So, if the second game was so good, when are they coming out with the third one? Well, they never came out with the third one...
Or so I thought.
I actually found out while typing the Valkyria Chronicles II Review that there was a third one released. In fact, it's been out for two years. HOW HAVE I NOT HEARD OF THIS!?!? Well, the reason is because the second Valkyria Chronicles did not sell enough copies for Sega's liking so they never had a North American release of the third game.
Well, this sucks...
The thing is, I'm such a slave to the series now that I just had to get my hands on a Japanese version of the game. So, I got a copy shipped to my house. I supposed the gorilla in the room through this whole process was, How am I supposed to play a game that is in Japanese? Well, a lot of the game mechanics are the same along with symbols, controls, indicators, etc. The things that had changed I was able to find quite a bit of information about via the internet and how those things worked. The main battle experience expenditure system changed from the first two games. Instead of leveling up the main soldier classes, you level up certain attributes for all of your soldiers at the same time (such as HP or AP).
What is probably the most vital Japanese for one to know when playing this game is the story. The stories in this series are very good and something you really don't want to miss out on.
Well, there's a whole project of devout Valkyria Chronicles players that use their spare time to make a version of the third game that is in English. Though this hasn't been finished and has no guarantee of being finished, it does seem to me that they are taking this seriously and that the project has not completely phased out yet. Their website is here if you are curious at all.
What I have been using to get through the bit of story I have made it through so far is a written out script of every major cut scene in the game. The guy goes by the pseudonyms Guerrilla Soldier and insanityofhell. Though he seems to have translated a lot of the game, he does cite other people throughout the 295 page translation for their contributions. He also includes the information given about mission objectives, number of turns for an S rank, and information on Ace soldier drops for every mission. I give a big shout out to this guy for doing this. It makes my experience of playing this game much more enjoyable that I actually know what is happening in the story and what people are saying in the cut scenes. Here you can find his Google doc that contains his translation.
So far, I've really been enjoying the story to this game. Depending on where it goes, it may be the best story of the series yet. I may write a review when I finish it.
This post wraps up the PSP Reboot series. Though most of the games for the PSP seem to suck, there are a few that make me glad that I own the console; like the Valkyria Chronicles games and the Dissidia games. The PS Vita is a move in the right direction on Sony's part. That second joystick is a must in today's gaming age. It makes you think of what would happen if someone presented the N64 design for a modern controller, Yikes!
Shooters just blow on the PSP. I suppose it's possible that I just bought a bunch of the bad games for the PSP. But, I have a large enough collection that I have a pretty significant sample size of the PSP library to conclude that the PSP library, in general, sucks.
I hope that gaming companies will take what has been learned here and apply it to future portable gaming systems. There is a lot that can be learned from the PSP.
Though, if you look back on it, the PSP was incredibly innovative for the time of its release. I may bitch about the lack of second joystick but, as far as I know of, the PSP is the first portable system to even have any kind of joystick at all. Also, the PSP has a music player, video player, and web browser on it. These all were not typical features of a portable gaming system at the time. The screen on the PSP had the best quality of any portable gaming system at the time. I never thought I would be watching the breathtaking cinematic cut scenes from Square Enix in such good quality on a hand held gaming platform!
Probably my favorite feature of the PSP is that you didn't have to power it all the way down in order to turn it off. You could put it in a sleep mode, mid-game, and pick up where you left off at a later time without having to save your game. This was pretty sweet. In fact, this is a feature that is NOT on the PS3 (I wonder why???).
So, in reality, the PSP will go down as one of the most blundered portable gaming projects in history. Between the lack of second joystick, the silly UMD disc format, shitty charger, and a game library that overestimates the abilities of the PSP, it will certainly be remembered for a host of less than remarkable things.
However, when put into context, the PSP wasn't even really that bad. I can think of a bunch of dumbass platforms that make the PSP look brilliant like the Virtual Boy from Nintendo or the Atari Jaguar CD, to name a couple.
So, amongst the blunders, the PSP has opened doors for a lot of things in portable gaming. It has made a lot of firsts so, expectedly, it's not very good at these things. However, we are already seeing the evolution of these ideas through the PS Vita like the addition of the second joystick, joysticks that are more similar to joysticks you would see on a controller for the PS3, the aggressively improved graphics (this thing has PS3 games on it!), and the touch pad on the back of the thing. So yeah, sometimes you need to take a step backwards in order to take two steps forward.
The games that I like on the PSP (like Dissidia and the Valkyria Chronicles series) I wish that they were released on the PS3 instead. However, in conclusion to this reboot series, the PSP doesn't COMPLETELY frustrate me.
Images: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5e/Valkyria_Chronicles_3.jpg
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