Valkyria Chronicles II Message Board older than one year ago

More characters, more footage, more awesome.

The announcement of Valkyria Chronicles 2 came as a surprise for most. In spite of the modest sales of the first game, Sega greenlit a second title in th franchise, this time for the PSP. We spoke with Sega director Takeshi Ozawa and producer Shinji Motoyama about the difficulties in translating the experience to PSP, and the cameos we can expect from the upcoming sequel. [Note: While two people were interviewed, only the responses from our single Sega-provided translator are transcribed. We apologize for the lack of proper attribution.]Joystiq: Obviously, many people were surprised to see a sequel not on PS3, but on PSP. Does this open up the chance that the franchise will move to even more platforms, like the 360, for example?Translator: It's difficult for us to comment on because, actually, we weren't thinking about specific platforms when designing the game. And it just turns out, we developed for the PS3 and this time we chose PSP as the platform. We do take into consideration, in terms of game design, and delivering the game world and experience to the users. This time, we thought PSP was the ideal platform to do that. It's as simple as that. But, it's because of this that discussions became kind of widespread, and people started asking questions "why there's no 360 version?" We don't want to say anything that would enrage the fire of that discussion.

Producer Shinji Motoyama gives particular insights into Valkyria Chronicles 2.

Most fans of the original Valkyria Chronicles will want to know one thing: is the PSP-exclusive sequel a worthy follow-up successor to its predecessor? The answer, from our short time with the game at TGS, seems to be undeniably "yes."A costumed girl attempted to explain the game's controls to me, but I was immediately able to jump in. Veterans of the first game will find themselves at home here: the interface has remained largely unchanged from its transition from PS3 to PSP. Once again, VC2 employs the "BLITZ" battle system of the first game: a unique combination of both real-time movement and turn-based strategy. Players are given a number of Command Points (CP) which can be used to select various units: scouts, snipers, tanks, etc. Once selected, these units are manually controlled as in a third-person shooter, with players stopping to aim at enemies. Enemies can respond by firing back, but they cannot change position. Each unit is allowed only one barrage of gunfire before they must end their turn. Once players run out of CP, or manually end combat, the "enemy phase" begins, where the AI is allowed to do the same thing.The mixture of real-time and turn-based combat proves to be an ideal handheld gaming experience, mixing the casual pace of a turn-based game with the excitement of a shooter. Valkyria Chronicles is more about tactics, less about precision aiming -- a good thing to consider when adapting a title to Sony's handheld.

The look of disapproval is strong with this one.

They see me rollin', they hatin'...

This is going to be awesome news for a heartbreakingly small portion of the gaming population -- Sega has announced that it is localizing the tactical RPG Valkyria Chronicles 2 for a summer 2010 release in North America and Europe. Sega even backhandedly acknowledged the disappointing sales of the first game in its press release for the second, with VP of Marketing Sean Ratcliffe classifying the PS3 original as "a hidden gem on PS3." We're sure the company hopes the sequel will be upgraded to gem status.