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| The art design in this game is phenomenal. It's further improved from the already solid art design in VC2 |
Valkyria Chronicles III is probably my favorite game on the PSP. Like Valkyria Chronicles II, it knows its limits and sticks to what the PSP can handle. Although Valkyria Chronicles II is an incredibly good game, this game surpasses it without a doubt.
As far as game mechanics, the biggest reason why this one is better than the second game is because you don't have to beat your head against a wall trying to collect raw materials to buy better guns. That was probably one of the only things that I didn't like about Valkyria Chronicles II.
The number of soldier classes have been narrowed down significantly. The main soldier classes have remained intact; Scout, Shock Trooper, Lancer, Engineer, and Armored Tech. However, they also kept the Sniper, Gunner, and Fencer classes. However, this makes sense because the Sniper, Gunner, and Fencer classes are pretty different than the other classes. So, instead of having the AT Sniper class, for example, you can just equip a sniper with an AT sniper rifle. I'm pretty on the fence as far as which soldier class system I like better. They both have their pros and cons.
The story is great! It's probably my favorite story of the three games. The story is centered around Kurt Irving, a graduate of Lanseal Military Academy. Basically, he ends up at the wrong place at the wrong time and gets in trouble. Naturally, without any kind of trial, the military sentences Kurt to The Nameless, a penal unit similar to that of The Dirty Dozen from the movie Dirty Dozen (if you haven't seen that movie, it's pretty awesome. Just saying...). Now, I suppose The Nameless isn't quite as funny as The Dirty Dozen but they definitely have character. Compared to Squad 7 or Class G from the other Valkyria Chronicles games, The Nameless have a much darker aura about them. They're worn out. They're tired. They just really don't want to go on another suicide mission. However, since this is a Japanese anime based game, the women in the unit tend to be timid or peachy at times. So, how could people with that kind of personality end up in The Nameless? Well, apparently some of the people volunteer and some others get thrown into The Nameless for the silliest of reasons. There is a logical reason for this but it involves spoilers.
In fact, if you want to read more about what I thought of the story, you'll have to check out the spoilers section at the bottom of this post. One last thing I would like to mention here about the story though is that this game takes place at the same time as the first Valkyria Chronicles. I thought this was a pretty cool idea because you get to relate what you know about that game with this one. Through each chapter, the game relates the events of the first game and Squad 7s actions and how they're chronologically related to what The Nameless are doing. This aspect of the story I really enjoyed as a devout Valkyria Chronicles fan.
The game definitely gets you your money's worth. It took me a little over 60 gameplay hours to play through the main story. Of these 60 hours, very little of it was used for leveling up or replaying levels. It wasn't until I got to the end of the game that I realized that there were also character specific missions I could have been playing all along (much like Valkyria Chronicles II). I'm in the process of playing those short stories now. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find translations of these. The summaries on the Valkyria Wikia will have to suffice.
My E2 version of the game also came with built-in DLC so that's pretty cool. I haven't started playing those missions yet.
Remember in Valkyria Chronicles II how the fencers were basically invincible? Well, in this game, they're actually pretty worthless. I think that the developers realized from the last game how ridiculous the Fencer class was so not only did they make the Fencer's shield smaller, they also made it so that the fencer still takes some damage even when the bullets hit the shield. Now you can't really do anything with the fencer! If you try running more than a few feet with a fencer in the open field, the fencer will die. The only thing I found myself using fencers for in this game was to take out multiple enemies at once if I was in a situation where I could get close enough without getting shot full of holes.
The Engineer class, though valuable in other Valkyria Chronicles games, is even more valuable in this game. Engineers still can't fight very well but they combined the skills of the Anthem Corp class with the Engineer class. What does this mean? Well, it means that if you level your Engineer up to the veteran class level, you can carry not only the pistol, ragnaid (health pack), and wrench all at the same time, you can also carry an instrument as well (kind of looks like a Baritone, FYI). Instruments add positive status effects to all of your allies or negative ones to all of the enemy units within the playing range of the instrument (depending on what model of instrument you have equipped). This makes engineers even more useful due to all of their abilities. They prove to be a powerful morale booster in seemingly hopeless situations.
What I like a lot about this game is that tanks only take up one turn token instead of two. This is the first game of the series where a tank's turn didn't use up two turn tokens. I like this a lot because I found myself never using the tanks in previous games because of the amount of turn tokens they used (unless I really needed something to take cover behind).
In the second game, you could replace your tank with an APC. Though I never really used the APC, I thought the concept of the APC was pretty cool. Basically, instead of being good for anti-tank combat and being impervious to bullets, the APC can travel really far and carry people in its hold. This is pretty useful for moving multiple people at a time without wasting a ton of turn tokens. In the third game, they have even more vehicles to choose from. There are various utility trucks and half-tracks that you can buy. Unfortunately, I haven't tried any of them out on the account that I have grown accustom to using tanks in my overall strategy.
This game reuses a lot of battlefields from the second Valkyria Chronicles game, however, it also has a whole host of new levels. Some of these new levels are really oblong (which is something that we haven't seen in a Valkyria Chronicles game at all until now). The oblong levels are really interesting as you will quickly realize that the high firepower and short distance shock troopers are essentially useless for traversing these long distances (unless if you have an APC). In my case, I found myself traveling across the level with scouts and occasionally using snipers for supporting fire.
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| Imca's special ability |
Overall, this Valkyria Chronicles is, in my opinion, the best of the series. Although the game is only distributed in Japanese, you can still get all the translations and information needed to play the game over the internet. You can also play this game with your North American PSP. You don't need a Japanese one to play this game. Not sure about Europe but I would probably assume you could play it on a European PSP as well. This game is crazy good and, as a Valkyria Chronicles fan, I'm really glad that I hunted this one down.
Update 1-19-2014: I don't know if you remember but in my PSP Reboot Epilogue: Valkyria Chronicles III post I mentioned that there were a number of VC3 fans who had been working on an English patch for the game.
I said, "...it does seem to me that they are taking this seriously and that the project has not completely phased out yet."
Well, to my pleasant surprise, the team had released a completed patch sometime over the holidays. I'm glad that I just happened to check their site for updates yesterday! It's in what's practically a beta phase, but it works fantastic (certainly better than the Battlefield 4 day one release)! Cutscenes, menus, item descriptions, etc., they're all translated in-game!
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| I think I might have just shit myself... |
You'll need custom firmware on your PSP in order to play it (since you're patching your own, ripped, .iso version of the game). What was also to my surprise was that now you can use custom firmware on your PSP WITHOUT hardware modification. I repeat: WITHOUT hardware modification. This is great because now you don't have to risk bricking your PSP while trying to hack it (which is what held me back before). This custom firmware is made by the PRO team and can be found here.
The download link and instructions for the VC3 English Patch can be found at the link below:
http://vc3translationproject.wordpress.com/patch-and-instructions/
Tank Screenshot Image: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvQuw_L5da0
Imca's Special Ability Image: http://www.wingdamage.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/valkyria-chronicles-3-hands-on-impressions-psp-3.jpg
PSP Gameplay Picture: from me
***************SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT***************
Before I dig into the story, I just wanted to mention one thing about the gameplay that I couldn't above this point. We finally get to play as the Valkyria.
Finally...
It's rather disappointing when in mid-battle you get to see the Valkyria doing all of this cool shit and you can't control any of it. Well, finally we get to use Valkyrian powers via the special move tokens through Riela. It's pretty cool. However, the really heavy tanks can't be taken down with one hit of the Valkyrian lance. Seems rather contrary to the first game where Selvaria would freaking tear tanks asunder and blast away whole regiments with her massive powers. However, I guess Riela's surprising weakness does make sense since she doesn't have full control over her Valkyrian powers.
I really wanted to talk about the story of this game a little more because it's really flippin' good! The character development in this game is way stronger than any of the other games. The first mission with The Nameless literally involves most of the unit going AWOL because they don't want to follow Kurt's orders. I like all of the subplots going on in this game. Between the inner-conflict with Gusurg, the corruption of the Gallian army officers with Cardinal Bolgia, and the back story of Dahau and Calamity Raven, this game gives you a lot to be interested in. It does a great job of weaving all of these plots together without forcing anything.
Unlike the first two Valkyria Chronicles games, the journey in this game isn't so obvious. I'm always looking forward to the next cut scene and never really knowing what exactly is going to happen. I love how The Nameless basically have their whole world turned upside down like three times. It's like their lives weren't upsetting enough with all of the suicide missions.
As interesting as the story is, the story does fall into a little bit of a repeated formula in the middle of the game. For a few chapters in the game, The Nameless get assigned a mission, then they run into someone that they know (or know of) who they either help, get helped by, or both. Then they go back to Randgriz for their next assignment. This formula isn't even particularly bad as it's similar to the other games. However, the number of guest character appearances is excessive. Just about every character from another Valkyria Chronicles game makes an appearance in this game. I'm not kidding. The Nameless run into Squad 7 (you get to control Squad 7 in one of the story missions), Avan, Cosette, and Zeri (all in separate occurances by the way), Leon, Julianna, even the Gassernarl siblings and Brixam (Avan's, Cosette's, and Zeri's professor). I mean, holy moly! This was way too excessive! I mean, it's one thing to bring back one or two characters from another game. But, this game had just about every major character in the Valkyria Chronicles series! I mean, talk about the biggest coincidence ever! In fact, when The Nameless went to Fouzen, I was actually surprised that they didn't run into Zeke somehow (you missed a guest appearance opportunity!). The Nameless literally work with and/or fight alongside every single major character in Valkryia Chronicles II (both protagonists AND antagonists!). It's just ridiculous.
But seriously, that was really the only flaw in this game's story. The rest of it I thought was really good. It really kept me interested the whole way through. Actually, it kept me really interested. If there were 60 hours in a day, I would have probably tried to beat this whole game in one sitting. There were just so many unexpected events. Like, when the Gallian higher-ups tried assassinating The Nameless in the desert in order to prolong the war for Cardinal Bolgia's motives. That completely caught me napping.
The touching moments in this game work really well. Gusurg's death is really powerful (though completely expected). The plot has been used before but Kurt having to kill Gusurg (a dear friend) due to opposing sides worked really well in the story of this game. A lot of this had to do with that the story really builds up their relationship. In the beginning, Gusurg is the only one that is even willing to give Kurt a chance at leading the squad. Then Gusurg works pretty hard to persuade the rest of the squad that Kurt is a capable leader. Their time together after that really just strengthened their friendship. Though Dahau's death is also pretty powerful, it's not quite as powerful of a death scene because we didn't have much exposure to how much of a connection Dahau had with his deceased wife. However, Dahau's wife's spirit talking to Dahau during his last moments was pretty well done (her telling him that he has done enough and can rest now). Cliche but done well.
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| Ramsey Crow |
In taking on this mission, The Nameless have also determined that they could never come back to Gallia because they technically aren't supposed to exist. I thought the title of this chapter of the game was very clever. I'm not sure how the Japanese is but the English translation is very clever in its simplicity. The chapter it simply called "Nameless Again." I love the name of the chapter. It's perfect.
The last level of the game is rather interesting. To start, Dahau is invincible. This kind of annoys me but, whatever. The giant cannon thing is pretty interesting. You can only get to the cannon area by taking a series of lifts to each section. There are three sections and you can't travel between the sections while in the area. You have to take the corresponding lift in one of the three other areas to get to the section of the cannon that you're trying to hit. This is pretty unique compared to other Valkyria Chronicles games. It's also particularly difficult because snipers spawn in the sections every turn to kill whoever is in there. So, seemingly, you have to waste your time killing snipers in order to stay up there. I found a pretty cheap way to get around this roadblock though. Basically, you get an armored tech up there in each of the three sections and have them face in the direction the snipers are shooting from. The AI is too stupid to figure out how to shoot above the armored tech's shield and the bullets just ricochet off the shield. It's cheap but if they can spawn out of nowhere, I can cheat too. lol
The endings are fucking hilarious in this game. As far as I can tell, there are two different endings depending on which love interest path you pick to take towards the end of the game. If you pick the Riela ending, the cut scene after the end credits is of Riela and Kurt getting married and coming out of the church. The Nameless are all standing outside cheering them on. This includes that old guy (I can't remember his name) drinking from a bottle. When they get down to the street, The Nameless' tank is sitting there waiting to take them to....uh....wherever married couples go right after they get married. I couldn't find subtitles or a translation for this ending so I don't know what Riela said but it doesn't matter too much. When I saw the tank sitting out there, I couldn't help but to burst out laughing. However, it also makes me want to have a tank at my wedding...
The Imca ending is probably even more humorous. First of all, it just skips the wedding. Yeah fuck that shit. Let's get to the part where we have like six kids! Then, the whole scene is basically Kurt making a joke about Imca eating a lot and all the kids making fun of her too. Then Kurt makes what I assume is a suggestive remark in front of the children (though the English translation isn't suggestive). So Imca gets embarrassed and the children make fun of her face turning red. It's pretty humorous
One last thing I wanted to talk about is the intro cut scene of the game. The intro cut scene of this game and the other Valkyria Chronicles games are really well done. However, there is something I finally want to call the developers out on. Basically, the intro cut scenes have all of this stuff in them that doesn't actually happen in the game. This particularly bothered me with the one for this game because at the beginning of the intro cut scene, it seems like something really moving had either just happened or is about to happen. So, part of me had been waiting the whole game for that moment but, to my demise, it never came. Disappointing? A little bit. However, I enjoyed this game's story so much that at the end of the day, I didn't care that much.
Ramsey Crowe Image: http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/scale_small/3/30280/1646619-2132428298_full.jpg
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