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Valkyria Chronicles is a name I haven't heard since the PSP era. An tactical RPG where you position units, plan your moves to capture the enemy camps, and neutralize their forces. The game is great but like many JRPGs, it's not without its flaws. It's gaping bullet-wound flaws.

The story of Valkyria Chronicles is a pretty simply one. Gallia is a small sovereign nation between two bordering larger nations: The Empire, and the federation. Both sides are at war with each other over a precious resouce known as Ragnite with Gallia caught in the middle. Our protagonist, Welkin Gunther is the son of an accomplished soldier from a border village in Gallia named Bruhl. When he returns home from school (that out-of-town tuition though), he's greeted by his adoptive Darscen sister, Isara but then the Fire Nation Empire invades Bruhl. Welkin takes up arms to defend his home from the war, hoping to end the conflict and save Gallia. There's also a sort of side plot to the game's lore. Darcsens (people born with dark hair regardless of skin complexion; doesn't explain why that particular factor makes them an entire ethincity or anything. They just are...) are seen as the cause of a great calamity that wiped out the Valkyrur -an ancient advanced race- long along. The war furthers this stigma against them.

The main cast consists of Welkin, Isara, Alicia (an orphan girl from Bruhl who also joins Squad 7), Rosie (the bigot of the group), Largo ( not as much a bigot as Rosie), Faldio (Welkin's best friend), and Lt. Valot (Squad 7's supervisor). The rest of Squad 7 is a cast of assorted characters. Some like Vyse and Aika from another SEGA title Skies of Arcadia make an cameo as recruitable members. Others are unique to this game and BOY are there some "interesting" characters (*cough* Jann *cough* Homer *ahem*).

The overall plot itself is a mixup of good and extreme. It's an anime through and through (It even has it's own anime). Some events play out almost exactly as you would think they would. At one point in the story, an enemy Valkyria who serves the Empire shows up and she just starts mowing down your squad with some advanced vakyrian weaponry. The whole game before that was quite normal. Soon, you're fighting tanks the size of buildings that shoot beams of light that decimate entire cities. Another case, Alicia gets shot and everyone descovers she's a valkyrie. When the incident is investigated, it's found out tha Faldio did it purposely to awken Alicia's powers to save the Gallian army from being wiped out by the enemy valkyrie. Enraged, Welkin confronts Faldio who admits to the deed, noting that Alicia's powers saved Gallia's army. Welkn disagrees, believing that greater power only furthers conflict. The typical "we may be small/weak but we've got big hearts" speech you see in a lot of animes. By the end, Faldio shows up, stops the Empire's ruler, Maximillian, but decides that his actions are Irredeemable and falls backwards down a shaft taking Maximillian with him. Why? He was only suspended for 10 days (Not even dismssed from duty). Even then, no one saw him as a criminal. Even Welkin sort of sounded like he expected Faldio to show up and help, which is clealy a sign he still thinks of him as a friend. He could have easily choked Maximillian out, or even just thrown him down the shaft without taking his own life. Overall, the story can be entertaining but take it with a grain of salt here and there. It's a fiction first and reasonable second.

The design of the game tries to mimic a storybook style with effects that add to its illustrative quality. It's like the viewer is reading a memoir of a soldier or the history of a nation. The cell shading gives everything a great range of saturated color, which as an illustrator myself, is always welcome. There's also a fair amount of detail in the unit and tank models. That being said, there is a very anime-styled choice when it comes to the people of this game. Everyone on your squad is cute by which I mean all the women are wearing uniforms with their breast bulging like they're wearing tights. The men are all either moderately handsome or Largo(Gruff n' buff Old); or Cody (Actually Old). No one wears helmets to hide their incredibly stylized hair that makes them questionably more noticble in a game with snipers and tanks, if you as me. The enemy are all john does w/ full helmets. Their only variety comes form Lancers (different helmets) and anyone important to the plot.Not as much an Eastern standard as it is a universal one though. Aside from a few particular battles, most of the game is generic forest, desert, and suburban battle-torn city. An overall colorful and stylized game but it does leave a bit to be desired from its deisgn.

This game is a lot of fun. You have 5 classes aside from your 2 Tanks:

-Shocktrooper (High DPS)

-Scouts (High Mobility)

-Lancers (Anti-Tank)

-Engineer (Repairs Tanks/Resupplies Troops)

-Sniper (Long-Range)

You can train each class with exp from battles and skirmishes and they can unlock new abilities. Each unit has pros & cons. Welkin can learn new orders that bolster your units during battles and you can also upgrade your equipment. You position units before a mission with how many determined by the mission. General objectives are to capture the main enemy base while maintaining your own, keep Welkin alive, and do so in 20 turns. The freedom of movement sets it apart from most tactical RPGs which often take an isometric route. Units move within a set distance, so planning and positioning is key... is what I want to say. Honestly, you can just cheese it. And by "can" I mean will.

Scouts break this game. A unit can move more than once at the cost of their overall distance reducing each time. With Scouts however, most maps can be completed in 1-2 turns provided you avoid the enemy and capture their base unmanned. And considering how the ranking system works (less turns used=higher rank & 2-3 Turns is the minimum for most A-Ranks) the game promotes this. It's sad because it denies creativity. You could try a random team and might win, but it'll take FOREVER. Even with a basic team you're looking at 15-20 minutes of your life wasted when you could 've beaten the whole mission with one unit Sonic'ing their way through. You don't even have to level your scouts to do so!

The AI also seems to have lady luck on their side. It's RNG so they can miss, but chances are that they'll have more luck on shots you believe to be implausible with their "suppsedly" ♥♥♥♥♥♥ weapons. Your sniper might easily miss a target 30ft away, but the AI will hit your units from halfway across the map with buildings and terrain in-between. On top of that, accuracy is worthless so weapons with higher damage are encouraged (which trades off good aim and range for power). Some battles are heavily reliant on certain tactics (like using smoke shots to hide your units), forcing the player to either do what the game wants but doesn't tell or fight a war of attrition. NG+ offers harder missions but even they fall to cheese baker Alicia. Skirmishes hold no value or challenge outside of being able to cheese them for quick exp & money. At the end of the day, the combat is fun, don't get me wrong. But it truly allows you to have that fun when you're not playing the story, which is game.

Valkyria Chronicles receives an 8/10. It's a great classic from the PSP era and I really do reccomend it. But be forewarned: the temptation to bake cheesy bread grows more and more after dealing with its shenanigans long enough. At its current price, its totally worth checking out, and at the very least, you can enjoy its story and cast. We might even see VC2 & VC3 ported in the future.

I wish I could tell you all the "supposedly" wonderful things about this game. Hell, i wish i could tell you anything about the game outside of the screenshots and video on the from page. But I can't; the game won't even start. Or I should say that the game won't start "without immediately crashing on launch". I've spent 20 minute alone getting a crash screen. I'm not even sure how steam counts that as time spent playing the game but, hey, steam has done weirder thing.

I've run my hands through just about every decent fix currewntly out there and nothing works. my drivers are fine, my redists, DirectX, and Frameworks are fine, and it's damn sure not my operating system. Only the 32-bit Safe-mode works (for the most part) but i'll be damned if I pay for a working 64-bit game and get it's 32-bit counterpart, especially the "safe-mode" version of that!

The game apparently has this issue commonly sometimes at exiting the game, sometimes in the middle of the game, sometimes before the game like me which leads to me not playing the game. At all.

When one of the solutions you're given by another player is "try a fresh install of your OS?" for one game, not all of them or your system in general -just one game- then you should probably ask for a refund and go on about your happy way. I really want to like Helldivers. I wanted to play it outside of playstation network for months and the chance finally presented itself.... or so i thought.

I can't even rate it because I can't play it to even make a rating. I'll change my review when I see that this game is running like hot butter on toast with little to no common issues. For now however, I'd say wait until all the kinks are worked out because apparently this is a common issue. until then pretend the game isn't here.

Transistor is yet another masterpiece from SuperGiant Games. The story has players in control of Red, a widely beloved singer of the setting city, Cloudbank, where all voices are heard so to speak. When our Heroine finds herself trekking throughout the city without her voice after being attacked by a secret group that wishes to use her voice for their master plan for the city, Red must take use of the Transistor, a oddly sword that downloads the data of people in order to store them inside.

Within the first fewminutes of the game, we see this in action as the swords main entity is Red's boyfriend, a figure unknown by not just the player but the also the city itself. With him guiding her along the way the game really opens up some interesting dailogue between them that range from comedic relief and worry. the Characters are all fairly written and the background data on the people you download into the sword keep you playing to find out more on why they were killed and the truth behind the Transistor.

The Combat is great, and engaging; combining elements of strategy and action. You have a feature called turn which in essence allows the player to stop time, plan their next move, and then re-initiate time and watch your plan play out. THe best part about this feature is that it's mostly optional save for some bosses and puzzles. The most of the game can be played without ever activating Turn for the more hardy of players looking for a decent challenge. Not enough you say? well how about the added limiter that allow you so make the game harder in order to earn even more experience. Limiters are a great way to give that extra wager to your skills from making enemys immune to status effects to giving them more health and power to having them break your skills should you get hit with no health.

Darren Knob Has outdone himself again with Transistors Soundtrack. This and Bastion are two example of just how good Game OST's are getting, and I'd recommend picking it up like I did. I could sit here all day trying to sweeten up music for you, but my moto on music is the only way I could get someone to like music is to have them hear it for themselves, and that's just what you need to do. Check some of it out on Youtube, and if you enjoy the jazzy/blues tunes of the game then you simply must purchase the soundtrack.

All-in-all, Transistor is a great game for those that enjoy a great action game, with a few twist here and there, a interesting story, and great soundtrack. Overall i'd give the game a 8.5/10, and I'd reccomend it to anyone who does and doesn't hold interest in the title already. Trust me, it is a well worth buy.

Don't let the cutesy anthro art-style fool you. Dust: An Elysian Tail is an amazingly, well-done Action RPG with a great story to boot. I can't spoil it for you, but I can say that I certainly was kept interested for more as I played through to the end. The gameplay is truly something that shines as you'll spend countless hours doing hack-n-slack combos, beating up baddies, and finding secrets hidden in the game. And man, are there some cool secrets. An awesome indie game that's under-selling it's worth. Buy it; it's practically stealing. And be ready to produce emotions you didn't even know existed. And don't forget to give a shout of praise to the developer. Trust me, you'll love the game. I know I still do.

EDIT 2/27/2024:
Came back to this gem and it's still as good as I remember over a decade ago. I really wish it got a proper follow up over the years, because this game is a complete package. Hopefully it will, but if not, it's good enough to be thankful for the joy it gave me to play it.