Valkyria: Azure Revolution

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by Vigo

Ugh never saw the point in perma death. Annoying mechanic. And story important characters won't die anyway.

Originally Posted by Interview

Are there events that don’t occur if you lose a character?
Ozawa: “The main story will carry on, but the said character’s events will be cut out. However, like other Valkyria Chronicles titles, you’ll be able to redo things, and we’re planning on having players get to experience everything just by doing so.”

The interview actually contradicts this: they very much imply that even main characters can die in this game, and that if they do the story will continue but without the scenes they're involved in.

Originally Posted by Iron Maw

I personally I feel like perm-death is more of a way artificially boosting difficulty rather than making something truly challenging. People are just reset if someone dies and trail & error their way through most obstacles anyway.

If done right, Perma Death isn't as much a difficulty booster as it is a great way to boost tension and improve gameplay: knowing that an important member, whether gameplay or character-wise can be permanently lost in a game means that players will think twice before committing to suicidal actions and rushed tactics. Basically, by raising the stakes, the gameplay and emotional investment is enhanced since players have to step up their game to avoid permadeath.

There's a reason that one of the most popular turn-based strategy games ever is X-COM, which features permadeath as its hallmark, and is in fact the game that inspired the creation of Valkyria Chronicles in the first place. And for fans of the reboot XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the general consensus is that the game is best played with Ironman mode on, aka having only a single savefile and thus preventing savescumming. Indeed, the feel of the game is incredibly different knowing that you can't simply reload out of a mistake.

[shadow1296]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

If done right, Perma Death isn't as much a difficulty booster as it is a great way to boost tension and improve gameplay: knowing that an important member, whether gameplay or character-wise can be permanently lost in a game means that players will think twice before committing to suicidal actions and rushed tactics. Basically, by raising the stakes, the gameplay and emotional investment is enhanced since players have to step up their game to avoid permadeath.

There's a reason that one of the most popular turn-based strategy games ever is X-COM, which features permadeath as its hallmark, and is in fact the game that inspired the creation of Valkyria Chronicles in the first place. And for fans of the reboot XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the general consensus is that the game is best played with Ironman mode on, aka having only a single savefile and thus preventing savescumming. Indeed, the feel of the game is incredibly different knowing that you can't simply reload out of a mistake.

Improves gameplay is a matter of opinion , and true it adds tension it also adds a great deal of annoyance to it because one move one simple mistake and you could lose the only character that has access to the only unique class in the game having you reset the game and start the mission over, it also weakens a games story by either having characters have less importance because you'll eventually might lose them, or sacrifices scenes of dead characters that have importance to the story, and it only works with turn based games because you don't have to rush battle tactics like in real-time and take your time and plan out accordingly(you don't play a game of chess where a guy makes 3 moves before you have a chance to make one) or in non party games where you don't have to worry about other characters dying except the character your currently playing,,

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by shadow1296

and it only works with turn based games because you don't have to rush battle tactics like in real-time and take your time and plan out accordingly(you don't play a game of chess where a guy makes 3 moves before you have a chance to make one) or in non party games where you don't have to worry about other characters dying except the character your currently playing,,

And guess which genre of games implement permadeath well? Turn-based games like XCOM and Valkyria Chronicles, and singleplayer RPG's like Diablo.

I've never claimed that Permadeath is the end-all, be-all to gameplay, hence why the disclaimer "if done well" - one of my favorite games is Warframe, and it doesn't have permadeath, and in fact dying there doesn't really mean much. However, Permadeath by the same token isn't a game mechanic that by its very presence is annoying: how its implemented into a particular game is what makes or break it.

[shadow1296]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

And guess which genre of games implement permadeath well? Turn-based games like XCOM and Valkyria Chronicles, and singleplayer RPG's like Diablo.

I've never claimed that Permadeath is the end-all, be-all to gameplay, hence why the disclaimer "if done well" - one of my favorite games is Warframe, and it doesn't have permadeath, and in fact dying there doesn't really mean much. However, Permadeath by the same token isn't a game mechanic that by its very presence is annoying: how its implemented into a particular game is what makes or break it.

this game is real-time not turn based, meaning it more than likely won't be well done here, and true permadeaths by its very presence isn't annoying when done well it can work FE, xcom, and VC 1 implemented very well, however it still does cause it for the reason i mentioned especially when you are doing a particularly hard mission *cough*Batomys*cough*

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by shadow1296

this game is real-time not turn based, meaning it more than likely won't be well done here, and true permadeaths by its very presence isn't annoying when done well it can work FE, xcom, and VC 1 implemented very well, however it still does cause it for the reason i mentioned especially when you are doing a particularly hard mission *cough*Batomys*cough*

Given that we still don't know how the LeGION battle system works, there's no grounds for saying that it "likely won't be well done here", since there are many ways to initiate permadeath in a real-time system, like having generous revival timers or a "grace" system that allows players to save their characters from imminent death if they choose to but at a significant cost. It can also be as simple as characters being difficult to kill in the first place, so that the only way to get them killed is if a player puts them in a very bad position in the first place, though that particular option is a copout I feel.

Also, the Batomys mission was more a case of unusual mission design than permadeath, and indeed once you get a hang of the mission it's actually quite easy to finish in a single go no matter what difficulty.

[Yu Ominae]

http://www.siliconera.com/2016/01/19...n-named-maxim/

New baddie is previewed by Siliconera.

[Ravagerblade]

Wish Brunhild's boobs were smaller. O.o
They look to big in the first place.
Otherwise this game from what's been shown seems pretty interesting for a first timer to something like this I think. I've just always stuck with Final Fantasy RPG's. (well for the most part FF's, but Dark Cloud I guess too.) lols <--- wtf.

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Yu Ominae

New baddie is previewed by Siliconera.

A bit more can be found here along with battle mechanics details. Again I think the game world is thankful that ragnite doesn't behave like a certain other universe's crystalline MacGuffin...

[Yu Ominae]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...treamed/.97854

Music is shown in youtube.

Song from the first trailer is "Eternal Rest" by Sarah Àlainn, a singer from Australia. She's trilingual. (English/Italian/Japanese).

Official site in English.

[MrTerrorist]

An Aussie. That explains why the english in the song is good.

[Klashikari]

A demo video has been put on youtube, and to be really honest, the gameplay changes aren't exactly to my tastes:

As you can see, the game is much closer to a TalesOf/PSO2 game, where you actually debuff the enemies with your guns (except snipe which seems to be quite OP early on), and then engage the enemy in CQC.

Without much exaggeration, the range phase looks like the usual "roaming in the world map/dungeon and smacking mob to take the advantage" stuff from RPG like Persona, then you switch in an Arena like any action RPG.
That kind of transition is very bothersome imo, simply because it really screws the pacing: I don't get why they needed a transition like that everytime whereas they could simply allow the players to engage freely with long range or melee weapons alternatively if they wanted to removed the gauge and turn based action.

As seen in the video, using guns during the CQC situation is not really advised, and you need to do proper preparation before that "phase".
Meanwhile, mobs that weren't in range from the CQC situation are just spectators outside of the "arena", so it is actually keeping the segmentation despite they could just keep some sort of "open world" feature considering the action RPG element.

At least, production wise, it is solid with a good framerate and a good aethetism, although the BG outside of the CQC arena is blurred as fuck.
That said, the A.I is really crappy. They don't exactly take independent action and just follow your actions to a T. Hopefully, they will fix that and allow actual orders or pattern.

[FRS]

A quick review of the demo in english:

Not a big fan of what i am seeing for the moment sadly.

[blakstealth]

So much disappointment this week.

[Shadow5YA]

I can't say I liked what I saw of the gameplay either.

I couldn't really tell whether there were any differences between character roles. All of their guns looked the same, save for the few sniping moments. The close range combat had the same problem, despite them all having different kinds of swords.

[Bonta Kun]

Meh looks good visually but gameplay I'm not impressed.

I like my pew pew and with being "forced" into melee to do most of the killing I can't say I'm looking forward to it.
If they are going with action aspect they should have just really opened up that can and dived right in.

Liking the Valkyria tho, she pretty much looks like Selvaria which is no bad thing indeed

[HasuMasu]

What's wrong with you guys? It looks great.

[Shadow5YA]

It "looks" fine technically (i.e. smooth graphics and framerate), but the way it plays looks like it's lacking.

The original Valkyria games had a variety of classes with different roles and purposes. But what about this game?

What's so different about Amleth's rifle, compared to Ophelia's and Brigitta's guns? Likewise, what's so different about Amleth's broadsword, compared to Ophelia's saber and Brigitta's twin swords? Do they do anything remotely different aside from just inflicting damage?

What was shown did little to highlight each characters' unique traits, if they even had any, in battle.

[Klashikari]

Meanwhile, I can't stand how range and melee weapons work in this game, mainly because the game dictate you a 2 phase type of battle system, which isn't exactly smooth in this case.

I mean, outside of the sniper rifle, your ranged attacks are incredibly weak to the point they are "just" there for debuffs. Sure, debuffs seem to be quite important to weaken the enemies for the melee phase, but that role is quite restrictive, and the true battle becomes a talesOf/Musou like.

Again, I don't get why they couldn't have both weapons being usable for debuffs AND damage. In most cases, there was no way for the guy playing the demo to finish off an enemy with his rifle: he has to go melee for that, even though it is, logically speaking, more risky.

The game looks more like a Musou due to the sheer number of enemies thrown at you, without much options but to rush at them, instead of going tactical like it was in VC1. To add the insult to the injury, this mode seclude you and the melee aggroed mobs in an arena, cutting short the enemy reinforcements ad infinitum.


I don't mind the action oriented style in general, but Azure Revolution doesn't show any kind of finesse with its entry gameplay, which is very very worrisome for a franchise that pretends to be the successor of one of the most adored 3D tactical console game.

[HasuMasu]

I wasn't talking about graphics. It looks fun.

I couldn't really get into Chronicles, but this looks more accessible.

[FlareKnight]

This just looks terrible. Talk about tossing all excitement for a new Valkyria game right out the dang window. Oh well can just forget about this game I suppose.

Originally Posted by HasuMasu

I wasn't talking about graphics. It looks fun.

I couldn't really get into Chronicles, but this looks more accessible.

Well there's a positive I suppose. It will appeal to people who were never fans of the Valkyria games to begin with...