or Valkyria of the Battlefield: Gallian Chronicles.



I finally got the Japanese version some time ago and I'm totally in love with the game. The art style looks incredible and the battle system is something completely fresh and new.

The year is 1945. Gallia, as in the subtitle Gallian Chronicles, is a small republic in a worn thorn Europe, that is more or less divided into 2 parties, the East European Empire and the Atlantic Federation. The First European War has ended some years ago and the Second European War is about to break out.



Welkins Gunter, the son of Gallia's greatest hero of the First European War, comes home to Bruhl after studying at the university in the capitol of Gallia, but shortly after being reunited with his sister Isara forces of the East European Empire attack Bruhl and he has no choice but to fight alongside the security guards lead by Alishia to save his home town.

In the battles you have a certain amount of CPs. With each CP you can move one unit and attack once. When you start to move your character, the enemies react to your movement. If they can shoot at you, they will shoot at you while you are running from one safe spot to another. Once you enter shooting mode they will stop firing at you though and you can plan how to fire at your enemy. After shooting at the enemy most units will return fire, so if you aren't able to take out a unit in one attack, it is better to attack from a safe spot. Of course defensive fire also works against the enemy as well.

If one of your units does get taken out, you have 3 turns to get another unit there, so that unit can call a medic. If you fail to call a medic for a wounded unit for 3 turns, that unit will die permanently.

There are quite a few different types of units. Light infantry can move far, but both fire power and defense aren't very strong. Heavy infantry has a machine gun, but cannot move as far as light infantry units. Grenadiers can move fast and carry around different weapons. Snipers can shoot enemies for major damage from afar, but are very weak in close combat. Anti-tank units carry rocket launchers, that are the only infantry weapons, that can make a dent against tanks. They are weak against gunfire but strong against explosions. Finally tanks cannot be hurt by normal gunfire, but they take 2 CPs to activate. On the back of each tank there is the weak spot of the tank in form of the radiator. A clean hit from a rocket to the radiator will destroy the tank.



Unlike most other strategy games you don't level up individual units, but you level up a certain type of unit with the experience points you gain in battle. So all your units of that type will be about the same strength, but they will still be different. Each character has certain perks called potentials, that activate under certain conditions. For example characters who love nature, will get a bonus when fighting on a green battle field. Or a character who is allergic to flowers will lose health, if he keeps standing in a field of flowers.

The story in this game is told through a book. Every 2 pages make up a chapter and every picture on those pages is an episode in that chapter. Since there is only one battle per chapter but several episodes to watch, the game is rather story heavy. About half of the episodes show only the characters faces talking with each other, but the other half are fully animated sequenzes. The dialogues are your typical anime dialogues. There are a lof of clichés to be found, but that has got a certain charm.



The graphic style of the game looks like a comic book making for a rather unique visual experience. There are a few strange graphic glitches with trees and bushes though, that look strange sometimes, but that can be forgiven for the overall experience.

I'm still not very far into the game, but what I have played so far is wonderful. The story still has to pick up some pace though, since up to the point I have played so far, it's more or less just a story about war. I am certain something else will happen in the game later though.