by NorseGamer, HSM Publisher

The downside of having spent so much time in Home over the last half-decade is that there are vast chunks of the previous console generation which I never explored.

Let’s take Skyrim as an example. One of the best RPG titles ever created. I love RPG games. So, by all rights, I should have jumped in with both feet when it came out.

Nope. No time.

The downside of being responsible for a publication, on top of holding a full-time job, is that there just isn’t any time for much else. Keep in mind, I’m not complaining: HomeStation is an amazing journey, and it helped me transition from resort development into the games industry — with Sony, no less — as well as help several other people strengthen their respective creative skills. So it has absolutely, unquestioningly been worth it.

But it does mean that a lot of games from the last generation went by the wayside — especially those grind epics that I love so much.

Here’s the thing, though: now that I’m in the industry, and producing full-blown PS4 games as well as apps, I feel it’s important to not just be “the Home guy”. I’m one of only an exceedingly small handful of people who can effectively lay claim to having won the game of Home; it’s critical to branch out and get caught up on everything else.

So, for the last eighteen months, I’ve been doing just that.

It’s been a fun journey so far. Spending an entire weekend ripping through The Force Unleashed and its somewhat truncated sequel is, emotionally, a great throwback to those warm summer days when there was nothing else to do but have fun and button mash. Dragon Age: Origins (and Awakening) are always worth rediscovering. And Assassin’s Creed IV is easily one of the best console games I’ve played in a long time, despite its somewhat rushed final act and awkward denouement.

But there’s one game I absolutely had to get out of my system: Valkyria Chronicles.

I never finished it when it first came out; my original CECHA-01 PS3 got a Yellow Light of Death with the disc still inside it. Regrettably, I never bothered to repair the kit; I just bought a new one, grumbling all the while about the lack of hardware backwards compatibility that, dammit, I thoroughly enjoyed.

So, not too long ago, I grabbed another copy of the game and started up a new playthrough.

God, what a great experience.

I love S-RPGs. Love ‘em. Games like Vandal Hearts, Shining Force and the Front Mission series hold a special place in my heart. And Valkyria Chronicles is easily one of the best — and most unique — I’ve ever played.

Let’s get a couple of things out of the way: the game does have some annoyingly cutesy moments, such as a thoroughly nauseating subplot involving a pig with winglets. (Don’t ask.) If you’re not an anime fan, you’re obviously not going to enjoy this game’s artistic bent. The main character, Welkin, personifies the Generic Leader Archetype(tm) and doesn’t do much else. And if the idea of sinking sixty-plus hours into a PlayStation game without trophies is abhorrent to you, then get the hell off this website.

That said: if you’re into strategy games, this one’s an absolute winner.

Here’s what makes this particular game so interesting: whereas in a typical S-RPG victory is achieved by killing all your opponents on the map, in Valkyria Chronicles the only thing that matters is capturing the enemy’s main base on each map. At first, this creates some cognitive dissonance: you spend an hour on a battlefield, killing absolutely everything that moves, and you get a failing grade. You go back into the same map, throwing caution to the wind, capturing the basecamp in a single turn (in some cases) while most of your opponents are still alive, and you ace the map. Thus, while most of the missions aren’t necessarily all that hard to beat (except for a few of the very last missions, such as breaking Jaeger’s blockade), they can be hard to ace. It’s a completely different challenge that requires different thinking.

Think places, not spaces.

(If you’ve read Ender’s Game, do you remember the scene where Ender’s squad is hopelessly outnumbered in the simulator, and the only way to win is to abandon the tactics of fighting the enemy and instead simply go for the actual victory condition, which is reaching the enemy’s gate? Yup. That’s Valkyria Chronicles.)

What I particularly like about the gameplay itself, beyond the unusual victory conditions, is that you’re actively shot at while you’re moving — adding some much-needed urgency to the usual S-RPG fare of moving pieces around on a board — and you really don’t want to leave a character exposed at the end of a turn. Characters can be killed in this game, and unless you reach them within three turns from their incapacitation, they’re gone for good. Think of it like Fire Emblem with a safety valve.

Since this game’s been around for a while — it’s one of the very first PS3 games ever released — you’ve probably already formed your own opinion of it. On the off chance you haven’t, and you’re in the mood for an RPG, give this one a go. It stands up today as one of the best PlayStation RPG experiences out there, and I certainly hope to see a PS4 sequel some day.

Meanwhile, maybe I’ll dip my toes into Skyrim. Or Dragon’s Dogma. Hell, what’s a few hundred hours, anyway.

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