Valkyria Chronicles Spin-Off Will Expand Series by Ditching Its Best Parts

Valkyria: Azure Revolution will swap out the series’ tactics gameplay for more action focused battles.

Late last year, the fine folks at Famitsu confirmed that Valkyria Chronicles, hot on the heels of an unexpectedly successful PC port, would be receiving a PS4 sequel (now) dubbed Valkyria: Azure Revolution. While the game has yet to be confirmed for release outside of Japan, its mere existence has fans of the franchise understandably excited. Those same fans will, in turn, likely be interested in seeing some recently streamed footage of gameplay taken from a demo for the game.

Included in the Japanese release of Valkyria Chronicles Remastered, the demo follows a trio of player-controlled characters fighting against a troop of hostile soldiers. The footage seems to indicate that the new game will be abandoning the turn-based tactics mechanics of the first three games in the series and will instead be adopting an squad-based action combat system. In the footage, streamed by Twitch user Hamachin, the player fights through the enemy soldiers using both firearms and melee weapons, with the AI managing the characters not under their direct control. The demo culminates in a boss battle against a spider-like mech which the players have to bring down by disabling its legs and attacking a glowing blue core.

Being a fan of the series myself, I’m going to go ahead and say that I’m a tad disappointed by the direction Azure Revolution‘s developers at Media Vision seem to be taking. Part of what people loved about the original games were their take on strategy RPGs. While there were elements of action RPGs in the former formula, it was still very much a tactics game at heart. This feels to me like its tilting the scales too much in the other direction. Don’t get me wrong, I can still see Valkyria Chronicles in this and it definitely looks like something I could enjoy playing. I just wonder about the wisdom of expanding on a recently revived franchise by removing many of the things people liked about it most.

Source: Gamespot