Valkyrie Chronicles 2 may, or may not have been what everyone has been hoping for. Initially thought that it would be released in PS3 as its predecessors it turn out to be released in the PSP which many people were disappointed as they were hoping for a grand sequel to the great initial story of Alicia and Welkin. However, the spectacular gameplay and a new twist to Valkyrie unique art has outshine everyone expectation in the portable device capability to demonstrate its new path.


Story : The story continues on in the Principality of Gallia, 2 years after the war between Gallia with the Empire. The new twist this time around is after the shocking discovery of the princess identity which sparks rebellion forces and the Lanseal Cadets are caught in this civil war forcing them to put their lives in the frontline to protect their country. The story itself is engaging, and there are plenty of beautiful CG's to unlock throughout the game which are a substitute for the absence of cutscenes. There are over 30 unique characters which you are exposed to similar to Valkyria Chronicle memorable characters, each of characters in VC2 are unique and its fun to get to know their story.





Graphics : This is where Valkyria Chronicle starts to head to a new art direction. The release to PSP may be a test for how the players are going to react to this change. It was actually a pleasant surprise, the original VC has this unique 3D cell shades with an unique art twist which make it look really beautiful, in VC2 the art direction headed more towards 2D rather than the 3D cell shade which makes the characters and world look more anime-ish and vibrant. The graphics during battle are somewhat similar to the first and still looks pretty damn sharp in PSP.




Gameplay : There are tons of new features involved for VC2 such as the new co-op buddy system which unlocks more function and co-op play makes tackling the mission together with your friend challenging and fun. Each mission can be generalized in goals such as fetching boxes, escorting VIP's. capturing enemy base or killing the enemy commander. After you have progress through the story with each character enough, you get to play a secret mission to unlock their special potential. There are over 200 challenging missions and they are not easy to beat without proper use of strategy and fast thinking. Unfortunately, you won't be able to play as the almighty Valkyria all you want as the game focuses more on its core units such as tanks and its soldier classes. Each class can evolve into a more specific task unit depending on your tactics, one of my favorite is the fencer which are part of the armor tech unit class and they can send almost any soldier flying with just a swing of their sword.



Sound : The game has been given a pretty well dubbing by the actors and the voice suits the character personalities well enough to do them justice. Probably 1 thing that annoys me is that some of the voices could be very annoying such as Avan's laughter and Juliana typical princess tone voice. If anyone remember Edy Nelson, she is back for a short while to visit her sister in the Lanseal Cadet force, and omg her singing is absolutely nightmarish!! , The musics are gentle and nice to the ears, overall its a pretty solid compilation of voices and bgm's.