TGS 2009: Valkyria Chronicles 2 Hands-On
When Valkyria Chronicles 2 was announced, it wasn't overly surprising other than the platform. Valkyria Chronicles was a huge success critically, but it didn't do overly well in sales. It appears that Sega are going to try and address this, as Valkyria Chronicles 2 is coming out exclusively on the PlayStation Portable.
Even though it was officially only announced a short while ago, Valkyria Chronicles 2 was playable on the Tokyo Game Show 2009 show floor, and there was no way we'd pass up that opportunity.
Fortunately, the demo revolved around the combat in Valkyria Chronicles, but before that gets talked about, the graphics need a mention. They look near identical to those seen on the PlayStation 3 and it was actually rather impressive. Exactly the same art-style will be used, and it's good to see that they have been able to translate that to the PSP. Due to the demo being combat focused, very little knowledge of Japanese was required. The target was simple, take down an enemy encampment and capture the flag - standard fare for Valkyria Chronicles.
The gameplay was almost identical to that of the original too. Each side has a set amount of Command Points and these allow players to dive in and control their characters in real time. As before, they have a set amount of movement time allotted, and can only fire their weapon once per turn. All of the old classes seemed to be present, and there was one new class on display, but it seemed very similar to the Scout class as there were no discernible differences.
One slight difference came with the level design, most likely due to the limitations of the PlayStation Portable. The level was split into two different sections, and the only way to get characters between them was to send them back to base, and then re-spawn them. This meant that the tank got abandoned in the first part of the map, but this kind of scenario happened in the original game too - just in a different way.
Overall, the demo impressed. It seemed like a perfect replica of Valkyria Chronicles, although one complaint is that it didn't really seem much like a sequel - more an expansion. The gameplay mechanics seemed identical, and it was as if Valkyria Chronicles was being played, just on the PlayStation Portable as opposed to the PlayStation 3. Sure, there will be a unique story, and lots of unique missions, and probably a few new options, but here's hoping the final product includes a lot more differences.
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