First we brought you details. Then we brought you screenshots. Now, we bring you drama.
No, I don't mean the "Baaww, Valkyria Chronicles III is on the PlayStation Portable" kind of drama, but story drama. Specifically, the story of Unit 422, or "The Nameless", a band of misfits that star in Sega's also-portable sequel to two (yes, both of them) of the best strategy titles in recent years.
There's no gameplay visible in this one (though Japanese site 4gamer took some footage of a dude fondling the booth demo), but's chock-full of voice-acting, drama, and spiffy cutscenes. Many words are said, and after the debacle that was my attempted translation of the Catherine trailer (I fixed it, though!), I'll not presume to understand them. Instead, we'll go by visual cues!
Following what's essentially a Gallian black-ops group already strikes a darker tone than either of the previous Valkyria Chronicles games, but there's further tension thrown in by the Gallian army's own prejudice against The Nameless themselves. That, and Imca, a Darcsen who constructs her own custom Lancer-Swords, had her village razed by a Valkyria. Riela Marcellis also happens to be a Valkyria. Relations are, to say the least, stressful.
Check it out! What do you think? Are you won over? Or is it "dead to you" now?
Contest:
6:30 PM on 09.16.2010 | 
I find it a bit hard to believe that they found four Valkyrias in the space of two years but then I suppose you can’t have a Valkyria Chronicles game without a Valkyria.
Watching this makes me quite excited to play it and I like the darker tone that's been set. I like that Welkin, Alicia, Maximillian, and Selvaria make an appearance which actually make sense this time (regarding the last two).
There's a load more that I want to know but I just thought... Homer's sister that appeared in the 100th blog post. Is she in this 'Nameless' group? That'd make me laugh.
She is. Leila Pieroni (or Peron depending on your choice of localization) appears on one of the dossiers in the trailer. Number 23, I believe.
Too bad the PSP isn't capable of shouldering my interest as a platform. 2 good games doesn't really do much for me. The game started on a PS3 and it's sad I'll never get to play its sequels. Hopefully you're OK with me voicing my opinion right? I guess if that's "drama" then so be it, although I think that's a little extreme to call someones opinion drama. But whatever.
I've accepted that VC3 is on the PSP and I will definitely be buying it, but do not even think for a second that the PSP is in any sense of the word, capable of shouldering the entire VC series. I'll accept the circumstances, but if there's one thing I definitely don't want to see, it's VC becoming a staple PSP franchise.
That said, I'm liking the direction VC3 is going. One thing that annoyed me about VC2 was its similarity to the Persona games, except without any of the decent writing. I don't mind high school antics if they're done well (like Persona), but it was handled so poorly in VC2 that I honestly hope Sega never considers going that route again.
A darker (and hopefully more mature) narrative is definitely the right thing for VC to be doing and I look forward to this. I just hope the game and its characters aren't too harsh and gritty. VC has always had some lighter moments to balance out all the genocide and hardship so it'd be a shame if they completely got rid of that.
They're making things less static out of battle, aswell as in battle.