It’s a tactics XCOM-esque war game with anime aesthetics that seems to be a reference to WW2. You as the protagonist, along with a few close friends, join the local militia to fight against the invading empire through near impossible odds as the enemy has superior numbers and firepower.
I honestly had a blast playing it aside from the whole anime tropes making up all the characters personalities (in both VC1 and 4); the gameplay is pretty good but the story is a little weird.
The empire itself seems to be an obvious reference to Nazi Germany, but also for whatever reason the USSR? At least the in game map makes it look like the USSR is a part of the Empire. The Empire has wunderwaffe weaponry (except that it actually works) so I’m more inclined to believe they were intending on making the Empire the Nazis. The game even features a whole fictional ethnic group that’s discriminated against, and they’re REALLY clear about that lol.
Just wondering if anyone else has played and I’m curious to hear your experiences!
I played and generally loved it. The art style, the magitek fantasy WWII vibe, and the Skies of Arcadia characters were all lovely.
What I didn’t like was that the missions had messed up scoring priorities: accomplish all goals with barely any health lost but took some time to do it? C or D. Bulldoze your way through? B or A. Then I looked up the tutorials for S Rank and that was behind ridiculous.
Doesn’t stop it from having a good spot in my gaming memories.
Because I played them both around the same time, I always get this series mixed up with Operation Darkness, which I enjoyed roughly 200x more. I keep seeing sequels for VC and being excited thinking they’re sequels for OD, which desperately needed a sequel to fix some of the odd choices and quirks of the game.
So yes, to answer your question, but mostly it reminds me of a different game that is objectively mechanically worse but still way more interesting and exciting to me
I’ve never heard of Operation Darkness, how is it?
Honestly, nobody has. I’ve yet to talk to anyone else who knows of it.
Like I said, I love it. The difficulty is inconsistent, sometimes kind of unfair, and party members have permadeath which can happen way too easily, so mechanically it is missing a LOT of polish. But the core strategy/tactical gameplay is excellent and really fun. And the storyline is bananas in the best way; it’s WW2 but with supernatural elements - your party is a secret werewolf division of the Allies trying to infiltrate the Nazis who are utilizing vampires, zombies, and various forms of black magic.
The game really needed a sequel to polish its many rough edges, but if you can ignore those rough bits I think it is excellent
Oh shit damn this actually sounds pretty damn good I might have to check it out! If someone dies I’ll just reset like I always do lol
Yeah exactly. Does get annoying though as some of the battles can get pretty long… Definitely had a couple moments where I audibly groaned after losing a party member to a cheap surprise attack after spending 40 minutes in a battle and realizing I was going to have to do it all over again. But if you can handle that, absolutely check it out 👍
Currently downloading it so I guess I’ll find out! Thanks for the suggestion!
Sick! If you’re up for it, shoot me a message sometime after you’ve played it for awhile and let me know you think! ✌️
I’ve played 1 & 4 but not completed either. I think they’re really good but I must suck at strategy games because I get my ass handed to me.
Same, I can’t deal with RTS and strategy games in general but I make an exception for Japanese SRPGs (Advance Wars, FFT…) even if I suck
It kinda depends on what units you bring, along with weapons and their levels, you can replay past battles for exp! The battles do get harder later on but there’s always some sort of strat that works
I played this one and it was fun, but it suffer from the common for Japan wehraboo syndrome. Was also crazy hard for no reason at moments.
I have to admit the first one was pretty hard at times for no good reason that I had to kinda brute force some levels. It usually kinda depends on what units you bring lol
I didn’t really enjoy how getting a good score basically necessitated running up to every enemy and shooting them in the face.
