To start off, Valkyria Chronicles is a great game! It's good to see Sega starting to take an interest in putting some of their former console exclusives on Steam.

STORY:

The game takes place in a fantasy version of World War 2 Europe. This is a pretty interesting setting, and one I think is vastly underused in RPGs in general. A brief synopsis is that a small neutral country called Gallia is invaded by The Empire (read: fantasy Germany) during the Empire's war with the Federation, and the game follows the experiences of a junior Gallian officer and his squad as they fight to ensure their country's freedom. Overall, the various characters are written in a way that is relatable and engaging, and the game avoids relying too much on stereotypical Anime character tropes. I particularly like the way the game handles the villains. The game takes the time to portray characters from the Empire- both leaders and common soldiers- as humans, with their own motiviations, flaws, and even some redeeming qualities, and it manages to do so without whitewashing the villainous acts they do.

This nuance in character portrayal is very important, as the game does not shy away from some of the awful stuff that happened in the real war. The game portrays both the pervasive racism and bigotry that characterized the countries involved in WW2, and it even touches on concentration camps and racial cleansing. The game mostly handles these topics with the amount of gravity and seriousness they deserve, and only rarely seems melodramatic or clumsy. However, the decision to cast the Japanese-looking 'Darcsen' as the game's stand-ins for the oppressed minorities of World War 2 Europe does have a few unfortunate implications vis-a-vis the victim complex that a certain real-world segment of Japanese society has about WW2. Overall, though, I'm still glad the game had the courage to address some of the more uncomfortable aspects of war, and I think its successes in this regard outweigh its failings.

Now, this IS still a JRPG, and some elements of the story and setting will seem hilariously out of place to you if you're not intimate with the genre. For starters, the magic rocks that power all Europan technology should clue you in that the game doesn't stick particularly close to history. The first half of the game mostly presents combat in a believable manner, but later story missions can't help but start to throw in some over-the-top Anime style bosses, and the introduction of a certain techno-magic later in the game's story might stretch suspension of disbelief for some.

GAMEPLAY:

The game is basically broken up into two different types of play: 'book mode' and battles. In book mode, the player basically just watches cutscenes that advance the story; each scene is fairly short, about 2-4 minutes, and there are about 10-12 scenes per chapter in the game. Each scene is self contained, and there is a mostly linear progression through the scenes, where you have to watch each scene to unlock the next one.

At least once per chapter, you will unlock a battle that must be completed sucessfully to advance the story. Each battle is basically a set-piece engagement where you deploy your units at a starting point on a map, and then take turns with the enemy until you meet your objectives (or lose, I guess, but the game isn't that hard in most cases). Each story mission can only be played once, but you will periodically unlock skirmish battles that can be played any number of times to farm experience and cash. Combat is basically like a turn-based strategy RPG, but there are a few major differences from other tactical JRPGs you may have played.

First off, unlike most other RPGs where each unit you control gets to take one action per player turn, instead you get a set amount of "command points" every player turn, which you can then distribute to your units at will, to take actions, give buffs (called 'orders'), or call reinforcements. One 'action' consists of both a move and a shoot- the shoot can be taken at any time during movement. This is all fairly straightforward except for one major caveat: you can give more than one action to a given unit per turn! In fact, if you want, you can give ALL your action points to a single unit to move/shoot a whole bunch of times. Getting A-ranks on missions often requires pooling most of your actions on just a few units, to quickly penetrate deep behind enemy lines and achieve objectives.

This approach to combat is more realistic than average for JRPGs, but still, don't expect it to feel at all like a gritty war simulator like the Company of Heroes games. Cover matters- enemies will take potshots at you if you run around within their range, and enemies can't shoot you if you're behind a wall or a friendly tank (or even an enemy tank). Controlling your own tank feels suitably tanky- big, powerful, and slow as hell. Actually shooting feels a little simplistic though. Basically, you take aim, then your unit empties their clip at your aimpoint, and then the guy you shot (if you hit him, and if he's still alive) gets a chance to return fire. Headshots are important, at least.

Secondly, while it's definitely an RPG and not a straight turn-based tactical game, the RPG elements take a backseat to the tactical ones. Levelling up your characters gives you some nice bonuses- it unlocks some secondary weapons and orders, character bonuses called 'potentials', and gives small increases to HP- but you can easily complete the game without any of the optional stuff, and the exp you earn in story missions will be sufficient to beat the game without grinding skirmish battles.

TECHNICAL:

This is a very good port. Keyboard controls can be remapped, the game can scale the in-battle/menu graphics to any resolution, and framerate is NOT locked. Unfortunately though, some of the cutscenes are prerendered at the 720p resolution of the PS3, and these cutscenes take up a lot of disk space- the game is a 20 GB install. The game is mostly alt+tab friendly, except when in combat- I sometimes have to start Task Manager to take focus away from the game then. The game is stable, but it sometimes doesn't shut down cleanly. I've never lost any save data that way, but it's a little annoying.

The artstyle is obviously very anime-eqsue, it's presented in a sort of washed-out cellshaded style. Maybe not everyone's favorite style, but at least it's unique and visually distinctive. I personally like it a lot! Also, the voiceacting is generally good. The Japanese voice actors are great, as are the English voiceactors for all the main characters. Some of the secondary characters can sound like they just phoned it in, though.

OVERALL: 8/10

PROS:
-Compelling and under-used setting for a JRPG
-Interesting story
-Good voiceacting
-Fun combat
-No grind necessary!
-Just as much challenge as you want- completing the game isn't hard, getting all A-ranks is!
-Great port- runs smoothly

CONS:
-Large install
-Some cutscenes are only 720p
-Some anime/jrpg cliches are present