Monday, April 27, 2009--
On this day:
In 2008: I buy a PS3.
Sunday, April 26, 2009--I haven't posted about Valkyria Chronicles in a while, but this is just too stupid to not post. *VC*
So I'm in chapter 17 where you fight Jaeger's tank. There's a lot of enemy defenses, and Jaeger has a pretty tough tank. But I cheapshotted him in such a stupid way it isn't even funny. (Okay, maybe a little funny.) Basically, on turn 1, I retreated my tank to saftey. Then, on turn 2, with all my accumulated CP, I use my tank to blast away at Jaeger's tank armor until it's mostly (but not completely) gone, then hide in a smokescreen. Since my tank is hidden in a smokescreen, the enemies can't see it, so they don't attack it. Then, on turn 3, I finish off Jaeger. Easy victory.
Even cheaper. Two stages later was the final boss. I got tired of the final boss being a cheating bastard, what with having to destroy 3 towers every turn to take down his shield and being able to regenerate half his life in 1 turn. So instead of figuring out the proper way to fight this battle, first I waited for a turn to accumulate 20 CP. Then, I used 3 CP (saving and reloading as needed) to blast away the 3 towers with 3 shots from my lancers. Then, with the remaining 17 CPs, I used 8 tank actions to blast away at the final boss (who was Maximillian powered up with imitation Valkyrie armor using technology) until he died. It took all 8 tank actions. Good riddance.*VC*
...and I also cleared Valkyria Chronicles. Time on save just before final battle: 40 hr 52 min 37 sec. This includes all the side quests, but I didn't bother clearing all the Skirmishes.
Finally, a negative review of Valkyria Chronicles
Why do people like Valkyria Chronicles? I really don't understand it. There's nothing innovative about the game, and the non-innovative things aren't very well-executed either. Quite frankly, I don't think there's anything good about this game.
Graphics and Art Style
The graphics are very technically well done. As someone who has dabbled in computer graphics, I know how difficult real-time non-photorealistic rendering.
And yet, all this fine technology is wasted on the bland, unimaginative art style of Valkyria Chronicles. The character designs? Repetitive and monotonous. The tanks? Plain and boring. The landscapes? What landscapes? (Seriously.)
Music and Voice Acting
The music sucks. None of the tunes are particularly catchy. None of the battle music gets my blood going. None of the cinematic music gets to me. The only memorable song in the game is the Title theme. And that's only because I hear it every time I turn on the game. Also, whoever thought it was a good idea to do the your turn your music, my turn my music thing should be fired and blacklisted from working in any job in any creative industry.
And the English voice acting is horrible. Now, I generally have a pretty high tolerance for bad voice acting. I mean, I've seen a lot of dubbed anime, and I didn't mind the English voices. To insist on the original Japanese voices is a rarity for me. But the English voice acting in this game was so bad that I went and changed the voice-overs to Japanese. That's how bad it was.
Storyline
Utterly boring. Now, in general, I have nothing against long cutscenes. But only as long as those cutscenes are interesting and relevant. Valkyria Chronicle's cutscenes were so boring, I'm pretty sure you could cut 45 minutes for every hour of cutscenes, and not only would the story be more entertaining, but you'd still have a coherent story with a beginning, middle, end, and fully developed plot (if it could be called that). At least the writers had good sense to make some of the cutscenes optional. With one notable exception (which had NOTHING to do with the plot), they were the most boring cutscenes of all.
Now some of you might cite character development as a reason why the cutscenes are so long and uneventful. Well, I'm sorry, but having one character constantly talk about his love of nature for a few hours while another talks about how she loves baking bread hardly counts as character development. (No, more like filler.)
Others of you might claim that the long and uneventful cutscenes were an attempts to show what kind of emotional trials the characters are going through. Except they failed to realize that emotional scenes (which, to be honest, weren't very emotional) about characters that the audience doesn't give a flying fish about will merely bore the audience to death. The writers assumed that we cared about the characters. It doesn't work like that. You need to give us a reason to care about these characters, THEN show us the emotional trials of those characters.
And the plot twists. The plot twists were all so predictable. With one notable exception (which also had nothing to do with the plot), every plot twist in the game was heavily foreshadowed. As a result, when the shocking plot tiwst happened, they had little (if any) impact. That and, shocking plot twists generally aren't a very good form of storytelling. (Consider M Night Shyamalan.)
Gameplay
Now, the meat of the review. The hype mill has been telling people how innovative Valkyria Chronicles is and how well designed the game mechanics are. What game mechanics? Everything Valkyria Chronicles offers either has already been done to death by other Strategy RPGs or adds nothing to the game or is just poorly executed.
The battles aren't strategic at all. When building your squad, there's no customization and no variety. Instead of using strategy to fight your battles, either it's a simple case of shoot anything that moves or it's a case of trying to figure out which hoops the game wants you to jump through in order to clear the mission. Not only that, but the gameplay is grossly unbalanced. The only reason why some of these battles are even winnable is because the player goes first and because the opponent AI is an idiot. Seriously, I've been in multiple situations where the computer opponent has the game in the bag, but instead of winning, they either retreat for no reason or they charge straight at my tank and/or shocktroopers and get themselves killed.
And to make up for this horrible horrible AI, the game designers decided to let the computer opponent cheat. Basically, they get access to much better stuff than the player, they get to start with much more material on the board and better board position, and they get an unending supply of reinforcements.
Not only that, but how could they claim to be a strategy game when something as simple as looking at the board is so obfuscated. The overhead map is all but useless. If you really want to navigate the battlefield, you'll have to use the mini-map in 3rd person mode instead (which often, but not always, contains better information than the overhead map). So you inevitably end up wasting the first few actions trying to figure out what exactly is going on on the battlefield. (Which doesn't matter anyway, since on the "hard" missions, you'll end up restarting a few times while figuring out what hoops the game wants you to jump through.) Some people will say that this is to give the game a bit of realism, since you rarely have complete battlefield information. Well, there's already a tried-and-true gameplay mechanic that simulates this. (And it's even named after the actual military term for imperfect battlefield information.) It's called Fog of War. If you're gonna re-invent the wheel, at least make sure it rolls.
Other people will claim that these crappy maps help immerse the player in the role of the commanding officer, where they make decisions based on sketchy maps. And then the game goes ahead and breaks the immersion by allowing you to zoom into 3rd-person views of any particular soldier anywhere on the map. (And I'm not even gonna mention the whole "Book Mode" fiasco.)
And every now and then, the game will insta-kill you for no real reason, which makes the game frustratingly unforgiving. Sometimes, it's because you made just the slightest mistake. (Like you positioned your tank slightly off center so that an enemy lancer could make a lucky shot from halfway across the map and blow up your tank, causing you to instantly fail the mission. And by Murphy's Law, if it can happen, it will.) Others, it's not because of any mistake you make, but rather because the game never told you that the enemy can do that. (Like when the enemy's armored train that is equipped with a powerful machine gun that can shoot you from halfway across the map is ALSO equipped with a heavy anti-tank cannon, which insta-kills your tank, causing you to instantly fail the mission.) And sometimes, it's because the game is just plain unbalanced. (Like when the enemy has an anti-tank cannon that can kill your tank in 3 hits, and in this mission, the developers decided to code the enemy to shoot your tank with it 3 times in a row even though normally the AI is dumb enough to NOT do that, causing you to instantly fail the mission.) Fortunately, being able to save during battle mitigates this problem, but that also opens up a completely different set of exploits.
The game also puts undue weight on clearing missions quickly, so much so that even fans of the game will tell you that speed is more important than tactics. A STRATEGY game where SPEED is more important than TACTICS. Yeah, sure whatever. And sure, the game will also reward you for blowing up enemy tanks and killing enemy leaders, but the reward for speed-clearing is orders of magnitude higher, and it drops off so quickly that even being a couple of turns too slow will make that reward disappear.
Valkyria Chronicles is so NOT a Strategy RPG that even the game describes itself as an "active simulation RPG" instead of a Strategy RPG. And by that, they mean it's a turn-based 3rd-person shooter with minor RPG elements.
Beyond the lack of strategy, the game also has serious pacing issues. During battle, it takes a long time for anything to happen. (Punctuated by the fact that the game will often interrupt these slow battles with INSTANT GAME OVERS.) Outside of battle, even though the game takes about 40 hours to complete, the game is so boringly slow that it seems like a short game. (And yet, this gamer was glad it was finally over, because it was just SO AWFULLY BAD.) For some reason, the designers thought it was a good idea to have only 1 battle per chapter, even though some battles are obviously related in the story. (Example: The "Prologue", and the first two chapters, which really should have been part of the prologue.) This results in most chapters being completely undeveloped, despite hours and hours of (uneventful) cutscenes, as well as way too few battles in the game for you to have a real game. And then, for no apparent reason, the designers break the 1 battle per chapter rule several times over the course of the game.
Basically, everything the back of the box promised was a lie. "Elaborate strategic maneuvers"? More like SCOUT RUSH!!! "Action-packed real-time combat"? More like slow, uneventful combat where the player and the computer opponent take turns moving soldiers one at a time. "Epic storyline filled with dramatic warfare"? More like long and drawn out storyline filled with repetitive pea-shooters. "Customize your platoon with 50 characters"? Really, each and every one of these characters is a near perfect clone of one of five different archetypes.
Conclusion
Why do people like Valkyria Chronicles? The stunningly beautiful graphics engine is wasted on the unimaginative art style. The music is horrible. The storyline bores me to tears. And the gameplay is frustrating, unbalanced, poorly executed, and just plain not fun.
You know what I think happened? The developers had a nice non-photorealistic rendering engine, and they wanted to build a game around it. They heard people liked RPGs, but they also heard that RPGs had already been done to death. So they sat in a room for a few hours and quickly came up with a few concepts, then whipped up a game as fast as they could, and didn't bother polishing it at all. Then, in order to get the game to sell like hotcakes, they paid game reviewers to rave about this game and hype it up to get people to buy it.
And the PS3 owners, frustrated that all the good RPGs went over to the Xbox 360, decided to buy Valkyria Chronicles and convinced themselves that it was actually good. And half of these people don't know what a "Strategy RPG" is, so they think Valkyria Chronicles is actually innovative. And a lot of these people are secretly Shooter fans, and since Valkyria Chronicles has guns, hurray for them!
And THAT is why people like Valkyria Chronicles.
But that still doesn't make Valkyria Chronicles a good game.
Overall Score: 3.0 out of 10
Saturday, April 25, 2009--
Happy Birthday JKern!
Friday, April 24, 2009--gas-watch: $2.36/gal
On this day:
In 2003: I pull off Infinite Slivers for the third time ever.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009--
On this day:
In 2003: I pull off Infinite Slivers for the second time ever.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009--
On this day:
In 2006: I beat Kingdom Hearts 2.
In 2003: I win with Coalition Victory for the first time ever.
Sunday, April 19, 2009--Happy Birthday various people whose birthdays I remember because they all happen to fall on the same day. That and, it's in my bloop from previous years.
On this day:
In 2003: I pull off Infinite Slivers for the first time ever.
Friday, April 17, 2009--I can't believe Microsoft
caved in to all the E74 propaganda bullshit. (See
March 23, 2009 for background info.)
Joystiq, you should be ashamed of yourself for that piss-poor piece of journalism that started this whole fiasco. Hell, I'm putting Joystiq up alongside of IGN in my (very short) list of sites I will never willingly visit.
Anyway, today after work, I went to Uncle's Games and Crossroads Mall and played in an Alara-Alara-Conflux draft. My first pick was Sarkhan Vol, and I got passed a lot of burn, so I quickly went into red-green. To fully flesh it out, I also picked up some white to have a solid Naya plus some Exalted. I also splashed a bit of blue for Waveskimmer Aven and a bit of black for Carrion Thrash.
Unfortunately, I quickly realized the one major pitfall of drafting at Uncle's Games: the n00bs here pass way too much removal. And having been trained that removal was valuable, I kept taking it. So in the end, I had way too much removal and not enough creatures. (Which is why I ended up splashing for Waveskimmer Aven and Carrion Thrash.)
Anyway, here's what my deck ended up looking like:
4xPlains
Island
Swamp
5xMountain
4xForest
Bant Panorama
Grixis Panorama
Obelisk of Naya
Armillary Sphere
Bone Saw
2xMagma Spray
Sighted-Caste Sorceror
Aven Squire
Nacatl Savage
Cylian Elf
Valeron Outlander
Sigiled Paladin
Sigil Blessing
Jund Battlemage
Sacellum Archers
Resounding Thunder
Branching Bolt
Oblivion Ring
Wild Leotau
Sarkhan Vol
Carrion Thrash
Waveskimmer Aven
Kranioceros
Skeletonize
Interesting notes: I had 3 Resounding Silences, but chose to leave them all in the sideboard. I reasoned that this was an aggressive deck, and leaving mana open for Resounding Silence flew in the face of aggro. I only brought in Resounding Silences against decks that had bigger fatties that I couldn't otherwise handle. Which didn't happen that often, apparently.
Also, I learned that if all that stands between my Sarkhan Vol and a 5/1 and 3/1 is a 2/2 first striker doesn't mean I can effectively protect Sarkhan Vol. (Lightning Claws, dood...) Lesson learned, don't play a plainswalker unless you're
sure you can protect him.
Also, Sarkhan Vol wins games. The first time I got him to 6 loyalty, I was sitting there thinking what I should do with him. And then I was like, oh wait, this is stupid, and I just went and created a bunch of flying dragon tokens for the win.
Saturday, April 11, 2009--
On this day:
In 2003: I beat FF5.
Knowing what I know now, I bet if I tried again, I'd have a much easier time at the game.
Monday, April 6, 2009--Journal of Bizarre Dreams, Vol. N+2
Book reports. Lots and lots of book reports. And I didn't do any of them.
Also, it's been a while since I've read a good book. Not for any shortage of good books, though. I'm just never in the mood for reading these days.
Sunday, April 5, 2009--
Happy Birthday Duckie!
Friday, April 3, 2009--My triumphant return to Friday Night Magic. For some reason, people convinced Brian that they wanted to play Sealed. (I guess Sealed season is in, so they wanted practice? I dunno why. Sealed is such a lame format.) So we had Sealed with 3 packs of Shards and 2 packs of Conflux.
Now, as is common in Sealed pools, I had very little removal whatsoever. However, I did have a decent amount of beef, such as Woolly Thoctar and Cliffrunner Behemoth, among others. I also had a decent number of Exalted creatures. So I made a Red-Green-White-Blue (or Naya-Bant or not-Black) deck. Here is the decklist.
5xForest
4xPlains
2xMountain
2xIsland
Seaside Citadel
Jund Panorama
Bant Panorama
Rupture Spire
Obelisk of Naya
Armillary Sphere
Kaleidostone
Goblin Mountaineer
Soul's Fire
Kranioceros
Tukatongue Thallid
Cylian Elf
Keeper of Progenitus
Rhox Charger
Cliffrunner Behemoth
Beacon Behemoth
Cavern Thoctar
Jungle Weaver
Guardians of Akrasa
Lapse of Certainty
Cumber Stone
Coma Veil
Valeron Outlander
Giltspire Avenger
Rhox War Monk
Woolly Thoctar
Waveskimmer Aven
So while trying to play the Keeper of Progenitus, I discovered that it rarely actually helped me. Sometimes, it even helped my opponent instead. So after a few games, I started withholding the Keeper, and then I started sideboarding it out every game for a Sigil Blessing. Lesson learned: Mana Flare effects really aren't that good. (Unless your gameplan is to power up a massive Fireball or something.)
Anyway, this deck went 1-3, which isn't too bad considering how bad the deck is. But it isn't that great either.
Thursday, April 2, 2009--
On this day:
In 2004: I play my first ever booster draft. (At Games of Berkeley.)
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - Addendum--Oh
hey look! Apparently, Google has developed some kind of AI bot.
Also, I forgot the "on this day" segment:
On this day:
In 2008: Ares' Children and Backside announced!
In 2007: Solar Vengeance: Fleets announced!
In 2006: I name a successor to be the next me at Berkeley, and the next me is Lei.
In 2004: A possible reference to Tiffany Shiao, although no names were mentioned.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009--
Journal of Bizarre Dreams, Vol. N+1
Last night, I had quite the bizarre dream about a certain girl from my past (who shall remain unnamed because I'm a jerk who likes to keep people guessing). It's strange that my brain picked this particular girl. We had a falling apart some time back due to increasing tension between the two of us, and we haven't spoken since. Maybe subconsciously, I miss her? But it doesn't matter now. I burned that bridge a long time ago. (I know she won't be reading this post anytime soon.)
Anyway, there was a movie, a stuffed animal, making out, and a room covered in blood. One of these things is not like the others. One of these things doesn't belong. (That's right, it's the stuffed animal that doesn't belong.)
Also, it's snowing outside.
Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming: programming.