Valkyria Chronicles Remastered Preview

psIt’s all at once very easy and very hard to write up a preview for Valkyria Chronicles Remastered. Its very easy because this game is absolutely gorgeous and an absolute joy to play, but very difficult because there is so much more I’d like to say about it that I’ll have to save for my full review. The long and short of it however, is that the game looks incredible and is every bit as fun to play now as it was back in 2008.

The very first thing you’ll notice about Valkyria Chronicles is the striking story book-esque art style that looks like its ripped straight from a canvas. This art comes courtesy of the helpfully named CANVAS engine which has made the leap to the PlayStation 4 with grace and the game looks just as good as it always has. Better in fact, as the Remastering here refers to the resolution bump from 720p to full 1080p HD and on top of that the frame rate has been doubled to a buttery smooth 60. During my play time I did pop in the original game to compare performance and the Remastered edition does (unsurprisingly) have the edge here. One thing not being touted by SEGA’s marketing arm, but something I enjoyed, was the reduced load times, not that you spend a significant amount of time waiting at load screens anyway, but it was appreciated. The only thing that struck me as less than ideal was a strange issue were tree foliage would pop in and out of existence, but it was hardly noticeable for the main part.

The full DLC suite has been included in the remaster and I’m very excited to get my hands on those missions as I never purchased them for the original game. I won’t say too much about these missions or the full campaign as of yet (you’ll have to wait for Invision’s full review), but I will say that this game has a significant amount of value for the cash you’ll be paying for it, easily over 40 hours of content.

Playing this title again felt like embracing an old friend as the franchise has been very difficult to follow in the west since the release of the first game. It was very enjoyable to get stuck in to the games unique blend of turn based tactics and quick thinking action gameplay. I don’t think any franchise has really captured the same feeling Valkyria Chronicles gave me back in the day, so this remaster is more than welcome at my table, more so than other releases that shall not be named.

I said at the beginning of the preview that it would be, in part, hard to write and that is because I have now run out of things I’d like to say. In actuality, I have a lot more to write about, but these are all topics I want to include in my full review. I firmly believe that the purpose of me writing this preview is to answer one question and one question only, “Should I Pre-order this Game?” The answer is an enthusiastic YES, without any hesitation. If you enjoy good anime storylines and tactical gameplay then you will find a lot to love about Valkyria Chronicles Remastered. In fact, even if you don’t I would say this game is worth at least a look at. It stands out as a totally unique game still to this day, a beautiful and deceptively deep experience that has a lot of enjoyment on offer.

Plus its the closest thing we’ll ever get to a Skies of Arcadia follow up, so there’s that.

Adam Barge

i there! The name is Barge, but you can call me Adam. I come from the New Forest, which means I was pretty cut off from civilisation as a child, so the options were go outside or stay in the dark and play video games all day… no points for guessing which one I opted for. My love for games grew from Nintendo classics like Pokemon, Zelda and Mario and grew much deeper when I was a teenager and I fell in love with games like Beyond Good & Evil and Knight of the Old Republic. These days I play all variety of games but I do have a particular love of stealth games. I tend to look at a game as a whole piece of media, I like to think about how the pieces interlink and how the experience is developed by singular elements of a game building on top of each other. This mise en scène approach to reviewing comes from by background in theatre which also affords me a strong sense of good acting and dramatization in video games.