Valkyria Chronicles is, first and foremost, a dishonest game. It tells you what you need to know, then piles on all sorts of extraneous information in each mission that you're mentally adding all sorts of secondary objectives that are not part of the mission.
For instance, the mission I just finished had as its objective to occupy a certain point. The game then went on to talk about the benefits of occupying several other points that were on the obvious path to the objective, the paths reinforcements would take, warnings about enemies stationed on high points and so on.
The correct solution — which I figured out after trying the obvious solutions five or six times — was to just blast through everything and go in a straight line to the objective with my tank, with infantry following in the rubble I left behind.
In truth, as far as I can tell, nearly every mission can be completed in one move — that's how you get the "SS" letter grade for the mission. "A" for two moves, and so on from there. That isn't to say I've figured out how to do them in one move, but I figure, if I could figure out how to do it in two moves, a good player could figure out the one move solution.
I first bought Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3 years and years ago. I'm not sure I ever finished it; I don't think I did. Even if I had, it wouldn't have meant anything, since I was using strats from GameFAQs to ensure I always won.
I'd forgotten about the game completely until it popped up in the Steam Christmas sale. I loved the watercolor/Studio Ghibli look to the game, and I love tactical RPGs in general, so I pulled the trigger and bought it again, this time for the PC.
But this time, no help with the strats. I was happy to see I only remembered the first couple missions, and nothing at all about how to finish them. There's a good chance the first couple missions is all I ever did on the PS3.
Valkyria Chronicles is a tactical RPG set in an alternate world similar to ours, a 1935 where the discovery of the mineral Ragnite has led to an energy revolution. The forces of the Eastern European Imperial Alliance — geographically analogous to the old Soviet federation — are attacking the Atlantic Federation, a slightly redrawn Western Europe, for control of their Ragnite. Caught between the two empires is the small, independent nation of Gallia, situated about where Kaliningrad is today, and the location of several rich Ragnite deposits. The prologue covers the surprise invasion of Gallia by the "Imps", and the rise of the citizen militia who vow to retake their home, yard by yard, street by street, field by field.
Helped along by you, the player.
It's a great story, beautifully told. Just watch out for all the ways the game tries to make things seem harder than they really are. There's always room for out-of-the-box thinking, and the obvious route is rarely the best one.
