing through a bunch of bad guys, and then beating a boss. The ability to switch between up to four squadmates of different classes makes battles a little more interesting, as do the flashy animations that contrast so starkly with the stodginess of the cutscenes. Yet outside of those moments you start to see the many other flaws, such as the way sidearms like rifles feel almost worthless compared to the big melee weapons wielded by the heroes. The AI can be moronic, with squadmates outright ignoring collective orders or running off to fight distant enemies. As for the enemies themselves, each new one rarely looks much different from the last, and they all stand around waiting for you to hit them. In appearance and in action, the setup reminds me of nothing so much as the enemies in the MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic.
The AI can be moronic, with squadmates outright ignoring collective orders
Magic was in short supply in Valkyria Chronicles, but here it's everywhere. After all, the reason the Ruzhien Empire wants Jutland in the first place is that the Jutish folk have a massive stash of ragnite, the substance that powers all this magic. The resulting spells add spice to the combat with fireballs or causing tremors to erupt beneath enemies' feet, and Revolution tries to wedge in a dash of Chronicles' tactical combat by forcing you to press the triangle button every time you use them to stop combat. Like so much about Revolution, it's a nice touch in theory, but the constant juggling ruins the flow of combat.On top of that, an "emotional" combat system attempts to add depth by lowering enemy defenses by striking fear into them with swift surprise attacks, but it rarely seems beneficial enough to warrant tactical consideration.“
Valkyria: Revolution drowns in this shallowness. Unlike Valkyria Chronicles, there's little to distinguish it from the mass of generic Japanese RPGs already available, and at times it almost comes off as a parody. It's entertaining enough, partly thanks to the broad strokes of its story, but it's also eminently forgettable. So much of what made the Valkyria series great — the cel-shaded, hand-drawn art style, and the roughly realistic world where magic feels almost as otherworldly as it would in our own — gets cast aside in favor of 3D models that would look more at home in Star Ocean and magic that's as common as booze in a frat house. It's a revolution that's better read about than experienced.
