Valkyria Chronicles 2

I downloaded the japanese ISO for VC2 yesterday and am absolutely loving it so far. It's a bit different than VC1, but I find most of the changes are improvements.

The first change I noticed was that characters don't have medicine at the start of the game. So the Engineer is basically the medic class now, only more important than in the first game.

Characters can get promotions, though I'm not sure how (it's different than leveling up). Once a character gets promoted they can either change to a similar class, or get a few more abilities for their current class. So for example, at the start of the game there are no snipers. You need to promote a scout to a sniper. Or you could promote your scout so that they can go further each turn.

There is a new class that seems to be a melee only class. I haven't really used them much. They have a giant shield and hammer, and after they get promoted they can switch to a giant shield and sword or a more powerful hammer. These guys are also the mine clearers and they repair sandbags. That stuff the engineer no longer does. The engineer also doesn't carry grenades anymore, but I'd bet once they get promoted they can.

The battles take place on multiple maps. So far it's either been 2 or 3 maps at a time. Any player standing in their base can retreat without costing a command point, and anyone on the field can retreat costing you 1 command point. It's no longer an order. You usually start off with 1 base on 1 map and you can put some troops on another map, but they don't have a base yet, so they can't get reinforcements till they capture a base. Almost all bases link up with a base on another map. So if I take a base on area 1, it'll capture the connected base in area 3 as well. Since you can only have 6 members on the battlefield at once you'll probably then need to retreat someone and then insert someone on the other map, which might even have enemies at the base you're sending them too. This results in you using your reserves a lot more than in the first game. It's easy to remove a lancer once the tanks are gone and replace them with a scout, or remove the engineers and replace them with lancers if there are a bunch of unexpected tanks ahead.

The game is also a lot easier than the first game. I'm playing on Normal which is the hardest difficulty available at the start and I have 13 S ranks, and 12 lower ranks (8 of them are A).

When you go collect a body it doesn't pause for a second anymore. The body just disappears and you keep going without stopping. If you get to a downed ally it doesn't stop for a medic anymore. It just removes them from the field and you keep playing. That keeps the pace of the game moving.

The game does look worse than the first. That's to be expected though, since it's a PSP not a PS3.

The game reuses the maps a lot, but you do get more eventually. Each time you unlock some maps you get 4 or 5, but it's a long time between unlocks and you'll play each map 5 or 6 times before you get to the next set.

Since there is multiplayer you can set up and save 16 different squad rosters so you can be prepared for any type of battle. The game also keeps track of how many times you've deployed each class, so I'm going to assume that when playing online you can see that information to help you decide which roster to use. I haven't tried the multiplayer yet since it's local play only. Once my PS3 gets fixed I'll try it with AdHoc Party.

I know I had more to say but I forgot it.

Any questions?