Valkyria Chronicles

Yesterday I finished the PS3 game Uncharted. Only started playing it in October last year. Go me. If you’ve not played the game I can strongly recommend it. Very much in the Tomb Raider mould, with some great level designs.

I’ve now moved on to Valkyria Chronicles from Sega. Number one son bought a copy whilst he was with us at Christmas, and since it was a good price I bought it a couple of weeks back. It is a turn based strategy game, a bit like the Advance Wars games that are so good on the Nintendo handhelds, but with lots of personality, a strong storyline and fantastic graphics. You get to hand pick, train and equip your troops before going off to fight against the Imperial forces (I was wondering if Imperial forces have always been the bad guys, perhaps it started with Star Wars).

The game itself has a very strong moral theme, starting with just how horrible war itself is, with picture postcard villages reduced to mud and wreckage before your eyes, and normal people dragged into the fight.

I’m enjoying playing it, except for one thing. If you are not careful some of your comrades in arms get shot. I hate this bit. Fortunately you can get them treated and evacuated from the battlefield, and I’ve not lost anyone permanently yet, but it is starting to worry me that I might in the future.  I know that they don’t exist, and that the whole thing is actually a block of data running inside an unfeeling lump of hardware, but it still bothers me.