We chat to the development team behind this upcoming PSP sequel to find out some of the motivations and design decisions behind Valkyria Chronicles 2.
Valkyria Chronicles 2 has a lot to live up to. The first title in the series was a hit with gamers and critics alike, praised for its gameplay design, active combat, and engaging story that set it apart from other tactical RPGs. So how do you improve on a game like that? While in Japan this week we had a chat with Sega producer Shinji Motoyama and director Takeshi Ozawa from the Valkyria Chronicles 2 development team, who took us through an exclusive hands-off demo.
Valkyria 2’s story will pick up two years after the conclusion of the first game. Players will be students at a military academy, a setting that will bring with it a much younger feel to the game. This time around the war is not an international one but a civil one, set within the small Europan nation of Gallia. The depletion of the country’s resources caused by events in the first game means the government has no choice but to call on the military academy cadets to combat the rising insurgency.
While the five character classes offered in the first game appear in the sequel, the class system has been upgraded to allow more specialization of skills. In Valkyria 2 you will be able to specialize the skills of your character with class branches–for example, a scout can specialize in having an anti-armour rifle or being a sniper. There are also two new types of soldiers–support soldier and armoured soldier. The former will assist other units by re-supplying ammunition and carrying healing items; the latter will only carry a shield for deflecting fire and a hammer to engage in melee attacks. The story and missions will proceed monthly, with new missions added for each new month in the game. The mission types include infiltrating enemy camps, defending home base for a certain amount of time, or carrying supplies to other bases.
According to Ozawa, the development team paid close attention to player feedback from Valkyria Chronicles when designing and developing the sequel.
’We think and hope this will prove more of a success than the first title,’ Ozawa said. ’We really listened to what players wanted and we expanded the world. Players said they wanted more variation so we added customization options; they said they wanted more background for the supporting characters in the game, so we added more missions.’
One of the repeated requests was to bring the Valkyria Chronicles sequel to the PSP rather than the PS3, which is exactly what the development team did.
’A lot of people told us they wanted to play the game with friends over the PSP, and that’s what we aimed for. We wanted to bring the game out as soon as possible and focus more on multiplayer and co-operative play, so that’s why we chose the PSP as a platform. The PSP has both ad-hoc mode and wireless play so it was a perfect choice.’
Because of the difference in screen size from the PS3 to the PSP, Ozawa and Motoyama chose to focus less on story and more on the game’s missions and separate ’events’ that explore the minor characters in the game. The story elements, while not as prevalent as in the first game, are manifested through short cut-scenes inspired by the artistic style of Japanese filmmaker and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki, as well as war films like Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers.
Fans of the first Valkyria Chronicles will be pleased to know that the game’s Blitz battle system has remained largely unchanged. While Ozawa and Motoyama admit it was hard to port the system over to the PSP and make it work the same way, they are confident that those who played the first game will have no trouble navigating their way around the system.
’It was really hard to port this battle system over but we think we brought the same experience to the PSP, after a lot of work. We’ve also included a few new features and maps which we hope players will be pleased with.’
These new features include customization options for weapons (of which there are now more than 600) as well as the addition of a tank, which players can take control of and move around during missions. As in the first game, the combat will be split between an overhead mode and a third-person action mode using turn-based play. The multiple area maps will be connected by enemy camps, which players must capture to reveal new areas.
Of course, the game’s biggest new feature will be versus and co-operative play. Players will be able to choose from a large variety of customized units based on the existing classes, as well as different maps with objectives that include destroying an opponent’s unit and capturing enemy bases. There is also a co-op mode that will allow players to work and attack together.
’A lot of people said they loved the originality of the first game,’ Motoyama said. ’We hope we’ve given them more of that, and we hope we improved on the first game by giving players some of the features they wanted.’
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