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As just about every gamer knows, this month is a rough month for the wallet and work ethic. Between Call of Duty: World at War, Gears of War 2, Mirror’s Edge, and Resistance 2, there’s enough out there to keep any first person shooter fan satiated until New Years. Thankfully, for the RPG fans there’s a little gem buried in the FPS sand, turned sideways and on the bottom shelf of Gamestop’s PS3 games section.

One of the biggest shocks this console generation is the lack of worthwhile Japanese RPGs on the PS3. Given the myriad of titles for the PS2, and even PS1, it seemed like a no-brainer that a JRPG Hat Trick was on the way. However, it turned out that modestly-sized JRPG game studios would rather pump out games than learn parallel processing programming techniques, the Xbox 360 has become the JRPG platform-of-choice.

Sega’s Overworks (Phantasy Star, Skies of Arcadia) development team apparently decided that that needed to change, but rather than make a Skies of Arcadia sequel that so many(few?) have been calling for, they roll out a new IP, and what an IP it is.

Valkyria Chronicles (or Senjou no Valkyria: Gallian Chronicles in Japan) gives us an alternate world set in Mid-1930’s Europe, aptly dubbed “Europa.” The story picks up right in the middle of Europa War II, the subject of which is a fierce battle for the scarce resource of Ragnite. Enter Gallia; a neutral nation with plenty of Ragnite to go around, marked with a bull’s-eye by the warring Federation and Empire. Enter Welkin: College-Graduate Nature-Boy and Alicia: Baker-turned-Militia, thrust into conflict with the rest of their nation as they fight to keep it out of EW2.

The first thing that stands out about Valkyria Chronicles is the graphics. In this modern age of browns and grays, it’s a breath of fresh air to see some blues, whites, and greens for a change. Overworks also developed a new “CANVAS” graphics engine which makes the entire game look like a watercolor painting in motion. The gun designs are understandable save tor the anti-tank lances, the vehicles look like they drove straight out of a Miyazaki film, and this is probably one of the few JRPGs where the female characters are fully clothed throughout the game.

What makes Valkyria special, though, is how the game plays. The game combines tactical third person shooter elements with others commonly found in strategy/RPGs, the result being a delicious blend of genres that is easy on the tongue but won’t leave you feeling bloated after you’re done. Each turn you’re given a number of Command Points. You use these points to move your troops; one per ground troop, two per vehicle. Each character class (of which there are five) has a certain distance they can move per command point, and you can move a unit multiple times per turn (although they’ll move shorter and shorter distances each time).

As your characters move, enemies will fire upon them in real time if they’re within range and line of sight. If you’re not careful with how you move and how you use cover, you’ll often die charging blindly into swarms of shock troopers. Once you start aiming, though, time stops to allow you to line up your shot. Shots usually fall within a circle of accuracy, so just because you line up for a head shot every time doesn’t mean you’ll always get it. All of these limitations also apply to the enemy when they take their turn (Though you’ll swear they’re a lot more accurate than you’ll ever be).

Hitoshi Sakimoto brings out another spectacular soundtrack, if a bit same-y compared to his previous works. You may think to yourself, “This song sounds kind of familiar. Maybe I heard it in Odin Sphere or Final Fantasy Tactics?” and you wouldn’t be very far off the mark. Curiously missing (or very well-hidden) as well is the game’s opening theme and ending reprisal, “No Matter the Distance.” While I considered this the weakest track of the soundtrack, it seems odd for it to be omitted.

The game’s weakest point is its story, though I use the term “weakest” in terms of comparison. The game plays out like an anime, which is eerily fitting. Incredibly obvious foreshadowing leads to easily predictable “twists,” though if the game’s anime styling is what caught your eye you shouldn’t feel alienated by this at all.

The game has plenty of interesting Squad 7 recruits, but they’re almost never addressed in story cutscenes. Their information is limited to a paragraph or two of the Personnel section of the game. The absolute worst part of the game’s story is the inclusion of a pig with wings named Hans who serves as nothing but a mascot for Squad 7. The pig gets no more than five minutes of screen time total, but it seemed needless to even put an obnoxious animal mascot in in the first place.

The game is of moderate length. The main story will take you over 25 hours, and there’s plenty of extra back-stories to unlock, most of which include extra missions to play. There’s also a set of Skirmish maps one can use to grind on if necessary, and beating the game unlocks Hard mode for both the story and the Skirmishes. Early next year the game will also be getting English translations of Hard-EX mode and the Edy Nelson campaign, leaving this title with plenty of replay value. A fan of a good Tactical RPG or one looking to play through an anime would be crazy not to pick this title up before it becomes impossible to find.

TL;DR VERSION

The Good: Amazing artistic direction, great soundtrack, battles that take some real thought to get through.

The Bad: Playing through an anime, so expect cliches and easily predictable plot twists aplenty.

The Ugly: That god damn pig.

Score: 95%