Valkyria Chronicles - Review @ TechRaptor

TechRaptor reviewed Valkyria Chronicles and the reviewer was thrilled enough to award it with a 9.

There are a few issues with it at times where the game undermines itself on the story front, but not to a huge degree. There are several fridge logic moments that when you spend a little thinking on it, don’t really make any sense despite the other value it might have to the story. As a game with a jrpg style story, it does get a little over sappy in a few times, but it balances out for the most part well. More painful is that several times the game feels the need to both show and tell an event. Show, don’t tell is the classic rule of storytelling, and, in my opinion, applies even more to video games because of the fact that they are an interactive media. However if that’s the rule, it is especially important to not show and tell, which feels heavy handed at a few points with the game.

If it feels that there, I’m nitpicking the story – to some extent it’s true. This is a very good story, and so I’m treating it as I would any other piece of fiction that I read or participate in and those are things I would call out there. It does get a little heavy handed at times in the story, and does show and tell several times which hurts the story and assumes the player isn’t paying attention.

On the whole though, I have to say that Valkyria Chronicles is one of the best games I’ve played in a good while. It has an excellent combat system, paired with a wonderful, and well realized story. I strongly recommend it if you are a fan of strategy or RPG games on the PC.