| 1 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ValkyriaChroniclesCover_2989.jpg]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:300:Bottom left, [[TheLancer Alicia Melchiott]]; bottom right, [[TheHero Welkin]] [[AFatherToHisMen Gunther]]; above, [[TheDragon Selvaria]] [[OneManArmy Bles]].]] |
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| 4 | ->"''[[CatchPhrase Squad 7, move out!]]''" |
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| 6 | ''Valkyria Chronicles'', known in Japan as ''Valkyria of the Battlefield: Gallian Chronicles'' is a video game made by Creator/{{Sega}} for the Platform/PlayStation3 and released in 2008. A PC version including all previously released DownloadableContent [[http://store.steampowered.com/app/294860 was released on Steam]] on November 11, 2014 (where it proceeded to [[http://www.thegamersparadise.com/news/18-news/pc/757-valkyria-chronicles-smashes-all-expectations-to-reach-number-one-on-steam smash all sales expectations]]). A Platform/PlayStation4 version was released on February 10, 2016. A Platform/NintendoSwitch version was released on September 27, 2018 as promotion for ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles4''. |
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| 8 | The story is set in a fictional UsefulNotes/{{Europ|e}}a, in 1935, when two large blocs, the [[TheFederation Atlantic Federation]] and the [[TheEmpire East Europan Imperial Alliance]], are at war over control of the continent in what is called the Second Europan War. |
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| 10 | Caught in the middle of the warring alliances is the [[TheGoodKingdom Principality of Gallia]], a small neutral nation famed for its rich [[GreenRocks Ragnite]] mines. Gallia is also known for its policy of Universal Conscription: in lieu of a standing army, every citizen is required to undergo basic military training with the provision that they can be drafted into the army at any time to defend Gallia against an external threat. |
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| 12 | When the Imperial Alliance launches a surprise attack against Gallia, the policy of Universal Conscription is activated and every able-bodied man and woman is drafted into military service. Three of these new recruits are Welkin Gunther, an animal sociologist and son of a famous general; Isara, Welkin's Darcsen foster sister; and Alicia Melchiott, a young woman who dreams of becoming a baker. |
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| 14 | Along with a wide and eclectic cast of other civilians, they are organized into Militia Squad 7 and put on the front lines to defend their home against the Imperial offensive. Together they must face not only the advance of the Imperial army -- including the dreaded "[[RedBaron War Witch]]" known as Selvaria Bles -- but their own internal disputes as those in the Gallian military seek to manipulate or use Squad 7 for their own ends. |
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| 16 | Like many [=JRPGs=], ''Valkyria Chronicles'' is very story heavy and contains many themes. The most evident are the tragedies of war, racism ([[PeopleOfHairColor of the hair color variety]]), fighting to defend one's homeland, friendship, family bonds, and love. Every character you can control (and a good deal of [=NPCs=], too) has their own personal biography, special traits, likes and dislikes, and personality quirks, making it feel like you are actually controlling real people in an actual war. However, unlike many [=JRPGs=], ''Valkyria Chronicles'' chooses to avoid a [[HighFantasy high fantasy]] setting and instead opts for a very UsefulNotes/WorldWarII themed world with light fantasy elements. |
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| 18 | Gameplay-wise, ''Valkyria Chronicles'' is unique, as it is a mix of TurnBasedTactics, RealTimeStrategy, {{Eastern RPG}}, and ThirdPersonShooter. During battle, players use a pool of Command Points to directly take control of individual units so they can move and attack. While the player is controlling a unit, enemy units will automatically fire on them if they pass through their line of sight, making cover and strategy in approaching your target much more important. All characters the player controls are separated into five classes: Scouts, Shocktroopers, Lancers, Engineers, and Snipers each with their own strengths and weaknesses. In between battles, players can use experience and money earned from battles to level up specific classes and purchase new weapons and upgrades for their troops. There are also tanks, which do not level up but can be upgraded. |
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| 20 | ''Valkyria Chronicles'' has received generally positive reviews from critics. The main selling points are its beautiful graphic design, engaging story, and unique gameplay based on a unique blend of elements from various video game genres. |
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| 22 | In addition to the game, there is also an [[AnimeOfTheGame anime adaptation]] produced by Creator/A1Pictures, simply called ''Anime/ValkyriaChronicles'' which first aired on April 4, 2009. There are also manga adaptations in print as well. Extra {{downloadable content}} was released in Japan after release, and is now available for download in North America as well and Europe. Available are a mission where you play as Edy, 4 missions playing as Selvaria & controlling Imperial forces, an extra hard skirmish setting and "Challenge of the Edy Detachment", a set of seven skirmishes tailored to the various classes, as well as the tank unit and a final, specially-designed skirmish bringing them all together. |
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| 24 | There is a sequel for the Platform/PlaystationPortable, called ''[[VideoGame/ValkyriaChroniclesII Valkyria Chronicles 2: Gallian Royal Military Academy]]''. It is set two years after the first game and involves civil turmoil as students are drafted in to fight the threats within the country. |
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| 26 | A third game, ''[[VideoGame/ValkyriaChroniclesIII Valkyria Chronicles 3: Unrecorded Chronicles]]'', has been released in Japan. It is a GaidenGame on the [[Platform/PlayStationPortable PSP]], taking place at the same time as the first game. This game has also gotten an anime adaptation. |
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| 28 | A web-based online card game, ''Valkyria Chronicles D''[[note]]The 'D' stands for "DUEL"[[/note]] went live on 19 July 2012 and was shut down on April 22, 2015. |
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| 30 | In 2017 an alternative universe spinoff to the series, ''VideoGame/ValkyriaRevolution'', was released. Depicting Europa in the titular event shaped after the Industrial Revolution, but based on the usage of ragnite instead. It was released on the Platform/Playstation4, Platform/XboxOne, and Platform/PlaystationVita. |
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| 32 | Following ''Revolution'', ''[[VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles4 Valkyria Chronicles 4: Eastern Front]]'' was released for Platform/Playstation4, Platform/XboxOne, PC, and the Platform/NintendoSwitch in 2018. It returns to the setting of the Second Europan War, but this time focusing on a Federation operation to end the war in one swell swoop. |
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| 34 | This series is not to be confused with ''VideoGame/ValkyrieProfile''. |
| 35 | |
| 36 | ---- |
| 37 | !!This series provides examples of: |
| 38 | |
| 39 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 40 | |
| 41 | [[folder:# to D]] |
| 42 | * AbusivePrecursors: The Valkyria conquered, raided, and pillaged all accross Europa, caused a huge disaster, and pinned it on a certain group to keep their faces clean. After that, they strongarmed the local rulers into maintaining this coverup and disappeared to who-knows-where. |
| 43 | * AceCustom: The ''Edelweiss'', which starts as an advanced prototype tank hand-crafted by a mechanical genius, and winds up with an assortment of upgrades and custom parts that make it far superior to standard Gallian tanks. It's also fitted with communications equipment that allows Welkin to give orders to his squad. |
| 44 | * AdvancingWallOfDoom: Chapter 16 has the Marmota - a gigantic land battleship - serve this role, slowly advancing through the stage while your units run ahead of it and cause landslides to delay and redirect its path. |
| 45 | * AKA47: |
| 46 | ** The Ruhm, a high-powered Imperial machine gun, is basically the real-life MG-34 used by Germany chambered for 7.62mm instead of 7.92mm. The Gallian basic infantry rifle, indicated by the game's encyclopedia, is based on the G43. |
| 47 | ** The Imperial Light Tank is basically a Soviet BT tank with a secondary turret. |
| 48 | ** The Imperial Medium Tank is closely modeled on the Soviet T-28 medium tank. |
| 49 | ** The Imperial Heavy Tank is essentially a Char B1 bis that's been scaled up to the point that it uses the same gun as a KV-1 in its turret and a 122mm howitzer in the hull. |
| 50 | ** The Imperial Tank Destroyer, despite being built on the Heavy Tank chassis, is closely modeled on the Jagdpanther and armed with the same gun as the SU-85. |
| 51 | ** The Lupus's turret it clearly based on the IS-2's and the tank as a whole resembles an IS-2 re-arranged as a rear-turreted tank. However, in story, it's more like an {{expy}} of the Tiger tank, acting as a powerful boss tank and getting an uparmorer upgrade called the Lupus Regnum (literally Royal Wolf), closely mirroring the name of the Königstiger, which was often mistranslated as King Tiger or Tiger Royal[[note]]Königstiger actually means Bengal Tiger[[/note]]. |
| 52 | ** The Edelweiss is based on the Panzerkampfwagen E-50 series prototype with specs copied almost word by word. |
| 53 | ** The T-MAG is a near exact copy of the Sturmgewehr 44. |
| 54 | ** In fact, most weapons sport by the Gallian forces match WWII German weapon caliber sizes & specifications. |
| 55 | * AlasPoorVillain: Selvaria [[spoiler:turns out to be a TragicVillain who was experimented on for her entire life and was only loyal to Maximilliam because he was the only person to ever show her some sympathy. And this revelation comes shortly before he orders her to take out part of the Gallian Army with a SuicideAttack.]] The DLC focusing on her only makes this worse, as she is depicted as a caring commander who leads from the front and treats the men serving under her as human beings. She even goes so far as to allow her engineer, Johann, to rest in her cot after he collapses after the first battle of her DLC -- though she does freak out for a moment and slaps him when he points out that her breasts are pressing against his arm. One can say she's AMotherToHerMen. |
| 56 | %%** [[spoiler:Maximilian]]. |
| 57 | %%* AllThereInTheScript: The name(s) of the medic. |
| 58 | * AllYourPowersCombined: Selvaria's gun, the Ruhm, combines the accuracy of a good sniper rifle, the range of a good scout rifle, and the damage potential of a good stormtrooper's machine gun. Once it's unlocked (by completing Selvaria's bonus missions), the stormtrooper who equips it can destroy just about any non-tank target that can't dodge or isn't crouching in one round - and if said trooper can get behind them and target the radiator, all but the heaviest of tanks are doomed, without need for any special orders, which means that it can also do the job of an anti-tank lance. |
| 59 | * AmazonBrigade: It's possible to customize your squad so that it is almost entirely female. |
| 60 | * AnimalMotif: The {{unicorn}} is the Principality of Gallia's national animal, which is seen decorated in its flag and military insignia. Its horn resembles the Valkyrur's lance, which denotes the Gallian royal family's connection to the Valkyrur [[spoiler:or so they claim]]. In addition, the northwestern part of their country resembles an unicorn's head. |
| 61 | * AMillionIsAStatistic: [[spoiler: The vast majority of the regular Gallian Army is lost at Ghirlandaio]]. |
| 62 | * AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: [[spoiler:Welkin manages to stop an insane Valkyrur-driven Alicia from blowing herself up with her Final Flame by proposing to her despite the risk that she could've atomised him from a distance.]] |
| 63 | * AntiArmor: Lancers are soldiers carrying rocket launchers, which are so heavy that it slows them, making them unpractical against other soldiers. However, they're the most useful units against tanks and other armored enemies. |
| 64 | * AntiClimax: [[spoiler:The eventual clash between Selvaria and Alicia, due to the former being hopelessly outclassed against an opponent who's essentially running on autopilot. The difference in power was so overwhelming that Alicia drops Sylvaria with a single shot, despite the latter ''[[NoSavingThrow blocking]]'' the attack.]] |
| 65 | * AntiFrustrationFeatures: Skirmishes are replayable missions that allow the player to grind XP and money, in case they screw up on allocating either during the main missions. |
| 66 | ** Rather than spending your XP leveling up individual units, you level up a class and every unit of that class, both present and future, benefits from it. This prevents individual units [[CantCatchUp from falling behind everyone else]] (unless you neglect a specific class, which is a bad idea in general) and helps take some of the sting out of high-level units getting killed. |
| 67 | * AnyoneCanDie: Downed units can die permanently if they aren't rescued in time, or if an enemy reaches them before one of your able units can. In the case of the storyline, [[spoiler:Isara's comes out of the blue]]. |
| 68 | * AppliedPhlebotinum: Ragnite is a multi-purpose mineral, useful for making fuel, weapons, and even medicine; arguably a case of TruthInTelevision, as oil can be used for all these purposes. |
| 69 | * ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: Typically, you can only take about nine or ten members of your twenty-member squad into combat. Some missions, depending on circumstance, cut it down to even fewer. On top of this, while you can choose to leave out any of the main characters except for Welkin, you gain another Command Point for having Alicia, Rosie, and Largo on the field. |
| 70 | * ArcNumber: The number seven seem to play a role in this universe: Squad 7, Class G (seventh letter of the alphabet), Number 7 is the main character of the third game, etc. |
| 71 | * AristocratsAreEvil: |
| 72 | ** The Gallian generals, and especially Prime Minister Borg, are a bunch of corrupt jerkasses who are not afraid to backstab or insult their own allies if it benefits them. Princess Cordelia is the only exception. |
| 73 | ** The Imperial High Command (particularly Maximilian) are this by virtue of being the game's main antagonistic force, but even then their actions later on are far more cruel than warranted. |
| 74 | * ArmorIsUseless: |
| 75 | ** In an early cutscene an Imperial is shot by an ordinary rifle straight through his armor. It's even lampshaded by the artbook, which states that the heavy armor favored by Imperial troops is actually rather outdated, being worn more for tradition's sake rather than anything else. |
| 76 | ** Averted in gameplay: the more armored the class, the more hits they can take. Tanks cannot be damaged by small arms unless hit in the heat sink. Selvaria makes do through sheer Valkyria toughness. [[spoiler:Isara was likely shot for being the only person without protection, since she spends most of her time inside a tank.]] |
| 77 | * ArmorPiercingAttack: The "Penetration" order makes all attacks done by a single unit bypass enemy armor. This also means that small arms fire into the hull of a tank will do full damage as if the armor didn't even exist. |
| 78 | ** Units that are crouching or prone are both immune to crits and more resistant to damage overall. Unless explosives or flamethrowers are used against them, which does the full amount of damage to them regardless (though if the explosion happens in front of a sandbag wall it'll often absorb a good deal of the damage.) Explosives also have the added benefit of knocking crouching and prone units out of this state, setting them up for a follow-up attack. |
| 79 | * ArtificialStupidity: The computer will often waste turns moving units back and forth, send wave after wave of their own infantry to certain death by interception fire, will almost always fail to make proper use of cover, and is completely unable to coordinate its units in a meaningful way. On top of this, most enemy units will stop right where they stand if they get fired at. Useful for making the enemy waste command points for some missions. Much of the game's actual difficulty comes from having to face far larger numbers of units occasionally supplemented by powerful elite units and obstacles like fortified bunkers or mortar fire. [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard And the fact that they can make shots from halfway across the map.]] |
| 80 | * ArtisticLicenseMilitary: |
| 81 | ** By American military standards, as a 2nd Lieutenant, Lt. Gunther should have been a Platoon Leader and been given command of a Platoon rather than a Squad. The role of Squad Leader is usually given to the NCOIC (Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge), which means Largo or Alicia, both having the rank of sergeant, should be commanding squad seven instead. This is due to intentional translation or translation error on the overseas release. In the original Japanese version, the organization we come to know as Squad Seven is appropriately designated as Platoon Seven (第７小隊 ''Dainana shōtai''). After all, a full platoon does fall under your command. |
| 82 | ** Varrot appears to be the only officer above the rank of Lieutenant in the 3rd Militia Regiment, and is shown reporting directly to the commanding general on multiple occasions. Which would imply that she's holding down a Colonel's job while only a Captain, and Captain of a militia force at that. |
| 83 | * AssholeVictim: |
| 84 | ** Geld is a torturer and coward that Captain Varrot has spent years hunting down. Though Varrot is ultimately convinced by Largo to not kill him, Maximilian executed him when he returned [[EvenEvilHasStandards due to him torturing (non-Darcsen) hostages]]. |
| 85 | ** General Damon really deserved what he had coming to him when Selvaria used her Final Flame on him. |
| 86 | * ATeamFiring: General Damon's men were unable to kill [[spoiler:Selvaria]] before she could unleash a devastating suicide attack, despite their target standing perfectly motionless only five yards or so away from them. Not that they didn't hit, but heart or headshots might have been useful; she [[NoSell completely ignored]] hits near her center of mass. |
| 87 | * AttackItsWeakPoint: |
| 88 | ** Tanks have a radiator exposed on their backs that, if hit with an armor-piercing round, will blow them up in one shot. At higher levels, a burst of fire from a shocktrooper into the radiator will do it. At very high levels, a scout, engineer, or sniper can blow up the radiator with a single burst as well. The Imperial tank in the tutorial egregiously has a huge exposed glowing box that you shoot at from the sides or the back. The Edelweiss and Shamrock have their radiators on the lower back that you vaguely have to be behind to hit. |
| 89 | ** Squad 7 also uses [[spoiler:the hole caused by Alicia's Valkyria lance to successfully attack and disable the Marmota.]] |
| 90 | * TheAtoner: [[spoiler:Faldio]], even so far as to [[spoiler:kill himself together with Maximilian out of guilt.]] |
| 91 | * AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: |
| 92 | ** [[spoiler:Alicia]] subverts this. [[spoiler:She's only second-in-command in Squad 7 and she still owned Selvaria effortlessly]]. Although, to be fair, [[spoiler:she's a Valkyria.]] |
| 93 | ** Definitely applies to the leaders of the Imperial invasion; defeating each one is among the hardest tasks in the game. Selvaria, even when she isn't a Valkyria, has a [[{{BFG}} Big Friggin' Machine Gun]] with huge range; Jaeger has an incredibly powerful tank with a sheet of armor that needs to be blown off before you can even AttackItsWeakPoint; defeating Maximilian's Batomys is ridiculously long and involved, [[spoiler:and Maximilian himself goes OneWingedAngel and absorbs all the powers of the Valkyria and then some.]] |
| 94 | * AuthorityInNameOnly: Princess Cordelia is a figurehead ruler at the start of the game, and everyone knows it. Her job basically consisted of giving speeches supporting her Prime Minister's decisions. She was ''sixteen'' when she first used her royal authority to make a decision for herself - to change her usual breakfast order. |
| 95 | * AwakeningTheSleepingGiant: Gallia was just supposed to be a staging area and supply depot in TheEmpire's fight with TheFederation. What it turned out to be was a nation of ass-kickers. |
| 96 | * AwesomeButImpractical: |
| 97 | ** Compared to the UsefulNotes/WorldWarII style tanks of the period, the Edelweiss has the appearance and capabilities of a modern battle tank. However, its construction and engineering is incredibly complicated and there is currently no way to mass produce it. Background material, however, makes clear that as it was initially built, the Edelweiss was, in fact, practical for mass production---it simply did not jibe with the overall strategic thrust of Gallian defense spending. By the time the player gets ahold of it, though, Isara's modified it enough that it's rather improbable that they manage to keep it repaired between battles. By game's end, it's a damnable mystery how the thing can move under its own weight. In-game, the Edelweiss' low mobility and high CP cost mean that on many missions that don't explicitly require a tank to accomplish the mission (Like driving through a barricade), it will probably just stay at its starting point for the entire engagement. |
| 98 | ** Extra ammunition magazines for tanks may seem like a good idea at first, but become considerably less desirable later on, when mortar shells don't always pull off one hit kills on enemies and are more useful for dislodging them from cover. Radiator plates aren't that useful either, since they only really affect how much damage you can take from gunfire to your radiator, and any regular tank shell or lance rocket is capable of blowing you up in one hit. |
| 99 | ** Lancers as a class in general can come across as this due to their limitations. Every other class besides snipers has much better movement, and even in the case of snipers at least they can attack from far away while the lancers are more or less stuck as short-range infantry. Besides movement issues, they have limited ammo (basically ''requiring'' an engineer to take up a unit slot to be of much use), aren't really any more effective than your tank at taking out enemy tanks (though they cost one less command point), have absolutely woeful aim without royal weapons or heavy upgrades, and can't counterattack whatsoever. They look cool and it's awesome when you can perform a one-hit kill on a tank with them, but chances are you'll rarely use them besides having Largo parked at base for an extra command point per phase to use on much more versatile characters. Late game additions like the Attack Weak Point Order (meaning you don't actually have to get behind tanks anymore) and anti-infantry hand-held mortars can make them a bit more useful, but don't be surprised if Lancers are your least used class overall. |
| 100 | *** Then you have the Lancer weapon itself. It's basically a rocket attached to a lance (or rather, an oversized Panzerfaust). In terms of accuracy, it's already difficult to hold such a long and unwieldy object with pinpoint precision from your hip. Now add holding it out with one hand with a heavy explosive on the end. It takes a lot of strength and damn good hand-eye coordination to hit something with that. Shoulder mounted rocket launchers were around as early as World War 1, so even in an alternate history like this, it would be more practical and accurate instead of holding the explosive out on the end of a long pole (this is somewhat justified by lances being culturally significant to the Europan peoples because of the Valkyria). When crouching down, Lancers do fire from the shoulder, but it doesn't provide any bonus to accuracy. |
| 101 | ** For gameplay purposes (the Weaponry tab in-game describes them to be almost strictly stronger than early Gallian weaponry), the earliest captured enemy weapons. The ZM MP varieties in particular drop the already low range of Shocktroopers to even lower values [[GameplayAndStorySegregation despite boasting of accuracy]] for a boost in already-high damage. The later enemy varieties, notably from the Challenges of the Edy Detachment, tend to avert this, and can be farmed halfway into the game. |
| 102 | ** In accordance to their [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi Germany]] inspiration the Empire loves this trope with their superweapons. The Batomys is an unstoppable supertank, but it is extremely slow, easy to board by assaulting infantry once its point-defense machine-guns are taken out, and it's main guns, though extremely powerful, have dreadfully low rate of fire and expose the vehicle's very obvious [[AttackItsWeakPoint weak points]] after every shot. The [[CoolTrain Equus]], while heavily armored and carrying a huge gun, doesn't have the guns to properly defend it should the enemy get close and, as a train, is vulnerable to whatever happens to the tracks under it. The Marmota is ridiculously colossal and virtually unstoppable, but is even slower than the Batomys, relatively undergunned for a dreadnought and utterly helpless against enemy boarding, having no deck guns to defend it. Even the Lupus Regnum, which in-game appears as a clear upgrade fixing many of the game tank's weaknesses, is this if you read the [[AllThereInTheManual Glossary]], as it turns out that all that extra plating severely overloads the tank's engine and covering the radiator runs the risk of cooking the crew alive after prolonged operation, making it completely reliant on immobile support camps. [[MilitariesAreUseless Of course all those war machines are depicted as completely undefeatable until the Militia comes to exploit their rather obvious design flaws]]. |
| 103 | ** The extra armor General Jaeger puts on his tank just barely avoids this. While insanely durable the vehicle slows to a crawl, and obscuring the radiator runs the risk of cooking the crew alive. Requiring a series of support camps to perform maintenance and cool its engine mid-battle. Once the plates are destroyed it becomes much more effective. |
| 104 | * AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: Karl and Lynn. So much that their (in-game) death quotes are entirely of one of them calling out to another. Welkin and Alicia get several of these moments as well, especially during side chapters. |
| 105 | * BabiesEverAfter: [[spoiler:Alicia and Welkin, aptly naming the kid Isara.]] |
| 106 | * BadassArmy: Squad 7 may be a bunch of misfits from all walks of life, but put them in the battlefield and wait a few hours... |
| 107 | * BadassBoast: When the members of Squad 7 start bickering over FantasticRacism and their youthful, inexperienced leader, Welkin declares that if he takes a heavily-defended bridge (the squad's next objective) in 48 hours, the squaddies have to shut up and like it. Then he takes the bridge and drops all the enemy tanks on it into the river. |
| 108 | * BadassBookworm: Welkin is a huge fan of biology, and dreams of being a teacher. He can do logistics and field medicine, and he's a better strategist by leaps and bounds than anyone else on the continent. By the end of the game, the Gallian Militia's standard response to unwinnable situations is basically "point Welkin at it and wait". |
| 109 | * BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork: After what Giorgio did resulted in the gruesome death of Captain Varrot's lover, she was very eager to submit him to a firing squad, but Squad 7 talk her out of it and Giorgio walks free back to Imperial territory. Upon his arrival, however, an Imperial soldier arrests him since he's going to be court-martialed for his war crimes which later ended in his execution, meaning that Varrot unknowingly got what she wanted. |
| 110 | * BaitAndSwitchGunshot: This happens in chapter 2, when it appears an Imperial soldier has shot Welkin, but in fact Isara has shot the soldier. |
| 111 | * BashBrothers: Incorporated into the combat system. If squadmates are near your selected character when you attack, they add supporting fire too, and some of the potentials give bonuses depending on the type of person the selected character is around. Furthermore, your troops also have favorites which they prefer to have around them - although some of them also have potentials that specify people they ''hate''. |
| 112 | * BandOfBrothers: Down to various quotes from the game calling the platoon a family. |
| 113 | * BattleAura: Activated Valkyria look like they are constantly being consumed by blue flames. |
| 114 | * BattleCouple: Other than the obvious pairing of Welkin and Alicia, the units Karl and Lynn are shown to be in a relationship. |
| 115 | ** Vyse and Aika are this as well, just like they are in their [[VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia game of origin]]. |
| 116 | * BattleshipRaid: The game's final arc is centered around the squad trying to destroy the Marmota, a giant war machine designed to tap on the Valkyrur's power. |
| 117 | * BeachEpisode: Extra Chapter "Squad 7 R&R", between chapter 9 & 10. As a reward for [[spoiler: rescuing Princess Cordelia]], the squad is invited to a private beach owned by the royal family. |
| 118 | * BerserkButton: |
| 119 | ** Welkin. Usually a nice guy, but he bursts into a tantrum when he discovers that [[spoiler:Faldio deliberately injured Alicia.]] |
| 120 | ** Do '''not''' mess with Largo when vegetables are involved. |
| 121 | * TheBet: Welkin makes one with Largo concerning the success of Operation Cloudburst. If he retakes the bridge in 48 hours, the rest of Squad 7 will take his orders without hesitation as well as to stop bullying Isara. Otherwise, he and Alicia will resign, leaving leadership to Largo. |
| 122 | * BetaCouple: [[spoiler: Largo and Eleanor to Welkin and Alicia, though it doesn't become apparent until later.]] |
| 123 | * {{BFG}}: |
| 124 | ** The Ruhm (Selvaria's Signature Weapon), and the game's sole automatic rifle (the rest of the shocktrooper weapons are merely sub-machine guns). |
| 125 | ** Everyone in the Lancer class carries a lance-shaped Rocket Launcher which seems to be an attempt to at least replicate a Valkyur's main weapon in a realistic and physical manner. [[spoiler:Maximillian has a man-made one which acts even closer to a Valkyrian lance to the point where he has near-identical powers through artificial methods.]] |
| 126 | %%* BigDamnHeroes: Squad 7 does a few of these. Alicia also delivers one later in the game. |
| 127 | * TheBigGuy: |
| 128 | ** Hannes, he's either a Class 1 or Class 3. |
| 129 | ** Largo is a Class 4. |
| 130 | * BitchInSheepsClothing: [[spoiler:The Valkyur are religiously worshipped across Europa, even though they attacked the Darcsens, razed the land and blamed it on them.]] |
| 131 | * BittersweetEnding: At the end of [=EW2=], Gallia and the Imperials formed a truce after [[spoiler:the death of Maximillian]]. Squad 7 disbanded after this and the surviving members left to lead normal lives, such as Welkin finally becoming a teacher and marrying Alicia, who went back to baking. They now have a daughter named [[spoiler:Isara, who, like Faldio, most of the Gallian Militia and potentially members of Squad 7 never got to see the end of the war.]] |
| 132 | * BlackAndGreyMorality: Fitting the fantasy World War II theme, while the Empire is an unholy combination of some of the worst parts of tsarist Russia with both Imperial and Nazi Germany and serves as the Black, the Atlantic Federation, although easily the lesser evil in their contest with the Empire, is unscrupulous and more concerned with their own ambitions for dominating and mastering the continent than some abstract notion of right and wrong. While Imperial troops are literally introduced committing war crimes, shooting up civilian noncombatant refugees and blowing up trucks full of their belongings, and the first line of dialogue an Imperial soldier gets is threatening what he thinks is an unarmed teenage girl with hate crimes, it's also quickly established that many parts of the Gallian government are at the very least corrupt and full of aristocratic cronyism. |
| 133 | * BlingOfWar: |
| 134 | ** The Gallian officers have some pretty classy dress uniforms to wear with whatever medals they've earned. General Damon wears his all the time, which probably serves to highlight his vanity and military incompetence. Welkin can also earn medals and weapons from the royal armoury as rewards for in-game accomplishments. |
| 135 | ** On the Imperial side of things, most Imperial generals and officers are soberly dressed in a dark gray uniform, with some gold trimmings. The exception is Maximilian, who pretty much holds the title for having the most bling of all. He even puts on a very flashy helmet when he [[spoiler:breaks into Castle Randgriz and makes his presence known to Princess Cordelia.]] |
| 136 | * BondOneLiner: Every character in the game has a BadassBoast ready for when they kill an enemy. |
| 137 | * BoomHeadshot: The preferred way of dealing with most enemy troops. With enough accuracy upgrades, you can headshot enemies - even blast-resistant Lancers - with the Edelweiss's main cannon. |
| 138 | * BoringButPractical: |
| 139 | ** Sure it's cool to make use of potentials and lucky shots and status effects for victory, but chances are you'll have a much quicker victory if you just park more mobile units like scouts and shocktroopers close to an enemy and point blank headshot them for a guaranteed kill. (And if they're in cover, a simple grenade or two will flush them out.) This becomes less of an issue over time as weapon accuracy improves and you can attack from further away (even being able to more reliably use snipers for their intended purpose), but just using multiple commands on scouts and shocktroopers alone remains a pretty viable path to winning and even top ranks, especially if you can form team attacks to counteract weak attack power. |
| 140 | ** On the other hand, once you get Orders like Awaken Potential, suddenly character potentials can start mattering a lot more because they are much more likely to trigger. Alicia with all her unlocked potentials is a particularly powerful choice for this order as Double Movement and Resist Crossfire can allow her to move to basically anywhere on the map, while Mysterious Body and [[spoiler:Valkyria]] can make her a nearly unstoppable killing machine. |
| 141 | ** Another very boring but very practical application of shocktroopers is pairing them with the Penetrate Order. By using shocktrooper machine guns while ignoring enemy defense, they can fairly quickly take out even the toughest armored targets in the entire game, albeit only by basically spending all your command points per phase on them. |
| 142 | ** Smoke shells prevent your troops from being hit by interception fire. They are required for the Marberry Shore mission (where they are first available) and are useful on several other occasions. |
| 143 | ** The Retreat skill will always be the first order the Old Gentleman in the War Cemetery teaches Welkin, and it will bail you out regularly. As the name implies, any unit that currently is not unconscious is immediately put back into reserve, regardless if they are in a camp or not. Scout overextended and staring down a bunch of enemy troops and a tank or two? Retreat. A Shocktrooper took a bit more of a beating and you aren't too comfortable about safely getting them or an engineer to use Ragnaid? Retreat. Lancer or Snipers out of ammo far from a camp or Engineer or need to be quickly repositioned from near their starting area to a forward camp? Retreat. |
| 144 | * BossInMookClothing: Certain enemy units can cross into this territory, with Aces being the prime candidate for this title. If no one else counts, at least Ty the Immortal should in his many appearances as he can wreck your units quickly and takes a lot of damage to kill. Interestingly enough, an Ace tank can be an AntiClimaxBoss because they can still die to one hit to their radiator. |
| 145 | * BreakingTheFourthWall: |
| 146 | ** In the final mission, Welkin takes the place of Captain Varrot during the mission briefing where he hands the player their final orders. |
| 147 | ** Edy does this in the add-on if you get a D on the mission, calling the player "sloth fingers". Homer, next to her, wonders who she is talking to. The nature of this mission makes it very hard to do this badly without getting a game over, making this something of an EasterEgg. |
| 148 | * BreakoutCharacter: Selvaria is defeated far before the game's climax, but her storyline had such an impact on the players that her popularity eclipsed not only the main villain, but the heroes as well. |
| 149 | ** She was so well-loved for being a sympathetic AntiVillain with a cool design and [[AFatherToHisMen a caring attitude towards her squadron]] that she not only got a DLC for her own, but also personally reappeared in the third game to fight Kurt's squad. |
| 150 | ** She was later chosen to appear in ''VideoGame/ProjectXZone'' as the representative of the first VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles, meeting up with ''[=VC3=]'' characters (Kurt, Reala, Imca), though still as an enemy. |
| 151 | ** Selvaria is playable in the console version of ''Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax'', which also features Alicia. The catch? Selvaria is the one playable, while ''Alicia is the support''. |
| 152 | ** Selvaria, along with Alicia, Welkin and Largo, appears as a playable character in ''VideoGame/SEGAHeroes''. |
| 153 | * BreastPlate: ''Literal'' ones. Some of the troopers have them, and they cover ''exactly'' what they say they do on both men and women. |
| 154 | * ButNowIMustGo: Vyse and Aika leave Gallia in search of adventure, never to be seen again in their ending. The medic triplets, being based on Fina from [[VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia the same game]], go with them, as does Alex, who's friends with Vyse, while Musaad goes his own way and is similarly never seen again. |
| 155 | * CallARabbitASmeerp: {{Subverted|Trope}} with the porcavians. They're merely described to be a cousin to the common pig. |
| 156 | * TheCameo: Major cameos by Vyse, Aika, and Fina of ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia.'' Vyse and Aika appear as two playable soldiers while Fina appears as a medic (along with her two sisters, Gina and Mina, though these two never existed in ''Skies Of Arcadia''). |
| 157 | * CampGay: Not all of the gay men are campy, but this trope still shows up. Jann is the poster-man of this trope though. |
| 158 | * CannonFodder: The general perception of the militia by the regular army. [[BadassArmy Squad 7]] [[AvertedTrope sure proves them wrong, though...]] |
| 159 | * TheCaptain: Captain Eleanor Varrot, obviously. Although of lower rank, it also applies to Welkin; he's the one in charge of Squad 7, and although he's easygoing and amicable, do NOT question his orders. [[AsskickingLeadsToLeadership He's in charge for a reason.]] |
| 160 | %%* CaptainSmoothAndSergeantRough: Captain Varrot and Sergeant Largo. |
| 161 | * CatchAFallingStar: [[spoiler:Welkin and Alicia]] are rescued this way via [[spoiler:getting hit by Isara's prototype plane.]] |
| 162 | * CelShading: Rather notably, the entire game's is rendered in a unique art style that made it look like it was drawn in watercolor. {{Justified|Trope}}, as the events of the game are taking place with you reading about them in a history book. |
| 163 | * ChekhovsBoomerang: [[spoiler:The hole that Alicia punches into the side of the Marmota with a Valkyrian lance becomes the key to defeating it later on]]. |
| 164 | %%* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler:Isara, Leon, and Kreis' flying machine.]] |
| 165 | * ChekhovsSkill: Faldio is mentioned to have pursued archeology. [[spoiler:This allows him to read the ancient text in the Valkyrian ruins and discovers the truth behind the "Darcsen Calamity" and easily steal a Valkyrian spear and shield to awaken Alicia's true powers.]] |
| 166 | * ChildSoldiers: Due to Gallia's policy of universal conscription, military training is a part of general education and citizens as young as fifteen may be conscripted. Then there's twelve-year-old Aisha Neumann, a Shocktrooper in your Squad, who apparently begged to serve and had it granted if her bio in the game is to be believed. |
| 167 | * CleanPrettyChildbirth: A woman gives birth in a tank - during a battle - with no signs of a mess being made, and without any noises or medical complications that would require the two people crewing the tank to divert their attention away from the battlefield. Judging by Welkin's [[EyeTake bug-eyed expression]], he found it just as absurd as the audience. But considering that the outcome could have been a hell of a lot worse, no-one's complaining. |
| 168 | * ColdSniper: |
| 169 | ** Zigzagged with Marina. She is not the only sniper, but is by far the best because of her potential "Ultimate Accuracy" which is always activated. Her potentials imply she is a sociopath, but Edy's Brigade reveals that she has a soft side. Apparently she just doesn't like being around other people. |
| 170 | ** Cezary plays this trope a little straighter, although, in his case, it's less cold sniper and more [[JerkAss selfish asshole]] sniper. His profile states that he grew up in isolation and is not used to social interactions, so he chose to be a sniper to avoid being on the front lines. |
| 171 | * ColorCodedArmies: The good guys are blue, the bad guys are dark gray and red, especially the officers. |
| 172 | * CompanyCrossReferences: Given that this is the same team who made ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'', the references are present aside from Vyse, Aika and Fina. For example, the generic Imperial shocktroopers wear essentially square versions of the round Valuan soldier helmets and [[spoiler:there's a worshipped civilisation that were in fact, responsible for millions of deaths and mass destruction.]] |
| 173 | * CompetitiveBalance |
| 174 | ** FragileSpeedster: Scouts. Terrible durability and fire rate, but they have more AP than any unit in the game, making them great for hit-and-run attacks against exposed infantry and flushing enemy units out of cover. |
| 175 | ** JackOfAllTrades: Shocktroopers. All around good stats and best suited for mid-to-close range attacks |
| 176 | ** MightyGlacier: Lancers: Slow as hell, but one of the only infantry units who can go toe-to-toe with tanks ([[CripplingOverspecialization and pretty much nothing else.]]) Tanks themselves also fall under this camp, obviously. |
| 177 | ** GlassCannon: Snipers. Less AP than lancers and less health than scouts, but have incredible range. |
| 178 | ** UtilityPartyMember: Engineers. Capable of healing and resupply other units and repairing tanks, and have AP rivaling scouts. |
| 179 | * TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: |
| 180 | ** Enemy tanks, in particular, appear to have freakishly good accuracy and can make pinpoint shots with their shells from halfway across the map. Good luck making equally-impressive shots without SaveScumming. |
| 181 | ** Enemy Aces are also incredibly annoying in their ability to dodge long-range sniper shots - ''from behind'' - as well as point-blank barrages. |
| 182 | ** There's also the Lancers. If your tank's radiator is visible at all, it's likely to take a shot. It doesn't matter if they can only see 1 cm of it, and they're firing from the other end of the map; they will hit that radiator. This is especially painful because losing your tank means [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou game over]]. |
| 183 | ** In the PC version the way interception fireworks was tweaked slightly. Before, the enemy would stop shooting the moment you hit the 'aim' button, but in PC they will keep firing while your character raises their gun and only stop when the crosshair appears, which gives the AI several free shots that you can do nothing to avoid, which can be extremely painful in the [[HarderThanHard Extreme difficulty skirmishes]]. Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to you, and your men will politely stop firing the second the AI decides to shoot, which makes interception fire a lot more effective for the AI than the player. |
| 184 | ** Selvaria has a unique version of the Heal All order that heals all units to full. When ''you'' use the Heal All order, it only heals 80 HP to each unit. |
| 185 | * ConservationOfNinjutsu: In a good number of the game's levels, chances are your squad will be horribly outnumbered by the Imperials. Plus, unlike you, [[ZergRush they literally have infinite reinforcements they can continually call on until you capture their bases]]. |
| 186 | * CooldownHug: [[spoiler:Preceded by a speech and followed by a kiss. Welkin to Alicia when she decided she'll go [[HeroicSacrifice kamikaze]] on the BigBad's land battleship.]] |
| 187 | * CrazyEnoughToWork: Pretty much everybody calls Welkin's plan in chapter 4 nuts. The Militia is ordered to take back the Great Vasel Bridge, which everyone is expecting to end up looking rather like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnside%27s_Bridge Burnside's Bridge]]: an incredibly bloody frontal assault through a natural chokepoint. Welkin instead does an impromptu amphibious assault to outflank the enemy bridgehead, a plan which includes ''waterproofing the Edelweiss and driving it across the river bottom''. |
| 188 | * CrewOfOne: Zaka seems to be the only person in the Shamrock. The Edelweiss isn't much better, being crewed by only two people when most real WWII-period tanks of comparable size tended to have about five guys running them. |
| 189 | * CripplingOverspecialization: Every class is restricted to certain types of weapons. This means that Lancers can't carry a carbine as a backup weapon for dealing with infantry. Later on, Lancers can have the option of taking mortar lances that are more effective against infantry, with the obvious tradeoff in mortars being less effective against tanks. |
| 190 | ** More to the point, Lancers and Snipers don't carry ''any'' weapon besides AT Lances and Sniper Rifles respectively — not even a handgun. This means that during the enemy's turn, they don't lay down interception fire or return fire when shot at. |
| 191 | * CriticalHitClass: The Sniper class can only shoot once per turn, but has very high accuracy and range, making them ideal for headshots. |
| 192 | * CurbStompBattle: |
| 193 | ** Squad 7 pretty much does this every level, especially once you learn to correctly utilize each class and their strengths/weaknesses. |
| 194 | ** Selvaria does this on almost every map she shows up on. |
| 195 | ** [[spoiler:Alicia delivers one to Selvaria later on as well, while in a half-weakened state no less.]] |
| 196 | * CursedWithAwesome: [[spoiler: Alicia]] works herself into a suicidal frenzy over her powers and the effects they'll have on her, but her fears are grossly exaggerated compared to the likelihood of any of them actually happening, and entirely based on assumptions about Selvaria. |
| 197 | * CustomUniform: While Squad 7 mostly uses NonuniformUniform, the Imperial generals each have their own unique uniforms. Gregor's has a very long cape, Selvaria's suits her body, Jaeger's has a cow skull on one of his shoulders and notably wears a brown coat (in comparison with others' black uniforms), while Maximilian's is best described as a slightly militarized form of a royal attire. |
| 198 | * CutsceneIncompetence: Where the hell were any of the ''three'' medics hanging out when [[spoiler: Isara was shot?!?]] |
| 199 | * DamageOverTime: Certain negative potentials cause slow, steady damage to a unit under certain conditions. For the "Allergy" potentials, it's reliant on standing on a certain kind of terrain, while with the "Aimophobic" (aka fear of sharp objects) potential they have to be standing near a lancer for it to activate. |
| 200 | * DarkestHour: The first half of the Battle of Naggiar Plains. [[spoiler: The Imperials have combined all their occupying forces together, and the Gallians have come out to meet them in battle. It's declared that this battle will be the definitive battle to decide who wins the greater conflict. Unfortunately, Selvaria is also there and continuing to be an unstoppable [[OneManArmy One Woman Army]], and no one on the Gallian side is particularly hopeful about their chances. And ''then'' Alicia is suddenly shot down by a mysterious sniper. Fortunately, things suddenly turn right around when Alicia's latent Valkyria powers are activated, allowing her to defeat Selvaria in a duel, which in turn allows Gallia to turn the fight back in their favor.]] |
| 201 | ** Chapter 16: "The Maiden's Shield." [[spoiler: Gallia defeats and captures Selvaria at Ghirlandaio, and it seems like the Imperials have finally been driven out of Gallia completely. Then Selvaria sacrifices herself to activate her Final Flame, not only turning Ghirlandaio into a crater, but obliterating General Damon and the majority of the regular army. And ''then'' the militia gets word of the Marmota, a tank so massive that it's described as a battleship on legs, barreling through Gallian territory on a direct course to the capital, with only the Militia and the Royal Guard left to stop it. And wouldn't you know it, Prime Minister Borg has decided to take this opportunity to launch a coup and sell out Gallia to the Empire in exchange for being made King. Oh, and the titular operation to halt the Marmota by diverting it into a canyon full of mines? It fails, and only leads to the destruction of most of the Royal Guard as well. It's little wonder that by the end Alicia - already suffering a crisis of purpose over her status as a Valkyria - tries to activate her ''own'' Final Flame to take out the Marmota in a last ditch effort.]] |
| 202 | * ADayInTheLimelight: In one of the downloadable content packs, Edy gets a mission that is entirely focused on her. Also included are a slew of secondary characters you may or may not have used in the main game. |
| 203 | * ADeathInTheLimelight: [[spoiler:Isara certainly gets a lot of focus in Chapter 11, just before her death.]] |
| 204 | ** DLC mini-campaign "Behind Her Blue Flame" focuses on a random Engineer named Johann who's assigned to be Selvaria's personal Engineer during TheEmpire's conquest of Ghirlandaio. [[spoiler: While he survives the campaign, the end reveals that he's the enemy ace Ozwald the Iron, who appears in the first part of the Fouzen mission, and if you've been hunting down ace weapons you've likely killed him at least once already.]] |
| 205 | * DavidVersusGoliath: Figuratively speaking, this applies to the tiny nation of Gallia's defense against the massive East Europan Imperial Alliance's invasion. |
| 206 | * DeadManWalking: Captain Giorgio became this once he was defeated. Captain Varrot was willing to subject him to a firing squad because of the atrocities he committed which involved the death of her lover, but is talked out of it. Giorgio happily walks back to Imperial territory, only to find out that they were waiting to ''court martial'' him because of said atrocities which even they found disgusting and earns him an execution. |
| 207 | * DeathOfAThousandCuts: You can destroy a tank with a scout by firing enough bullets into its radiator. As for targeting personnel, the entire body is equally vulnerable (not counting the head, naturally). Twenty shots to the chest or crotch do as much damage as twenty shots to the foot. |
| 208 | * DefenseMechanismSuperpower: The powers of the Valkyria, descendants of the Valkyrur, are activated only in life-threatening situations. Selvaria was revealed to have ''stabbed herself'' to activate her powers. [[spoiler:This is also the reason why Alicia was shot - the sniper was trying to activate her powers as well. In gameplay, that means that Alicia's Valkyria potential only activates when her health drops below 50%.]] |
| 209 | * DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Squad 7's defeat of [[spoiler:Maximilian. He had equipment that mimicked the powers of the Valkyria and unlike the fight with Selvaria, Squad 7 decided not to rely on Alicia's Valkyria powers.]] |
| 210 | * DidntSeeThatComing : Maximilian's plan to hold Europa hostage with the power of the Valkyrian bloodline was kind of derailed by the minor detail of [[spoiler:Cordelia and her ancestors actually being Darcsen]]. He rolls with the punches, though, because [[spoiler: he treats everyone who is of use to him equally, and since Cordelia, while Darcsen, was still the lawful ruler of Gallia, she was of use to him]]. |
| 211 | * DifficultyLevels: The main campaign has fixed difficulty, but skirmishes can be fought on Easy or Normal. On a NewGamePlus, Hard and Expert become available. The harder difficulties can have different objectives than the easier ones. |
| 212 | * DiskOneNuke: |
| 213 | ** The [[InfinityMinusOneSword ZM Kar 8(g)]] from the scout challenge skirmish in the Challenges of the Edy Detachment DLC. The scout challenge is much easier than the other maps in the DLC to the point that it can easily be done with the equipment you have when you unlock skirmish maps and the ZM Kar 8(g) is far more powerful (if shorter-ranged and less accurate) than any rifle you can develop or be gifted by Cordelia and trivializes most infantry (and tanks if you can get to their radiator) for almost the entire rest of the game. The map's large ducat and exp reward amplifies its DiskOneNuke status, as completing it even a few times will allow you to buy all the weapon upgrades you want and level your troops well past their intended levels for the early game. |
| 214 | ** Marina is available from the beginning and strong throughout. With her extreme sniper rifle range, a potential that gives her a ''permanent'' 90% accuracy boost, and high damage potential, Marina can easily become the soldier with the highest kill count by the end of the game by picking off one or two soldiers every turn with headshots. |
| 215 | ** Selvaria's ridiculous custom Ruhm weapon [[AllYourPowersCombined merges the accuracy of a sniper rifle with the range of a scout rifle, the rapid fire of a machine gun, and the damage rating of a lancer rocket]], provided you shoot a tank's weak point with it anyway. While you can't get the full Selvaria experience by having a Scout carry it, it's still enough to turn any Shocktrooper carrying it into a OneManArmy, provided you keep away from anything that can tear them up too badly, and it can be acquired as early as before starting the game, provided the player can beat Selvaria's DLC mini-campaign at least once first. |
| 216 | * DodgeTheBullet: Aces can do that with disturbing regularity unless the attacking soldier has the Undodgeable Shot Potential - even under circumstances when they shouldn't be aware that someone is shooting at them. Selvaria can dodge bullets as well. In the stage where you meet her in human form, she stands on top of a wall very far away but is just reachable by sniper fire. The first shot will hit (if you aim well enough), but the second onwards she'll dodge (unless you use special commands). It takes you 3 shot to finish her in that stage (and it's the victory condition), if you manage to do it, it saves you a lot of trouble climbing up the wall to defeat her. |
| 217 | * DoomedHometown: Bruhl is invaded and ransacked in the first chapter. Subverted in that Welkin's squad launch a counter-attack to reclaim it later on. |
| 218 | * DoomedByCanon: |
| 219 | ** Johann of the Selvaria DLC is promoted into Oswald the Iron, one of the EliteMooks of the main game, at the end of his story, implying that chances are that he's fated to eventually die by the protagonists' hands. Though considering he appears at least twice in the game, (he appears a further two times in the Challenges of the Edy Detachment and Expert Skirmishes [[DownloadableContent DLCs]]) it's likely that the Imperials also have a habit of only falling unconscious when grievously wounded. |
| 220 | ** There's also a mook on your side named Fritz, who may or may not be the same Fritz that died in front of Alicia and Welkin in the main game. Some of the other mooks also share names with aces in the main game, implying that they're also doomed. |
| 221 | * DownerBeginning: Welkin, Alicia, Isara, Martha and her newborn barely make it out of a now Imperial-occupied Bruhl with the Edelweiss along with several civilian deaths. |
| 222 | * DownloadableContent: The Edy Detachment mission, Behind Her Blue Flame (a pair of missions featuring Selvaria), and the Edy Detachment challenges, which are skirmishes tailored to a specific class. |
| 223 | * TheDragon: |
| 224 | ** Selvaria is Maximilliam's most reliable and formidable general. Justified since she's practically an indestructible superweapon. |
| 225 | ** [[spoiler:Jaeger, gameplay-wise, since he's the last of the three Imperial generals you face in a real showdown]]. |
| 226 | * DramaticGunCock: In the earliest part of the story, no less! |
| 227 | --> '''Welkin''': Um, uh, my name is Welkin. ...And you are? |
| 228 | --> '''Alicia''': The one with the gun. |
| 229 | * DrillSergeantNasty: |
| 230 | ** Drill sergeant Clavaro's existence hinges on his ability to insult you as you level up your troops. He's the epitome of the trope, really. |
| 231 | --> '''Drill Sergeant Clavaro''': Good job maggots! You're one step closer to being human! |
| 232 | ** Jane also becomes a drill instructor at the end of the game, and is even stricter than her predecessor. |
| 233 | * {{Dubtitle}}: While hardly unusual for a game with a bilingual soundtrack, the English script used for the subtitles only matches the English dub. While it hardly alters the game's plot in any way and the English script and dub is faithful to the plot and the characters, it can create a strange dissonance with the Japanese track on. Most notable is a moment in which Welkin simply says "Faldio", and the script reads "I don't know what to tell you, Faldio." |
| 234 | ** While it is true that the overall plot is, on face value, faithful, the differences in the minor details can lead to a very different impression from the characters, which may or may not change the resulting flavour of the ending. The best example would be Faldio in the fully unlocked (NewGamePlus) scene "Awakening"; in the Japanese audio, he comes off as far more sinister, and his words are a few notches more brutal than what the subtitles actually say. |
| 235 | * DueToTheDead: |
| 236 | ** In the beginning, someone asks Alicia about what they should do with all the Imperial corpses. She orders their burial. |
| 237 | ** When Welkin and Alicia are separated from Squad 7, they encounter a critically wounded Imperial soldier that they try to help, and then bury him when he dies anyway. When the rest of the dead man's unit finds them the next day, they let the two go as thanks for their attempt to save the late Private Fritz. |
| 238 | ** [[spoiler:When Isara dies, Rosie sings at her grave to fulfill Isara's wish]]. |
| 239 | * DudeWheresMyRespect: Despite beating back the Imperials pretty much by themselves, Squad 7 is constantly given the insanely dangerous missions while the main army gets the fairly easy jobs. If not for the actual callousness of the high command, this would actually make sense because Squad 7 is by far the most capable formation in the Gallian military, and with their proven track of astounding successes, it would only make sense to give them the more difficult jobs. This is {{Lampshaded}} in the briefing for the assault on Ghirlandaio. |
| 240 | * DungeonBypass: The best (sometimes only) way to get A ranks on missions. Easy to do in NewGamePlus when your units are way overpowered, but even before then, a scout with the right Orders placed on them can often just walk past the enemy and capture their base. |
| 241 | ** Special mention also goes to the final encounter with Selvaria, where [[spoiler:you're supposed to fight your way through a huge fortress and an entire army to reach her and fight her to the death... or you can just have your snipers shoot her in the head from the starting position. She'll dodge many of their attacks, but not all of them.]] |
| 242 | ** Similarly in Chapter [[spoiler:17's battle against Jaegar]], you can simply [[spoiler:destroy his otherwise-regenerating armor as soon as possible; it won't be repaired by enemy camps after it's destroyed and top-rank Lancers just barely have enough firepower to take it down with full Command Point usage]], so you can completely ignore the tedious recommendation of capturing the four guarded camps around the map. |
| 243 | * DuringTheWar: The entire game takes place in a small but significant sideshow of the Second Europan War, a war with elements of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. |
| 244 | [[/folder]] |
| 245 | |
| 246 | [[folder:E to M]] |
| 247 | * EarlyGameHell: Some of the early missions can be rather challenging, especially if you aren't used to strategy games. One year after the release of the [=PS4=] version, only about 28% of players had achieved the first storyline Trophy, which is awarded after chapter 9 of 18. [[note]] It's awarded for [[spoiler: rescuing Cordelia when she's kidnapped]]. This means players must clear the [[ThatOneLevel Batomys battle in chapter 7]] before obtaining ''any'' Trophies because the Audience Hall is not available until this point and Trophies are linked to in-game medals awarded by Cordelia.[[/note]] |
| 248 | * EasterEgg: If you look around a bit in the Docks map (in Chapter 8 and the Engineer trial) you can find a sign on the wall in broken English telling you to be careful with spoilers: |
| 249 | --> READING AN ARTICLE |
| 250 | --> The details of a story can be included in an article about the story. Please avoid that I read these articles before really appreciating a work if I think that fun is spoiled when I know these. Warning of material Barre is a few article, but such a thing is possible. Please be careful to these. |
| 251 | * EliteMooks: |
| 252 | ** As the game progresses, you'll eventually start facing tougher enemies, who aptly have the title "Elite". By reaching a certain level, your own soldiers can also attain this status, which confers new potentials and subweapons for particular classes. |
| 253 | ** Also in the spirit of the trope are black-armored Imperial units, who are stronger than ordinary soldiers, and aces, who have preternaturally good accuracy and dodging skills. An ace will frequently duck bullets from a sniper stationed half a mile away, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard before the rifle actually goes off]]. |
| 254 | * EmpathyDollShot: Rosie finds a child's doll in the burnt ruins of a Darcsen concentration camp that the Empire razed with the prisoners locked inside before retreating. |
| 255 | * TheEmpire: As the name suggests, the East Europan Imperial Alliance's main goal is the domination of the remainder of Europa, securing any reserves of Ragnaid to themselves. |
| 256 | * TheEngineer: ''Loads'' of them, but Isara, Leon and Kries are the most prominent, storywise. Leon fits the young engineer stereotype to a tee: [[{{Keet}} enthusiastic]], [[HotBlooded hot-blooded]] and with a little bit of an [[GadgeteerGenius inventor stripe]]. Sometimes borders on MadScientist territory. In battle, engineers are essential for building and breaking fortifications, repairing tanks, disarming land mines and resupplying fellow soldiers. |
| 257 | * EncyclopediaExposita: For all the weapons, characters, major world events and landmarks. |
| 258 | * EnemyChatter: You'll hear comments from the Imperial's radio quite a bit during battles, but it might be hard to make it out due to the allied radio chatter at times. |
| 259 | * EpicFail: If you earn an A rank on the Edy Detachment mission, Edy decides to reward her teammates by singing a song. A giant yellow '''FAIL''' appears on the screen as she sings horribly off key. Her singing is so bad, that... well, it's not made clear if her singing actually killed her teammates, or if they're just really dramatically overselling it. |
| 260 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: |
| 261 | ** In one of the side chapters, an Imperial war criminal who is infamous for taking civilian hostages in battle is court-martialed ''by his own superiors''. Maximilian may be a bit of a royal bastard who treats even his most loyal subordinates as pawns, but even he expects his troops to stick to the rules of war. |
| 262 | ** In Selvaria's DLC mission, the Imperials are horrified that General Damon used chemical weapons to try and recapture Ghirlandaio since because of the events of [=EW1=] resulted in them being used a lot, both sides signed a treaty to ''never'' use them again. |
| 263 | ** Even if what he did played in his favor, Maximillian [[spoiler:orders the execution of Borg [[TheQuisling since he easily gave up his country]] to save himself.]] |
| 264 | * EvilChancellor: [[spoiler: Borg]], as expected by both the trope name and the character's general demeanor throughout the game (including in his past actions detailed in the Personnel tab). It'd be more surprising if he ''didn't'' try to make a power play. |
| 265 | * EyesAlwaysShut: Leon the Mechanic rarely, if ever, opens his eyes. [[spoiler:Even when he's flying a plane!]] |
| 266 | * ExactWords: Vyse's bio has some InUniverse speculation that he's from a land far-removed from Europa. [[VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia If you know where he and Aika are from]], [[FloatingIsland it's also far-removed from surface level]]. |
| 267 | * FacelessGoons: Generally speaking, soldiers in both the Gallian and Imperial Armies. Played with a bit between mission 8 and 9, though, wherein Alicia and Welks comfort a dying Imperial grunt (removing his helmet in the process) and then have a civil chat with his commanding officer; more obviously played with in the Selvaria DLC. Cutscenes involving Imperial soldiers may sometimes show them leaning back, exposing their eyes to the camera. Regular {{Mook}}s in the Galian Army generally have their helmets blocking their eyes while their lower face is exposed, but camera angles show their eyes underneath now and then. |
| 268 | * FanDisservice: |
| 269 | ** The breastplates on the shocktroopers. Just... it's not strictly for women. |
| 270 | ** Welkin's old-timey swimsuit can count as this, especially as out of place as it looks when the other women around him are wearing extremely modern and {{Fanservice}} friendly swimsuits. |
| 271 | * {{Fanservice}}: |
| 272 | ** Many of the girls of Squad 7. If they're not in pants, [[ZettaiRyouiki they wear skirts and REALLY HIGH knee socks.]] Rosie tops all the others by having a gap around her midriff (and having a much shorter skirt). The girls with skirts are prone to what looks like panty shots at first glance (although it's really [[SkirtOverShorts short shorts]]) as the their evasive maneuver is to drop to the ground. Guess where the camera points. And then there's the BeachEpisode. In particular, Alicia has a very revealing bikini. |
| 273 | ** Selvaria is the prime source of it until the BeachEpisode. |
| 274 | * FantasticRacism: The Darcsens are a vague analogue for the Jews/Romani in World War II and their experiences, although this is muddied by how they are visualized [[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111007123961/valkyria/images/thumb/7/75/Lynn.png/292px-Lynn.png in Anime/Manga style]]. They are human but what sets them apart is their dark blue hair. Darcsen hatred is quite common in Europa, as it is commonly held [[spoiler:and mistaken]] belief that the Darcsens were responsible for a great calamity that occurred long ago. This hatred is institutionalized in the Empire, and rounding up Darcsen families, burning down their homes and sending them off to work camps is official policy. One of the bad guys in Varrot's side missions is court-martialled for "''torturing non-Darcsen civilians''". Even the Gallians, the good guys, have a few examples of this: Rosie initially hates them because her parents were accidentally killed by a Darcsen-hating mob that set fire to the home of their Darcsen neighbors and often takes out her prejudices on poor Isara, and while Rosie [[CharacterDevelopment eventually gets better]], several other playable squadmates retain the ''Darcsen Hater'' trait. |
| 275 | * FantasticNuke: [[spoiler:The Valkyria's final flame is ''very'' reminiscent of a nuclear bomb, complete with a mushroom cloud. Alicia was close to doing this too.]] |
| 276 | * FantasyConflictCounterpart: |
| 277 | ** The [[GreatOffscreenWar First Europan War]] appears to be based on UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, as it was started by the assassination of the crown prince of the [[TheEmpire East Europan Imperial Alliance]], featured the first use of {{tank|Goodness}}s, and became bogged down in trench warfare. It diverged at the point where the trench warfare became so inconclusive that the Empire and the [[TheFederation Atlantic Federation]] basically gave up and signed a ceasefire. |
| 278 | ** The Second Europan War that forms the backdrop to the game is based on UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Like the Entente and Central Powers of World War I, The Atlantic Federation and the Imperial Alliance were both unsatisfied with the postwar balance of power and began to rearm as the resumption of hostilities came to be seen as increasingly inevitable. Thus, a new continent-wide war breaks out some twenty years after the first. The Empire invades three of the Federation's border republics, an act of aggression mirroring Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939, using new techniques of mechanized warfare and rapid advance to quickly overwhelm everything in its path. |
| 279 | *** The Federation soon returned the favor, initiating Operation Northern Cross, or the in-game version of Operation Barbarossa. |
| 280 | * FantasyCounterpartCulture: The following could be said of the countries and peoples that appear in the game: |
| 281 | ** Gallia is loosely based on the nations geographically associated with Gaul (or Gallia in Latin) and more specifically the Rhineland, including a mix of Belgian (Bruhl = Bruges) Dutch, French, and German traits. |
| 282 | *** In terms of organization, Gallia is unmistakingly based on Finland. A small country locked between two major rivaling factions with a population of no more than 5 million, a country that lacks significant heavy industry, but nonetheless possess a proud militia tradition and retained independence despite facing overwhelming odds. |
| 283 | ** The Atlantic Federation is essentially akin to NATO and the Western Allies of the world wars, sans North America and Australia. |
| 284 | ** The Imperials are a mishmash of Imperial Russia, Austria-Hungary, Imperial Germany, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany. Imperial soldiers have names to match this, such as Johann, Hanz, Otto, etc. If Jaeger's any indication, his homeland within the Empire bears at least a passing semblance to Hungary. |
| 285 | ** The Darcsens, meanwhile, are basically European Jews with some cultural elements of the Romani. |
| 286 | * AFatherToHisMen: Welkin sees himself this way, as does the commander of the Imperials he and Alicia meet in Chapter 8. Selvaria is also like this towards her subordinates. |
| 287 | * TheFederation: The Atlantic Federation is one side in the Europan conflict. However, they are not played up as heroic by any means. |
| 288 | * FictionalEarth: The map of the continent of Europa maintains the general shape of real-life Europe, with almost all the borders redrawn. There are two isles to the northwest, one big and one small, just like the British isles; a peninsula extends from the south of Europa, much like Italy; the seas around the continent are marked as North Sea to the north, Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the West; Gallia is located in the Low Countries, fitting its basis of design; while the East Europan Imperial Alliance appears to encompass both German and Soviet territory, fitting its hybrid design. |
| 289 | * FireBreathingWeapon: Man-portable and vehicle-mounted flamethrowers are available. They ignore cover, can hit multiple enemies who are clumped together, and are capable of destroying bunkers with a single shot. |
| 290 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: |
| 291 | ** When Rosie goes on a tirade against Darcsens directed at Isara about the "Darcsen Calamity", Isara points out that there is no archaeological evidence supporting this. [[spoiler:She’s right. That’s the one thing the Valkyur ''couldn’t'' fabricate.]] |
| 292 | ** In the book you and the narrator are reading which chronicled the events of the game, Ms. Ellet gets an entire chapter to herself. [[spoiler:Given that she wrote the book...]] |
| 293 | ** Part of the Edelweiss' weaponry is a gun called the Theimer MAG T3, named after its creator and Isara's late father. She later makes her own weapon for it, being the ISARA Smoke Rounds. [[spoiler:She also dies shortly after you get these.]] |
| 294 | * FragileSpeedster: |
| 295 | ** Scouts go down easy. The trade-off is that their insane movement range makes them one of the most valuable units in the game, especially when going for A ranks. |
| 296 | ** Zaka's tank, the ''Shamrock''. While not as tough as the ''Edelweiss'', it has a higher movement range and can choose between three different primary weapons: the standard [[{{BFG}} mortar/cannon]], a [[GatlingGood Gatling gun]], or a [[KillItWithFire flamethrower]]. |
| 297 | * FramingDevice: The game proceeds as if you're reading through the history book Irene Koller[[spoiler:/Ms. Ellet]] wrote about the events of the war; cutscenes and battles are played by selecting them in the book's chapters and most of the game's extra content can be accessed through "tabs" to other sections. |
| 298 | * FreudianTrio: Hannes (Id), Oscar (Superego) and Jane (Ego) |
| 299 | %%* FriendlySniper: Catherine O'Hara, and the Bielert brothers (Oscar and Emile). |
| 300 | * GameBreakingBug: |
| 301 | ** During the final stretch of the first Ghirlandaio mission, you are supposed to use ladders to climb up a fortified wall and destroy the gatling guns that are stopping you from reaching the final switch. However, in the PC version, only the right-most ladder will function as intended, and the others will place the unit you're controlling slightly lower than they were supposed to, causing them to fall endlessly through the floor. |
| 302 | ** You might escape from some of the bugs, but the [=PC=] version does ''not'' like unlocking the frame rate to beyond 60 [=FPS=]. In fact, the [=FPS=] option [[https://steamcommunity.com/app/294860/discussions/0/624075482697668186/ seems to be touchy in general]]; capping it too low results in noticeable slow-down, and somehow changing [=FPS=] can even affect if the in-game clock (seen when saving the game) works or not! |
| 303 | *** Some users report that enemy fire rate is tied to the [=FPS=] -- set it to unlimited, and watch enemy shocktroopers melt anything that's not a tank in two seconds or less. |
| 304 | *** In Chapter 18 part A, you're required to lower a ramp made of debris. If your framerate is 144 Hz, [[https://steamcommunity.com/app/294860/discussions/0/624075374602349935/ units may get stuck]]. |
| 305 | * GameplayAndStorySegregation: |
| 306 | ** A squad is awarded the Splintered Horn when one of their own falls in the line of duty. [[spoiler:You don't get it automatically when Isara dies]], though, since it happens in a cutscene rather than in gameplay. |
| 307 | ** You level up the class's level rather than the characters themselves. This results in seasoned vets and ChildSoldiers being the same level. |
| 308 | ** You can pop back to headquarters at any time even late in the game where you shouldn't logically be able to. [[spoiler:Even getting rewarded by the Princess while she's kidnapped is possible.]] |
| 309 | ** Cutscenes show the Gallian Militia is equipped with pistols, but at no point in the game can you use them. |
| 310 | ** Despite her open bigotry and antagonistic attitude towards Isara, Rosie doesn't have the Darscen Hater potential. [[spoiler:This is averted after Isara dies. Rosie finally lets go of her prejudice and becomes more sympathetic to the Darscens, getting a new potential in the process to reflect it.]] |
| 311 | ** Alicia's full powers are activated after she nearly dies in a story event and the Valkyrur lance and shield come in contact with her. If she nearly dies during combat before then, the only consequence is that she needs more healing to fully recover. |
| 312 | * GameplayGrading: You get a rating for each battle, depending on speed. This affects how much experience you gain: |
| 313 | ** A: Base XP plus 200% bonus. |
| 314 | ** B: Base XP plus 150% bonus. |
| 315 | ** C: Base XP plus 100% bonus. |
| 316 | ** D: Base XP only. |
| 317 | * GenderIsNoObject: In Gallia at least, men and women alike seem to share the same rights and opportunities. In fact, no one seems to mind the idea of female soldiers [[StayInTheKitchen apart from General Damon]], but no one agrees with him. |
| 318 | %%* GeneralRipper: And quite literal ones at that. One on each side. |
| 319 | * GenderRestrictedAbility: Only female Valkyria are able to utilize Ragnite's energy psionically, resulting in a HealingFactor and an invulnerable OneWingedAngel form. However, MugglesDoItBetter. Despite these advantages, there's only a handful left in the entire world (ten would be a generous estimate), one of which is a ReluctantMonster who swears never to use her power, one [[spoiler: [[ActionBomb literally goes ballistic at being captured]]]], and three are [[spoiler: used to fuel nuclear reactors in ''4'']]. while regular humans just use ragnite to power machinery externally. The closest men get is NighInvulnerable PoweredArmor and a [[{{BFG}} massive laser cannon]] that replicates their magic through technology. Judging by how... drained [[spoiler: Emperor Maximillian]] looks during his boss battle, it might even slowly kill them. |
| 320 | * GenerationXerox: Played with, everyone thinks Welkin is following in his father's footsteps while the only thing he wants is to become a teacher. |
| 321 | * GentleGiant: Walter, Hector, Jann, and Largo. Note that they're all Lancers, a class you'd expect to be populated with DumbMuscle. [[SubvertedTrope There's not a single one who fits that description]], with the exception of Theod who's a small-town bully and bigot. |
| 322 | * GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: Certain characters, especially in the side chapters and DLC, start to go a little crazy before their LoveInterest snaps them out of it. |
| 323 | * GlassCannon: Snipers; they can kill most opponents with one hit, at ranges far beyond what any other unit can manage, but they have very low health and ridiculously little movement range. |
| 324 | ** Tank Destroyers have weaker armor than even Medium Tanks, and lack a rotating turret, meaning they have to turn completely to face their target before firing, but they're also the strongest anti-tank unit in the game. |
| 325 | * AGodIAmNot: [[spoiler:Alicia finds it unsettling to see common citizens begin to worship her after word gets out that she's a Valkyria]]. |
| 326 | * GoodFlawsBadFlaws: The negative potentials some characters have basically come in two varieties: mild annoyances (either frequent but minor, or infrequent and modest), and those that render the character near useless. |
| 327 | ** In the former category, [Environment] Allergy and [Name] Hater will never hurt you so long as you stay away from that environment/character. Desert Allergy is particularly minor, as only ''two'' chapters and one optional skirmish in ''the entire game'' take place in desert terrain. Similarly, Metal Allergy is actually only relevant when characters stand on the very infrequent metal bridges, and they're otherwise fine with hanging out with tanks (unlike Tank Hating characters, who again have an infrequent flaw). |
| 328 | ** On the opposite side of the scale certain character-specific traits, like Herbert's [[LazyBum 'Moody']] (occasionally ''flat out refuses to follow orders''), Hermes' 'Chronic Fatigue' (as a '''scout''', if he uses his full movement his turn may completely end), Cezary's 'Acrophobia' (a ''Sniper'' who's afraid of heights??), Susie's 'Humanitarian' (will occasionally ''completely end her turn'' if ordered to shoot, and unlike Hermes this isn't controllable) completely ruin those characters' ability to do their jobs properly. |
| 329 | ** It even works in reverse: some 'good' potentials aren't all that great. Sure 'Dud Mine' is good and all but couldn't you have just, you know, not stepped on the mine in the first place? Similarly, "Desert Bred" relates to the most infrequent terrain. |
| 330 | * TheGoodKingdom: Gallia. Even though the country is actually a Principality and ruled by a Archduke/Archduchess, it fits the archetype to a tee. |
| 331 | * GreenRocks: Ragnite. Used in anything humanly possible from first-aid kits to ammunition, including, but not limited to, street lamps and engine fuel. Apparently, the Valkyrian weapons are made of Ragnite as well. Aside from the latter, it’s practically the game’s counterpart to oil. |
| 332 | * GrenadeLauncher: |
| 333 | ** Elite Scouts gain access to a grenade launcher attachment for their rifles that shoot grenades much further than they can be thrown by hand. |
| 334 | ** Lances utilize a cold-launch system for their rockets, consisting of a booster charge that starts the rockets fuse burning so the lancer won't have to spontaneously evolve fireproof eyebrows. The Mortar version is described as "A rifle grenade system scaled up to the point more like a personal light mortar" by the Wiki. |
| 335 | * GuideDangIt: |
| 336 | ** Some of the enemy aces spend the entire battle hiding someplace where most people wouldn't think to look if they didn't already know they were there. |
| 337 | ** It's pretty much impossible to ace missions where the objectives change partway through if you don't know that they're going to change and put some units in a place where they can rapidly act on the new objective in advance. For example, the initial objective of the Edy's deployment DLC is [[spoiler:to defend a certain spot for three phases. Then you get a new objective to move Edy to the exit on the south side of the map. Acing the mission requires that this be done by the end of phase 4. It will take at least two phases worth of movement to get Edy there, so acing the mission requires Edy getting at least partway to the second objective before there is an in-story reason for her to leave the bunker she was defending.]] |
| 338 | ** Characters' Potentials activate on a situational or random basis. The game does not tell you how strong the effect is, or what the random chance is, leaving the player in the dark about how much effort they should put in to triggering or avoiding the effects. |
| 339 | ** Some of the more infamous levels have this in spades. Like knowing about potential map shortcuts or destructible objects. Chapter 7's battle against the Batomys mentions you can target the ruin walls to slow down the tank only the turn before it shoots down the first barrier, and doesn't explicitly say which ones are targettable (all of them show up with hp bars, and you only need to shoot the tall standing ones once). It also implies that you should use the Edelweiss's cannon and your Lancers entirely for dealing with the massive siege tank, starting with the machine gun turrets then the armored radiator vents, which will take multiple shells/rockets to destroy. What you're better off doing after destroying the machine guns (and left unmentioned) is instead running anyone with grenades up to the radiators and tossing one inside of the vents, which destroys it instantly (''if'' you aim correctly), and then using the Lancers and Edelweiss to finish off the Batomys. |
| 340 | * HappilyMarried: [[spoiler:Welkin and Alicia, in the end]]. Also [[spoiler:Largo and Eleanor.]] Karl and Lynn, two of the otherwise faceless units, are lovers by the time the game has started and get married after the war ends. |
| 341 | * HarderThanHard: EX Hard Mode. As an example, the first mission pits a tiny squad smack-dab in the center of a huge Imperial ambush. |
| 342 | * HateSink: Two of the generals, General Gregor of the Imperials and General Damon of the Gallians, are among the most immoral characters of the game, with few redeeming values. Both of them treat people as commodities to be used and [[WeHaveReserves expended]]. Even [[spoiler:Selvaria killing General Damon]] is shown in a positive light, relatively speaking. |
| 343 | * HeadsIWinTailsYouLose: [[spoiler: Operation Maiden's Shield. The Marmota is barrelling straight towards Randgriz, and Squad 7 need to divert its path into a trap laid by the Royal Guard. Fail, and the Marmota continues on to Randgriz. Succeed...and the trap fails, and the Marmota continues on to Randgriz, only you're allowed to move on to the next chapter this time.]] |
| 344 | * HeelRealization: [[spoiler:General Jaeger has one after his second battle with Squad 7. Realizing that helping Maximilian invade Gallia in exchange for the liberation of his own country makes him a hypocrite and leaves.]] |
| 345 | * HeirInLaw: Prince Maximilian's plan to take over Gallia involves forcing its princess to marry him. |
| 346 | * HellYesMoment: Several throughout the game, typically when you win a battle. But one particular scene, [[spoiler:when Alicia first awakens as a Valkyria. Made more notable by the fact that she delivers a CurbStompBattle to Selvaria in her Valkyria form, who up until this point in the game is invincible.]] |
| 347 | * HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: None of Squad 7 wears a helmet, but unnamed Gallian mooks do. In fact, the armor they do wear is highly impractical in general. They have protection on their shoulders, hips, knees and (in the case of the shocktroopers) pectorals, but leave the rest of their center-mass, neck, head and groin protected only by cloth uniforms. This may be justified in the fact that they are a civilian militia, which is often undersupplied and considered cannon fodder by the military brass, rather than army regulars. |
| 348 | * HeroicBSOD: Welkin, and all of Squad 7 really, experience this when [[spoiler:Isara dies]] and when [[spoiler:Alicia is shot.]] |
| 349 | * HiddenDepths: Turns out Nadine is quite the writer, Largo is highly knowledgeable about agriculture, [[CampGay Jann]] is good with kids, and Walter enjoys cooking and gardening. |
| 350 | * HiddenInPlainSight: [[spoiler:The ancient Valkyrian superweapon, the massive Valkof, has the tower of Castle Randgriz built around it. Even Maximilian {{lampshades}} this.]] |
| 351 | * HolyGround: Prince Maximilian von Regingrave didn't want to kill off Gallian militiamen present in the ruins of a Valkyrian temple, which is considered to be holy grounds. |
| 352 | * HollywoodTactics: The level ranking system actually encourages this - the ranking is based entirely on how many rounds it takes to complete the mission objectives, with bonuses added on to the rank reward for how many officers, aces, and tanks are defeated, with no regard for how many regular enemy units are defeated or friendly casualties taken. As a result of this, you get more XP and money for taking ridiculous risks to take/kill the primary objective as quickly as possible than by fighting intelligently and taking an extra round or two to wipe out the enemies between the starting point and the objective (Who will be shooting at the soldiers charging recklessly for the objective all the way). |
| 353 | * HopelessBossFight: |
| 354 | ** The first tank you encounter is impossible to destroy with ''any'' gun other than the Edelweiss's (a Lancer could presumably also do it, but there's no way to have a Lancer at that time), even in NewGamePlus. This is because it has a much lower than normal critical damage multiplier on its radiator, which also means that even on a NewGamePlus, the Edelweiss can't take it down in one shot to the radiator like it could to any other tank in the game. |
| 355 | ** Selvaria in all but her last battle is pretty much "run away and get the stage goal accomplished before she kills everyone." |
| 356 | ** You can, interestingly, defeat Jaeger's Tank when it first appears in the forest stage. Beating him sends all other enemies running with their tails between their legs, and Jaeger himself comments on your skill. Although curiously you get no experience credit for it. |
| 357 | * HumbleGoal: Despite having a very illustrious standing as the son of General Gunther, Welkin chooses to become a teacher after [=EW2=] ends. Likewise, Alicia wants to continue her baking career she had before the war, which she still tries to do during it and owns her own bakery cart by the end. |
| 358 | * HystericalWoman: Alicia and Varrot. [[spoiler:Despite spending most of the game being calm, collected, and competent, the culmination of their character arcs see them becoming so consumed with their emotions that they become dangerously, suicidally self-destructive, and require a male love interest to save them from themselves. Welkin and Largo both step up to talk Alicia and Varrot down.]] |
| 359 | * IgnoredEnamoredUnderling: Selvaria is blatantly in love with Maximilian. He knows this, but [[spoiler:sees her as nothing more than an expendable soldier.]] |
| 360 | * InfinityMinusOneSword: |
| 361 | ** The ZM Kar 8(g) and 9(g) are the strongest scout rifles in the game and the ZM Kar 9(g) is trivially farmed, especially once you've got one of it. They're obtained by defeating the Ace soldier in Susie's and Homer's skirmish missions. They trade off range and accuracy for significantly improved power (more than twice the damage of the best Gallian rifle and with seven shots per action instead of five), but the trade-off is worth it. |
| 362 | ** The Royal weapons, which start getting gifted to the Squad a little bit before the midway point. Effectively upgraded versions of standard Gallian weapons, and tend to be significantly powerful to boot, without the captured Imperial Aces weapons crippling range and accuracy loss. They are categorically superior to the R&D weapons they're based on (with the odd exception of range for rifles), but they only follow one of the three development paths (Gallian-S rifles, MAGS MXX machine guns, GSR-XX sniper rifles, and Theimer lances, meaning that if you prefer status effect weapons, higher damage rifles and sniper rifles, the T-MAG machine guns, or mortar lances, there are no royal weapon options for those) and drop randomly after missions, meaning they can't be reliably obtained. |
| 363 | * InfinityPlusOneSword: Ruhm, Selvaria's weapon, which can only be obtained by completing her DLC missions. B-rank accuracy, 20 shots per attack, and the range of a sniper rifle. It turns any shocktrooper you give it to into a OneManArmy. |
| 364 | * InformedAbility: Welkin's supposed to be a genius, large and in charge, but there are places where the story doesn't bear that out. The one time he's pressed for a solution to a major crisis, he flubs it, and when the problem is solved by means he doesn't like, he can't offer a better solution or argue with the logic behind it and just punches the guy who did it. Deducing that a river is shallower where plants are growing out of it is more common sense than knowledge, and [[spoiler: Isara's death]] occurs because Welkin gives the orders to break formation and start repairs on the tanks without securing the area or posting watch. Downplayed in that, canonically, EVERY mission Squad 7 has undertaken was in one way or another difficult to the point of suicidal. Despite that, Welkin manages to pull it off every with some ingenious tactics. |
| 365 | * InjuredPlayerCharacterStage: In the TrappedBehindEnemyLines mission that follows the successful defense of desert Valkyrur ruins, Alicia's leg is injured, her movement animation is that of limping, and her maximum movement per turn is penalized greatly. The map has several spots with wild herbs, which can be used for injury treatment, effectively reducing the penalty. |
| 366 | * InsurmountableWaistHeightFence: Not everywhere, but particularly bridge handrails. Kinda subverted: while Snipers can easily shoot over them, Lancers apparently can't (because they're ''literally'' waist-height; a sniper rifle is held to the shoulder, and snipers don't crouch in this game unless they're in grass — but lancers hold their lances near the hip.) |
| 367 | * ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: Completely inverted, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard enemies are FAR more accurate than you are.]] |
| 368 | * ImprovisedWeapon: Welkin clubs an Imperial soldier with a picket fence pole in the beginning. |
| 369 | * InterfaceSpoiler: |
| 370 | ** When you first meet Rosie, she's prejudiced against Darcsens, but doesn't have the "Darcsen Hater" potential, hinting that she'll get over her prejudice eventually. [[spoiler:In fact, she later unlocks a potential that's virtually the ''exact opposite.'']] |
| 371 | ** In Book Mode, cutscenes are displayed as a greyed-out still of the scene, which are colored after you watch them. But it's often easy to guess the content of the scene from the still:most egregiously, one in Chapter [[spoiler:11]] [[PlotlineDeath shows the main characters looking very sad, with one member of the group suspiciously absent...]] |
| 372 | ** Also, [[spoiler: Alicia]] in the center of a sniper crosshair makes for one anxious approach to the episode. |
| 373 | ** The early episode where you receive your father's legacy has the image of a large tank on it, thus ruining the surprise. |
| 374 | ** In a meta sense, the ''name of the game'' is Valkyria Chronicles. Were you really surprised when someone turned out to be a Valkyria? Additionally, lots of promo and marking images spoil the surprises for both of the Valkyrias. |
| 375 | ** The intro montage spoils several points throughout the game like the Marmota and a close-up shot of [[spoiler:Alicia, whose hair is white and is glowing bright blue.]] |
| 376 | * InternalizedCategorism: [[spoiler: Alicia's]] character arc, in a nutshell. Her thoughts on [[spoiler: her Valkyria powers]] are only informed from the most extremely negative outside sources. [[TallPoppySyndrome She ''is'' the nail that sticks up.]] [[spoiler:And in the end, she hammers herself back down to earth.]] |
| 377 | * InterserviceRivalry: There is a lot of friction between the soldiers of the militia and the high echelon officers of the regular military. |
| 378 | * {{Irony}}: This game along with 2 and 4 show the descendants of the deified Valkyrur, the Valkyria being used as tools of war with the heroes the only ones treating them as people. |
| 379 | * IstanbulNotConstantinople: While we really only see three political entities, the continent of Europa seems to have a lot of countries loosely corresponding to real life countries that are allied to either one of two political alliances. Europa is of course, an alternate name for Europe in real life, while Gallia is named after the historical region of the Gauls. |
| 380 | * ItsUpToYou: Subverted. Squad 7's exploits are part of the wider war effort. Those very exploits as well as Welkin's background, however make them increasingly prominent, eventually becoming Gallia's last hope against Maximilian. |
| 381 | * IWantMyMommy: A dramatic variation, after being separated from the rest of Squad 7, Alicia and Welkin come across a mortally wounded Imperial Soldier named Fritz, crying out for his mother. Alicia, in sympathy and compassion, comforts the young man in his dying moments, pretending to be the delirious Fritz's mother and staying with him till the end. |
| 382 | * {{Jerkass}}: |
| 383 | ** Rosie is this at first, but eventually becomes a JerkWithAHeartOfGold. |
| 384 | %%** Maximilian. |
| 385 | ** [[TheNeidermeyer General Damon]], who views the militia as expendable cannon fodder, uses illegal weapons and claims all the credit for things he wasn't remotely responsible for. |
| 386 | ** Cezary. At one point in the manga he is shown telling Oscar not to give the Darcsens fighting alongside them backup (thankfully Oscar refuse to obey him) and lets an Imperial Sniper take aim at Nadine without bothering to help, and she probably would've been shot if Marina hadn't killed the sniper before he had the chance. Cezary is considered such a Jerkass that he's often portrayed as a downright evil character, or even a traitor, in fanfictions. Ironically, the only person that does like Cezary in the manga is not other than Nadine herself, who mistook Cezary as the one who saved her from the Imperial Sniper. |
| 387 | ** Theold, although he apparently gets better after the war, when he falls in love. |
| 388 | * JigglePhysics: Used extensively with Selvaria's breasts. Other characters utilize it as well, but it's mostly limited to their hair. Alicia's pigtails sway back and forth when she moves. |
| 389 | * JumpedAtTheCall: [[spoiler:When Isara dies, Kries instantly volunteers as the Edelweiss's pilot to honor her memory. He proves just as skilled and courageous as her, and Welkin is honored to have him in her place.]] |
| 390 | * KarmicDeath: Most of the morally corrupt characters on both sides suffer a well-deserved demise. When not literally it comes symbolically, through loss of status or motivation. |
| 391 | * KickTheDog: |
| 392 | ** In Selvaria's side chapter, Damon kicks the dog when he uses poisonous ragnite gas against the Imperials even though both sides are under a treaty that specifically forbids the use of such weapons. Not only that, but after he loses the battle, Damon covers for his failure by ''accusing the Imperials'' of illegally using chemical/biological weapons! |
| 393 | ** Your very first encounter with Imperial troops starts with them gunning down unarmed fleeing civilians. |
| 394 | * KilledOffForReal: |
| 395 | ** [[spoiler:Isara is shot by a sniper at the end of chapter 11]]. |
| 396 | ** If any of your soldiers are downed in combat and are not rescued before an enemy soldier touches them, you [[{{Permadeath}} lose them permanently.]] Except for [[GameplayAllyImmortality plot-critical characters]] who will "retreat" instead, despite the fact that they were unconscious seconds before and have an enemy standing over them. In battle, if Alicia, Largo or Rosie "retreat" from battle, they cannot be summoned back. |
| 397 | %%* LadyOfWar: Selvaria, obviously. Also, Captain Varrot is one to a lesser degree. |
| 398 | * LandMineGoesClick: Not a noise you want to hear - the only units that won't be immediately caught in a fiery explosion after that click are the engineers, the only ones capable of disarming them. Sustaining the trope, the mine never blows up until you step/roll ''off'' of it. If you end turn as soon as you hear the click, an engineer can still disarm the mine. |
| 399 | * LawOfInverseRecoil: The degree of steadiness with which Shocktroopers can hold the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Ruhm]] beggars belief. However, the high recoil exhibited by Lancers (in comparison with real life [=RPGs=], which have little to no recoil) can actually be explained - the lances do not have a rear exhaust for the back blast, so recoil is expected. |
| 400 | * LaserGuidedKarma: Cezary's profile reveals that he loses his cynical nature after falling out of a tree following the end of the war. |
| 401 | ** [[spoiler:The corrupt General who mistreated Squad 7 throughout the story tries to steal the credit for conquering Ghirlandaio and taking Selvaria prison. He and the rest of his men end of being vaporized when Selvaria uses the Valkyria's final flame.]] |
| 402 | * LetsFightLikeGentlemen: [[spoiler:The last ever fight you have against Selvaria has her pick up a normal rifle and not use her Valkyur powers.]] |
| 403 | * LetThemDieHappy: In Chapter 8, when the dying Imperial scout begins crying out for his mother in pain and delirium, Alicia gently holds his hand and pretends to be his mother to comfort him. |
| 404 | * LighterAndSofter: Despite the fact that AnyoneCanDie and that virtually every horrible war-related trope comes into play, the whimsical art style and the numerous light-hearted moments manage to make this a lot less depressing than most war stories. Averted in the {{manga}}, which is brutal. |
| 405 | * LightIsNotGood: |
| 406 | ** Don't assume the Atlantic Federation are your allies just because they have a brightly-colored flag and are fighting against the Imperials, they're just as eager to take over Gallia. |
| 407 | ** Selvaria uses [[LightEmUp the power of the Valkyrur]] against her enemies. [[spoiler:An awakened Alicia practically becomes a death machine who's a threat to anyone who approaches her. Then it turns out that the entirety of the Valkyrur were assholes to begin with.]] |
| 408 | * LimitedAdvancementOpportunities: Apart from Welkin and Alicia getting promoted from militia inductee to 2nd Lieutenant and Sergeant, respectively (Which is due entirely to their education levels), nobody gets promoted over the course of the war. Given the horrific casualties that are suffered over the course of the war, you'd think that Welkin and Varrot would warrant a battlefield promotion or two for their achievements, but the subject never even gets brought up. Made even more apparent given how both seem to be commanding forces way above their grade already. |
| 409 | * LittleHeroBigWar: The Gallian conflict is a small part of the second Europan War. The Empire and the Federation are still at war with each other after Gallia drives out the fragment that invaded them, having convinced them that it's not worth it. |
| 410 | * LogicalWeakness: While the armor plating on Jaeger's tank offers more protection, the weight slows it considerably. Obscuring the radiator protects it from harm but makes it a lot easier to overheat, requiring support camps to deal with it. |
| 411 | * LostSuperweapon: [[spoiler:The Valkof]] is completely hidden in the guise of [[spoiler:a castle Spire in Gallia]] despite having the potential to raze entire nations. |
| 412 | * LoveMartyr: [[spoiler:Selvaria to Maximilian]], although [[spoiler:she has little, if any, interest about changing him.]] |
| 413 | * LowerDeckEpisode: The downloadable chapters featuring Selvaria are focused around Johann, an Imperial soldier who is saved from mook status by the fact that he is assigned to be Selvaria's personal aide. Selvaria's personality is expanded upon through Johann's experiences with her. |
| 414 | * LowFantasy: The land is dotted with {{Precursor|s}} ruins, and a few women still have traces of their ancestry in their blood and thus the potential to be able to use their technology and become [[OneManArmy One Woman Armies]]. But apart from that, the game's setting is something resembling Europe circa 1940, with different borders and armies: most fighting is done by infantry with rifles and tanks are starting to become a dominant force on the battlefield. |
| 415 | * LuckBasedMission: Minor example -- it is possible to beat the final boss in ''one turn'' if you Google up the correct strategy and get lucky with the Potential that sometimes allows certain characters to make extra attacks. |
| 416 | * LuminescentBlush: Let's see here. Japanese RPG: check. Anime-style: double check. Romance plot: check, check, check. Nope. No reason ''not'' to see this trope in it. |
| 417 | * MagikarpPower: Top-rank Engineers. Unlike the other non-Lancer classes they need to be fully maxed to get their final Battle/Class Potential. The same Potential that makes Lynn one of, if not the, strongest Shocktrooper (Hard Worker, letting her occasionally have two actions in a turn) is unlocked as shared trait for all Engineers. Give them the same killer Rifles you'd give a Scout, and suddenly they jump from a mediocre support unit to something halfway between a Shocktrooper in deadliness and a Scout in speed and range. |
| 418 | ** Snipers are the worst class in the game to start with. Abysmal AP and health, can only fire once per attack (and like Lancers their basic weapon has limited ammo,) and their accuracy is so bad that they aren't really worth using most of the time (meanwhile, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard enemy snipers can effortlessly headshot your units from across the map even in their earliest appearance.]]) Take the time to level them up and give them decent weapons, as well as pairing them up with an Engineer to keep their ammo replenished and taking care to position them near sniper nests, and they become death on legs and every bit as dangerous as the aforementioned CPU snipers. |
| 419 | * {{Magitek}}: Downplayed. Ragnite does have peculiar properties that enhance those with Valkyrur blood, but is otherwise a mineral and fuel source vital to industrial civilization. |
| 420 | %%* MartyrWithoutACause: [[spoiler:Alicia vs. the Marmota.]] |
| 421 | * MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Edy and Homer in Edy's DLC. Homer is a frail masochistic boy, taking sublime pleasure in every punch and kick Edy sends his way, while Edy is an aggressive woman. |
| 422 | * MedalOfDishonor: |
| 423 | ** There is the Crimson Heart, which requires you to rescue one of your downed soldiers (like the real-life Purple Heart), but a bigger example would be the Splintered Horn, which requires a member of your unit to die permanently during combat (Not saved by a medic in three turns or has an enemy soldier touch their unconscious form). |
| 424 | ** The player will most likely develop a retinue of troops they always use and couldn't bear to be without, so for [[HundredPercentCompletion 100% completionists]] they have to look at their roster, decide which of their unused men they like least, put them in a battle, control them by hand into enemy fire, and sit there for three turns (more than enough to save them) while they lay there dying, before listening to their final words. Or, even worse, leave them in the path of the Marmota - when they get run over, there's no coming back from that. |
| 425 | * MedievalEuropeanFantasy: Played with. A good chunk of the aesthetics, whether it's Gallia's castles or the lance-shaped rocket-propelled grenades, suggests that this is what happens when this trope is put on fast-forward. Meanwhile, ragnite is a fuel source vital for industrial civilization that would otherwise be a mystic ore in some other fantasy setting. |
| 426 | * TheMedic: When one of your soldiers is down and another one manages to get to him on time, the cute little medic will pop up to get them back in shape! |
| 427 | * TheMenFirst: Welkin's first priority in ''every single mission'', beyond its completion, is the safety of his soldiers. |
| 428 | * {{Metaphorgotten}} |
| 429 | -->'''Largo:''' Vegetables are like bombs packed tight with all kinds of important nutrients! Kids gotta eat 'em to grow up right... and the body's practically made of vegetables!\ |
| 430 | '''Rosie:''' Which are like bombs...? |
| 431 | %%* MicroMonarchy: The Principality of Gallia. |
| 432 | * MightyGlacier: Lancers; they're great against tanks and can weather most incoming fire like it's nothing. Unfortunately they have trouble keeping up with everyone else. |
| 433 | * MildlyMilitary: The Gallians in general. Early in the game Captain Varrot gets away with calling a ''general'' a lousy soldier ''to his face'' with not much more than an angry "HEY!". A chapter later Rosie and Largo are openly insubordinate to their commanding officer and also get away with it. |
| 434 | * MilitaryMashupMachine: The Marmota. Think "Battleship on wheels" or "insanely armed and armored hovercraft". The Weaponry tab even states that it was a joint creation effort between the Imperial army and navy. |
| 435 | * MilitaryMaverick: Welkin usually comes up with incredibly unorthodox strategies to win his battles, such as instead of normally sieging the occupied bridge for an operation, he instead asks Isara to waterpoof the Edelweiss so he can drive it under ''the river'' to the other side for a suprise attack, which ''works''. Varrot also embodies this trope to some extent. |
| 436 | * MistakenForSpies: The first thing that happens to Welkin upon his hometown to Bruhl is that he gets arrested by Alicia after being spotted sketching the wildlife, mistaking this as collecting intel for the Imperials. This gets cleared up when Isara finds out. |
| 437 | * MoneyForNothing: Money is rewarded for successfully completing missions and skirmishes, but the number of upgrades is finite at any given moment. Thus, you're likely to find yourself up to your eyeballs in unspendable ducats by the mid-game, particularly if you play a lot of skirmishes for LevelGrinding. |
| 438 | * MookHorrorShow: The victory cutscene of the chapter 4 battle has the heroes raising a drawbridge underneath an Imperial armor company. There's shots of the enemy tanks scrabbling to stay on the bridge and an infantryman hanging onto the bridge for dear life before the slope becomes too steep and they fall off. |
| 439 | * MookMaker: Enemy camps. In later stages, they'll spawn one unit per camp every turn, on average, if not always (thankfully, they cannot spawn tanks). Though this can be a double-edged sword: spawning a unit takes two turns, one to summon the unit and one for it to appear. If the camp is taken before the unit appears, the CP spent to summon the unit will have been wasted. |
| 440 | * MoralityPet: Selvaria appears to be this to Maximilian for much of the story. His respect and kindness toward her are the primary signs that he's not all bad, especially once it's revealed that [[spoiler:he saved her from an agonizing life as a scientific test subject.]] However, this ultimately gets subverted near the end of the game, [[spoiler:as he decides that she needs to take the "I value you more than my life" thing more literally.]] |
| 441 | * MoreDakka: The Stormtroopers employ machine guns that can fire up to 35 shots at a time. |
| 442 | * MultiFormBalance: Both the Shamrock and fully upgraded Edelweiss can be switched between different configurations between missions. The Shamrock can swap its main gun between a snub version of the standard cannon, a [[KillItWithFire heavy flamer]] and a [[GatlingGood Gatling gun]]. The Edelweiss, meanwhile, gets more radically altered [[GlassCannon Max Gun form]] (self explanatory), [[SuperToughness Max Armor form]] (ditto) and [[JackOfAllStats Max Body form]] (which is basically a beefed up version of the non-upgraded form). |
| 443 | * MundaneMadeAwesome: The actual premise of the game is you reading a history book about the events of [=EW2=]. |
| 444 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: The Imperial soldiers who used to make fun of the now-deceased Fritz for being a "MommasBoy" realize how much of a {{Jerkass}} they were after finding out from Welkin and Alicia that he died ''[[IWantMyMommy crying out for his mother]]'', and likely realizing that Fritz's "enemies" on the other side of the war [[WhatYouAreInTheDark showed him more kindness and sympathy]] than they ever did. |
| 445 | * MysticalWhiteHair: Selvaria [[spoiler:and Alicia when their Valkyria powers are active]]. Edy as well, although hers is a darker silver [[spoiler:and it doesn't come from being a Vakyrur]]. |
| 446 | [[/folder]] |
| 447 | |
| 448 | [[folder:N to Z]] |
| 449 | * ANaziByAnyOtherName: The Empire is both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in one. Led by an emperor. |
| 450 | * NewGamePlus: You get a bonus character during New Game Plus, some cut scenes are extended, and you can also unlock some exposition only chapters that would have been totally [[TheReveal Spoileriffic]] if seen on the first play through. |
| 451 | %%* NewMeat: Some of the characters' potentials exemplify traits of this. |
| 452 | * NicknamingTheEnemy: Gallian troops sometimes call their Imperial enemies "imps", often as a pejorative. "Imp Hater" is a trait some soldiers have that grants them an accuracy boost when near enemies. |
| 453 | * NoHeroDiscount: The game applies a variation of this in that, instead of buying better equipment for Squad 7, you pay the R&D fees to develop better equipment, which is then issued to them for no further charge. |
| 454 | * NoNameGiven: TheMedic, unless you know that she's a cameo character from [[VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia one of the earlier games]] from the same developers. There are actually three medics who are all [[InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals identical siblings]]. [[AllThereInTheManual Their names are Fina, Hina, and Mina Sellers]]. More direct examples would be the Drill Instructor and the Aged Gentleman in the War Cemetery, though you can eventually get their names and bios after unlocking all the orders and leveling every class to level 20. |
| 455 | * NonLethalKO: If a character in your squad reaches zero HP, then you have three turns to get a comrade to their position, in which case they will be "safely evacuated" by the Medic, and can rejoin the battle in a later turn. If you take too long, or an enemy reaches them first, then they will be unrecoverably dead. |
| 456 | * NonActionGuy: Susie thanks to her super pacifistic nature and "Humanitarian" potential. |
| 457 | * NonuniformUniform: |
| 458 | ** If you look carefully, some of the characters, especially the main ones, have noticeable variations in their uniforms. Gallia's military has a rather relaxed dress code for the Militia. Because they're all volunteers, and not part of the official army, nobody really cares much about personal effects. Alicia and Yoko's kerchiefs in their hair, Jann's makeup, Edy's matching camo bows in her hair, Rosie's earrings, Walter's sunglasses, Isara's shawl, etc. |
| 459 | ** In the game's artbook, the character designer refers to this trope (from his end at least) as a "believable lie": How to give characters distinctive appearances while maintaining some semblance of military decorum. |
| 460 | * NoOntologicalInertia: Any mission ends in success the moment the main objective is completed, regardless of how many enemy troops or tanks are still alive or how nearly wiped out your team is. This is sometimes justified by the enemies (or your allies) retreating upon mission success, but there are numerous times when the enemy can appear to have the upper hand but still lose anyways if you just craftily occupy a certain critical base or something along those lines. This becomes most notable when going for top ranks, as winning as fast as possible often involves using a fragile scout to cross large amounts of territory while skirting around enemies that could kill them. |
| 461 | * NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow: You can still rescue squadmates even after they get shot in the face with a tank shell. With a little luck, tougher classes such as Lancers and Shocktroopers can even take a direct hit from an explosive round and get back up to return the favor. Also, running someone over with a tank does ''zero'' damage. |
| 462 | * OhCrap: Chapter 4, when Welkin's tank just appeared out of the water in front of two Imperial soldiers. Even though their faces can't be seen because of the helmets, their voices alone are ''just priceless''. Hell, ''Alicia's'' reaction is basically this, even though the tank is on '''her''' side! |
| 463 | * OldSoldier: While most of Squad 7 are teenagers, you get the odd one of these. Largo is the most prominent example and he has the personality of one, even going so far as to initially view Welkin as NewMeat and refuse to take orders from him. Other OldSoldier squad members include [[SergeantRock Musaad]], [[FriendlySniper Catherine]] and [[BadassTeacher Wavy]]. The king of this trope, however, is Coby: the previously listed characters are mostly in their 30's and 40's, but Coby is ''65 years old'' and ''still'' out kicking ass and taking names. |
| 464 | * OneHitKill: Unless a unit is crouching behind cover, or just has an absurd amount of HP and/or defense, one headshot from a sniper is enough to kill them. One solid hit to a tank's radiator (again, discounting powerful boss tanks) with a tank gun or a lancer rocket is similarly enough to waste it in one shot, and endgame Lancers with the Ultimate Anti-Armor potential don't even need to hit the radiator to destroy most tanks in one hit. |
| 465 | * OneManArmy: Selvaria is very powerful even without her Valkyria powers. It can also be played straight if you use one character almost exclusively throughout the mission. |
| 466 | * OneSteveLimit: Averted in a small example. Faldio shares his surname, Landzaat, with Karl, but the two appears to be completely unrelated. |
| 467 | * OnlyOneName: |
| 468 | ** Darcsens do not have last names, as part of the punishment by the Valkyrur since ancient times. Isara is an exception because she's adopted. |
| 469 | ** Averted by the cameos from ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'', even though the original plays them straight. Vyse and Aika were given the last names of Inglebard and Thompson, respectively. |
| 470 | * OptionalPartyMember: Technically, this applies to all of the game's recruitable soldiers. |
| 471 | * OrangeBlueContrast: The orange flames of war contrasting with the Valkyria's Ragnite-induced blue flames. |
| 472 | * PauseScumming: The unit you are controlling, (and only the unit you are controlling) will be exposed to suppression fire, whether he or she is stationary, behind cover, or moving. However, enemies will mysteriously cease fire the moment you take aim. This leads to one or two different playstyles. The player will usually either run fast, shoot, and stop controlling the character; or walk, aim, walk, aim, walk, aim.... That second option isn't always a viable tactic, as many enemies will continue to fire until they empty their magazine, or the camera finishes switching to aim mode, whichever comes first. The [=PC=] version makes this tactic nonviable as interception fire by enemies has been changed such that every single enemy will be able to still get shots off at you during the transition into aiming mode. |
| 473 | * PendulumWar: In the absence of Squad 7, the rest of the Gallian military doesn't seem to be able to achieve much of anything and generally get their butts handed to them by the Empire. However, once Squad 7 arrives on the field, expect to see Imperials flying across the Gallian-Imperial border in droves. |
| 474 | * PeninsulaOfPowerLeveling: |
| 475 | ** The Windmill Plaza skirmish can be consistently completed in a single phase to rake in large amounts of xp and money, even just on Normal difficulty. Good for starting off, until you tackle... |
| 476 | ** Susie's Skirmish mission. While it is DLC, this fairly short skirmish has only 8 enemy scouts to kill, including an ace scout. Beating the mission, even with a D rank, guarantees at least 23000 XP. An A-rank gives you over 60000 XP and 120000 ducat. A-rank requires beating it within 8 turns, and can be completed in as little as 3. With enough farming, you can level up all 5 classes to 20 as soon as the Skirmish tab opens up to you shortly after the start of the game. The Ace soldier also provides a ZM Mk.8 rifle for scouts to use. It provides a significant attack boost in exchange for shortened range. The trade-off is worth it, considering it can waste enemy tanks in a single volley to the radiator (weak point). |
| 477 | * {{Permadeath}}: Except the main characters, a Squad 7 soldier whose HP hits 0 will be gone for good if you don't get a medic to help them within three turns or if the enemy gets to them first. Even during skirmish missions and side-story battles, they can still be killed permanently if you're not careful. |
| 478 | * PermanentlyMissableContent: Killing enemy aces is rewarded with new weapons. Outside of the DLC missions, they only appear in non-repeatable missions, [[GuideDangIt often with nothing to indicate that they're there to be defeated]]. Thankfully, missions are repeatable in NewGamePlus, and many of the earliest enemy weapons are AwesomeButImpractical if not outright obsolete thanks to the DLC missions dropping the highest-ranking ones. |
| 479 | * PersonOfMassDestruction: The Valkyrians, descendants of the Valkyrur. Selvaria is capable of single-handedly turning the tide of an entire battle in her Valkyria form. [[spoiler:And then there's the Valkyria's final flame, which practically turns her into a walking ''nuclear bomb''.]] |
| 480 | * PetTheDog: |
| 481 | ** An unnamed Imperial officer lets Welkin and Alicia go after finding out that they tried (but failed) to save one of his dying subordinates and gave him a proper burial. |
| 482 | ** One major mission Captain Varrot sends Squad 7 on is to take back Bruhl. After [[spoiler:Isara's death]], she practically ''begged'' her superiors to let her try to take back Welkin's hometown to get Squad 7's spirits up. |
| 483 | * PlayerMooks: More of a TakeThatAudience than anything else, but if the player loses enough squad members permanently, they get replaced with an endless series of faceless, one-size-fits-all mooks. |
| 484 | * PlotlineDeath: [[spoiler:Isara]]. And later, [[spoiler:Selvaria]]. [[spoiler:Gregor]] too, but everyone hates him anyway. |
| 485 | * ProtagonistCenteredMorality: Selvaria is a terrifying enemy until [[spoiler:we find out Alicia's a Valkyria too.]] She becomes more sympathetic as the story goes on because of that kinship, and the story makes it pretty clear that [[spoiler: her suicide is a tragedy, but the thousands of Gallian soldiers she wiped out with her final flame had it coming.]] |
| 486 | * PunchClockVillain: |
| 487 | ** Not ''all'' Imperial soldiers are {{Magnificent Bastard}}s or {{Jerkass}}es. A large majority of them are just regular joes just like the Gallians and this fact is heavily emphasized during one of the game's chapters and the Selvaria DLC. |
| 488 | ** Radi Jaeger has signs of this, as he's only fighting for the Empire to free his homeland. He is easily the most likable of the villains, as even the otherwise sympathetic Selvaria is truly dedicated to the Empire's cause. |
| 489 | ** On the Selvaria DLC, several of the random mooks in your squad are prominent Aces... and Fritz, [[IWantMyMommy that one mook from the cabin.]] |
| 490 | * PuttingOnTheReich: Both Gallia and the Empire have varying degrees of this. For example, Gallians persecute the Darcsens. On the other hand, the Empire is a mix between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union with a bit of Romanov Russia thrown in for good measure. In the Empire, Darcsens captured in Gallia are sent to death camps/concentration camps to work under inhumane conditions. Partially averted in ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChroniclesIII'', which occurs simultaneous with ''Valkyria Chronicles''. |
| 491 | * PyrrhicVictory: [[spoiler:Chapter 11 ends with Squad 7 succeeding their objective of taking the enemy base, but shortly after, Isara is killed by an Imperial rifle shot, which deals an emotional blow to Squad 7, rendering the victory fruitless]]. |
| 492 | * RagtagBunchOfMisfits: The Gallia Militia in general, with Squad 7 standing out moreso. It's literally "grab literally everyone who has military training or at least can use a gun". |
| 493 | * ReallyDeadMontage: As if they couldn't hammer home [[spoiler:Isara's]] death enough. [[spoiler:Rosie even sings through the entire montage.]] |
| 494 | * RecurringBoss: The aptly named "Ty the Immortal" is a recurring Ace enemy unit. |
| 495 | ** Ozwald may count as one as well. There are a series of ace scouts (two in the main game, and three in various DLC maps) all named "Ozwald the X", where the X is a different metal for each appearance. |
| 496 | * RedBaron: Various characters have names attached to them, most noticeably the enemy aces. They have monikers like "the Iron", "the Immortal", "the Heavy". The Selvaria DLC showed that Musaad was in the military with the name "the Mole", which he apparently had since the previous war. Also, according to her bio at the end of the game, Jane, in addition to becomming a drill instructor is referred to as "Sadistic Jane" with reverence. |
| 497 | * RedEyesTakeWarning: All activated Valkyria appear to have red eyes, though it seems to be Selvaria's natural eye color. |
| 498 | * RedemptionEqualsDeath: |
| 499 | ** [[spoiler:Faldio]] seeks redemption from [[spoiler:shooting Alicia]] by [[spoiler:protecting her and Welkin from Maximilliam, giving up on his own life to simultaneously kill the emperor and destroy the Marmota.]] |
| 500 | ** Somewhat inverted in the case of Rosie, who got her own personal redemption via the death of another person. |
| 501 | * RequiredPartyMember: |
| 502 | ** Welkin and the Edelweiss tank are always required for battles, due to him serving as the [[CantDropTheHero commander of Squad 7]]. Even when the Edelweiss is out of commission for story reasons, Welkin is still around as an on-foot Scout. |
| 503 | ** Other party member requirements vary based on the mission, with Alicia being very common due to her role in the story, though Largo and Rosie are frequently required as well. |
| 504 | * RescueRomance: [[spoiler:Welkin and Alicia don't resolve their relationship until he prevents her from committing suicide.]] |
| 505 | * RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: [[spoiler:In an attempt to seize control of the Gallian throne, Borg makes a deal to surrender Cordelia to Maximillian. The emperor responds by mocking him, asking why anyone would trust a man who was willing to betray his own country, and promptly orders the Prime Minister's execution.]] |
| 506 | * SaveScumming: You can save before battles. You can save between turns in a battle. You can save between moves in a turn. If you can't go back and try something again, then it is not the game's fault. |
| 507 | %%* SavvyGuyEnergeticGirl: Homer and Edy in the Edy Detachment DLC. |
| 508 | %%* SayMyName: [[spoiler:"ISARAAAAAA!"]] |
| 509 | * SchizoTech: Varies widely between pre-WW and post-[=WW2=] tech. Firearms technology is late-[=WW2=] tech, with the standard infantry rifles of all sides being semi-automatic rifles (Gallia's is roughly based on the Gewehr 43). Airplane technology is pre-UsefulNotes/WW1. Tanks are inter-war tech, roughly, though the fully-upgraded Edelweiss would probably make real-life [=MBTs=] feel inadequate. Soldiers on both the Gallian and Imperial sides wear armour plates reminiscent of those worn by medieval foot soldiers. Tactics vary as well, with TheEmpire using a classic blitzkrieg but then also using [=WW1=]-era trench warfare. |
| 510 | * SecretCharacter: There are five (one per class): Musaad (Scout), Lynn (Shocktrooper), Audrey (Lancer), Knute (Engineer), and Emile (Sniper). They only get unlocked by certain means, two of which involve certain characters at least getting KO'ed. |
| 511 | * SeenItAll: Largo and Rosie get this way really quick. |
| 512 | --> '''Rosie''': "Yeah, you sorta get used to this." |
| 513 | --> '''Largo''': "Huh.....so it really is a giant land battleship." |
| 514 | * SelfDestructMechanism: The Marmota has a self-destruction mechanism on it, which Maximilian triggered when he was defeated. [[spoiler:Because it had the Valkof on it, the resulting explosion is comparable to a mini-Valkyrian final flame.]] |
| 515 | * SenselessSacrifice: Attempted by [[spoiler:Alicia when she attempts to destroy the Marmota.]] Deterred by [[spoiler:Welkin's proposal.]] |
| 516 | * SensibleHeroesSkimpyVillains: Selvaria's outfit doesn't show a huge amount of skin (mostly on her back), but it's sexualised in a way that Alicia's isn't -- Alicia could be wearing any amount of underwear beneath her jacket, Selvaria is clearly wearing none beneath hers. |
| 517 | * ShedArmorGainSpeed: Played with and justified. Once the extra armor on Jaeger's tank is destroyed it becomes considerably faster and mobile. This is due to the loss of the extra weight and it being able to move its regular speed, rather than losing all its armor. |
| 518 | * ShortRangeLongRangeWeapon: Gunfights in ''Valkyria Chronicles'' tend to take place at extremely close ranges, particularly in the early game when everyone's accuracy is fairly low. Most of the hidden weapons acquired by beating aces sacrifice range for power, making them even more short-ranged. |
| 519 | * SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Most of the female characters with a male LoveInterest fall under this. Chiefly, Welkin is the good man to Alicia. |
| 520 | * SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Quite a bit more idealistic than the usual war game. |
| 521 | %%* SlowMotionFall: [[spoiler:Isara]]'s death. |
| 522 | * SmallGirlBigGun: Most female Lancers are this, walking around with a weapon that's usually longer than they are tall. Applies to Aisha too, the 12-year-old Shocktrooper later on, where she can hold something about the size of a typical light-machine gun, or if you get the [[AKA47 Ruhm]] via DLC. |
| 523 | * SmugSnake: Prime Minister Borg. [[spoiler:He ''tries'' to come up with dastardly plots, but all end up horribly backfiring on him to the point where the BigBad knows that keeping him around as an ally wouldn't be good in the long run and orders his execution.]] |
| 524 | * SniperDuel: Usually the best way to dispatch an enemy sniper is with another sniper (especially in certain missions where they're perched on an unreachable sniper nest where snipers are the only units that ''can'' hit them.) Cezary even has a potential that gives him increased attack power against enemy snipers. |
| 525 | * SociopathicSoldier: |
| 526 | ** Jane. One of her potentials describes her as a sadist, and her CatchPhrase when it activates ''does not help at all'', nor does the fact that the animation shows her rubbing her face in something close to ecstasy. |
| 527 | -->'''Jane''': [[LovesTheSoundOfScreaming Scream for me!]] |
| 528 | ** When you first recruit Wendy, she says "Ha ha...kaboom! Ha ha..." According to the biographical material, she ''accidentally blew up her house'' making homemade explosives before joining the militia. |
| 529 | -->'''Wendy''': "Hehe, I upped the power!" "I seeeee yoooou!" "Here I coooommmme!" |
| 530 | ** Marina is initially implied to be a silent version this but is averted in the fact that she is not sociopathic but just extremely anti-social. |
| 531 | * SoProudOfYou: DrillSergeantNasty gets teary-eyed and genuinely compliments the squad when every class reaches level 20. He also offers genuine congratulations when each class reaches Elite status. |
| 532 | * SplashDamage: Grenades deal splash damage, which makes them one of the only weapons that can easily hit more than one target. Their main use, however, is taking out sandbags so you can get [[BoomHeadShot headshots on the exposed troops]]. Strangely, standing right next to an exploding tank does not inflict splash damage. |
| 533 | %%* SpinToDeflectStuff: The Valkyrian Shield. |
| 534 | %%* TheSquad: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Enough said...]] |
| 535 | * StandardEvilEmpireHierarchy: |
| 536 | ** TheEmperor: Prince Maximilian[[note]]Okay, technically "Imperial Prince and heir", but he fills the narrative archetype well enough.[[/note]] |
| 537 | ** The Right Hand: Selvaria Bles |
| 538 | ** The General: Berthold Gregor |
| 539 | ** The Guard: Giorgios Geld |
| 540 | ** The EvilCounterpart: The Enemy Aces |
| 541 | ** The Oddball: Radi Jaeger |
| 542 | * StealthBasedMission: |
| 543 | ** The first operation of Chapter 8, where Welkin and Alicia must dodge Imperial troops and make it to the other side of a forest at night. |
| 544 | ** The Bonus Report "Largo's Passion" tries to be this but fails -- it's too easy to attack it head-on. |
| 545 | ** The side chapter "What Lies Beyond Hate" is a straighter version, as the mission fails instantly if your units are sighted at the end of your phase. |
| 546 | %%* TheStoic: Ramsey, and a few others. |
| 547 | * StormingTheBeaches: |
| 548 | ** In chapter 3, the squad is ordered to recapture the Vasel Bridge. Instead of making a suicidal frontal assault, Welkin waterproofs the Edelweiss and drives across the river to secure a beachhead while the rest of the squad follows in boats. |
| 549 | ** In chapter 11, Gallian forces make a landing at Marberry to help secure the northern industrial region. Squad 7's landing zone is defended by several indestructible machine gun towers in addition to trenches, pillboxes, and multiple tanks. Isara's new smoke rounds for the Edelweiss prove vital for survival. |
| 550 | * StuffBlowingUp: In case grenades, grenade launchers, lance-shaped rocket launchers, and tank mortars weren't enough for you, there are also bunkers with ragnite bins behind them. Explosions beget bigger explosions! |
| 551 | * SuicideMission: Squad 7 are frequently sent into high-risk missions by General Damon, who has nothing but contempt for the militia forces and gladly sends them off to die so that members of the regular army don't have to. Fortunately, [[SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder Squad 7's specialty just so happens to be insane suicide missions.]] |
| 552 | * SuperPrototype: The Edelweiss was built as a one-off for Welkin's father, but was actually submitted to Gallian High Command for evaluation. It was declared an excellent medium tank, but since it was hideously expensive to produce it never went into mass prodiction. |
| 553 | * SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder: After establishing themselves as a BadassArmy, half the missions Squad 7 gets sent on are insanely dangerous suicide missions, courtesy of a jealous General Damon. |
| 554 | * TacticalSuperweaponUnit: ''I'' features a boss fight against the ''Marmota,'' an imperial BaseOnWheels referred to as a "land dreadnought," with several machine gun turrets and a battery of four battleship cannons. Similar to the real-life Landkruizer Ratte, it was intended to be merged with the most powerful weapon ever made in a bid to control all of Europa: the Valkof, a huge (big enough to be HiddenInPlainSight as a "space needle"-style building) WaveMotionGun left behind by the series' AbusivePrecursors. |
| 555 | * TakingYouWithMe: |
| 556 | ** [[spoiler:Selvaria took down the whole Gallian army, save the militia, in her final effort.]] |
| 557 | ** [[spoiler:Alicia attempts to do the same to Maximilian and the Marmota, but Welkin stopped her before she could actually do it.]] |
| 558 | ** Kinda subverted when [[spoiler:Faldio took down Maximilian together with him, since this is more of an atonement/apology than a desperate effort. Maximilian, on the other hand, was trying to invoke the trope himself at the time.]] |
| 559 | %%* TankGoodness: Appears to be standard operating procedure in the Empire. |
| 560 | * TeamMom: Welkin sees Alicia this way. Also helps that one of Alicia's abilities is called 'Maternal.' |
| 561 | * TeamPet: Hans, the insufferably cutesy winged pig. |
| 562 | * ThatWomanIsDead: [[spoiler: Alicia]] feels this way about being Valkyria. She's convinced otherwise. |
| 563 | * ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Using mortars to kill scouts or engineers, using anti-tank lances to kill anyone but tanks... |
| 564 | * ThisCannotBe: General Gregor dies shouting about how his train is invincible. Too bad that the bridge the train was on wasn't. |
| 565 | %%* ThoseTwoGuys: Kreis and Leon. |
| 566 | * TimedMission: |
| 567 | ** Most missions will be automatically failed if you take more than 20 turns. A few have a tighter limit. |
| 568 | ** As detailed in GameplayGrading, above, completing missions faster leads to better rewards. |
| 569 | * ToiletHumour: Welkin investigates what Alicia at first takes to be seeds, but... |
| 570 | --> '''Welkin''': Alicia, hold on to these for me, will you? |
| 571 | --> '''Alicia''': Sure Welkin. What are these? Some kind of nuts? |
| 572 | --> '''Welkin''': No, actually they're longbeard goat droppings. |
| 573 | --> '''Alicia''': Ahhh! Gross! You made me hold poo? Are you crazy?! ''*Throws them to the ground*'' |
| 574 | ** The look on Alicia's face afterwards just makes it funnier. |
| 575 | * TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: [[spoiler:Isara, the adorable ShrinkingViolet who is a target for prejudice amongst her squad members and wishes for nothing more than Welkin's happiness, is shot dead halfway through the game.]] |
| 576 | * TrappedBehindEnemyLines: One of the chapters is based on this, where Welkin and Alicia are cut off from their squad during an ambush and spend two missions trying to reunite with them, the Edy Detachment dlc is also based on this premise. |
| 577 | * TrialAndErrorGameplay: A skilled player can beat most battles on their first try. However, the game rewards you for winning quickly, and you are unlikely to get the best result on your first try. |
| 578 | ** Chapter 14 is particularly bad about this: The briefing says your mission is to capture the enemy camp, but ''nothing'' even remotely hints that, when you ''do'' capture it [[spoiler: two giant tanks appear from the top and bottom of the map, and your objective now is to destroy both of them.]] If you left your [[spoiler: Anti-Tank]] units behind, or worse, gave the Shamrock [[spoiler:one of the antipersonnel turrets]], you're screwed. |
| 579 | ** There's also Chapter 13, where the safest path to the enemy base camp [[spoiler: is blocked off by a minefield]]. If you forgot to bring [[spoiler: an Engineer, who can disarm mines]], you either have to waste a turn or two bringing one in, or make a risky frontal assault where even the best route in will leave your squad more vulnerable to the Shocktroopers guarding the camp and be exposed, even if briefly, to the enemy tank's mounted machine gun. The primary minefield between Naggiar's trenches is at least forewarned by Garrot as a relic of the last war. |
| 580 | ** While purely optional content, the first Hard Skirmish is particularly rough, as you start surrounded on three sides by various overpowered anti-infantry weapons (including multiple machine guns breathing down your neck immediately) and support mortar fire. Just to rub salt on the wound; the A Rank turn limit? ''One turn.'' On the one hand, the enemy base camp (which capturing is the win condition) is extremely close. On the other, unless you remember a very specific aspect of one unit's abilities, '''good luck'''. |
| 581 | * TsurimeEyes: Several of the women, though Varrot is the most obvious of them. |
| 582 | * UnexplainedRecovery: If you can rescue your fallen soldiers with the medic, you can bring them back into combat in the ''same battle'' using a base. It doesn't matter if they got shot in the head, blown up with a grenade, or blasted to smithereens by a tank shell. They get better (and fast!). |
| 583 | * UnluckyChildhoodFriend: |
| 584 | ** Juno has had a crush on Welkin since they went to university together, but her inability to spit it out leaves him completely unaware of her affections. |
| 585 | ** Noce for Alicia would qualify as well, though he instead tries to present his feelings in the form of a ballad and by the time he's finished Alicia's already been taken for. |
| 586 | * TheUriahGambit: General Damon begins to grow jealous as Squad 7's success, so he continually assigns them even more dangerous missions as CannonFodder in the hope that they'll get killed. |
| 587 | * ValleyGirl: Cherry is like, such a totally awesome example of this trope, and.. hey! Are you, like, listening?! |
| 588 | * VerbalTic: There are many of these to distinguish characters in the Japanese track. Hermes and his "-yo"s. Hannes likes to end his sentences with "-ssu" like a Prinny... Elysse doesn't really have one in particular, but talks slowly and drags out her words. (Maybe because she's a "Slow Starter?") |
| 589 | * UnstableEquilibrium: You're rewarded with extra money, class xp, and eventually even powerful weapons for finishing missions quickly, which in turn allows you to field better weapons and units to finish other missions even more quickly. While skirmishes provide a means for grinding money and xp if you feel underpowered (though you're still out of luck if you miss special weapons), finishing main missions quickly can be a key component of performing well in future missions. It doesn't help that performance is ranked predominantly by number of turns, meaning that doing seemingly illogical things like keeping around certain units for extra command points without ever using them and prioritizing the main objective over killing enemies along the way or even saving allies before final death, can be the best way to play. |
| 590 | * UrbanWarfare: While many stages feature UsefulNotes/WorldWarI-type trench warfare, there's also quite a few that happen in the ruins of cities, especially during the first chapters. |
| 591 | * VideoGameCaringPotential: Sometimes, your troopers are just too darn adorable! Really! You ''will'' go to save your squad members when they're downed. |
| 592 | * VideoGameCrueltyPotential: |
| 593 | ** You can send units you don't like on suicide missions deliberately. |
| 594 | ** You can run your own soldiers over with your tank. It won't harm them at all, and you get to hear their hilarious reaction to being hit by a tank. Better yet, it's entirely possible to use this to your advantage - knocking units around with the tank while they're on an armed landmine will toss them safely away. |
| 595 | ** You can even use your soldiers to ''provide cover'' for other soldiers; yes, interception fire will hit another soldier if you hide your "active" soldier behind one. In certain cases, you can actually use this to your advantage ''against'' the AI. YouBastard. |
| 596 | * VillainEpisode: One of the DLC packs includes chapters that are focused around Selvaria and the Imperial army. |
| 597 | * WarIsHell: Hammered home repeatedly, from the Imperials massacring helpless Gallian civilians, to poor Pvt. Fritz [[IWantMyMommy crying out for his mother]] as he lies dying of shrapnel wounds despite Alicia's kind attempts to help him, to [[spoiler:sixteen year-old Isara being randomly killed by an Imperial sniper with a cheap shot out of nowhere.]] |
| 598 | * WaveMotionGun: [[spoiler:The Valkyria's ultimate weapon, Valkof, is essentially a gigantic laser cannon capable of blowing up mountains.]] On a smaller scale, the Valkyrian lance. |
| 599 | * WeakButSkilled: Engineers; sure, they have bugger-all health, but the fact they can move almost as far as scouts, defuse mines (even after stepping on one), refill any unit's ammo to full just by touching them, carry three grenades as opposed to one, use healing items that are twice as effective, and are the only ones capable of fixing your tank(s) make them one of the most versatile units around. It's generally an unwritten rule to have at least one in your squad at all times. |
| 600 | * WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou: |
| 601 | ** Welkin's death is a losing condition on pretty much every map in the game. |
| 602 | ** Alicia is subject to this on occasion as well. |
| 603 | * WeDoTheImpossible: Pretty much Squad 7's motto. They are almost always given missions deemed suicidal, or at least ones the deemed unfit for the regular Gallian army to undertake. And despite the odds, they manage to succeed each time, or at the very least delay the enemy forces. |
| 604 | * WeHaveReserves: The Gallian Militia is almost always given the most suicidal missions with minimal support from the main army. |
| 605 | * WelcomeToCorneria: Each member of Squad 7 has two or three phrases for every type of action, and ambient radio chatter isn't much more varied. Be prepared to hear "MAN, GOTTA LOVE NATURE" every time Welkin gets near a tree. |
| 606 | * WeWillMeetAgain: PlayedForDrama with the unnamed Imperial officer who lets Welkin and Alicia go after finding out they tried but failed to save his subordinate Fritz. He's afraid that if they ''do'' meet again, either side will have to try and kill the other. Thankfully, that's the last we see of him. |
| 607 | * WithThisHerring: Alicia and Welkin are thrown into a full Imperial takeover of Bruhl in the beginning with only very basic firearms training and small rifles pretty much only intended for small disturbances as well as a small group of Town Watchmen. Then Welkin finds out about the Edelweiss... |
| 608 | * WhamLine: |
| 609 | ** [[spoiler:After Alicia is hospitalised, Medic/Fina extracts the sniper's bullet that hit her. She and Welkin are horrified to find out that it's a ''Gallian'' bullet.]] |
| 610 | *** [[spoiler:Shortly after, the possibility of an Imperial soldier concocting a FrameUp by using a dropped Gallian sniper rifle is thrown out the window when it's then discovered that it was made by a top-secret experimental rifle, which got checked out by Faldio.]] |
| 611 | ** A less dramatic one occurs near the end of the game where Ms. Ellet announces to Squad 7 her plans to publish one last story under her maiden name before she loses it after getting married, then she’ll be known as [[spoiler:Irene Koller, AKA: The narrator for the game and author of the book detailing what happened in [=EW2=].]] |
| 612 | * WhamShot: |
| 613 | ** When Welkin and Alicia are separated from Squad 7 and are resting in a cabin in the woods, an Imperial soldier walks in menacingly... then he flops to the floor with a huge wound on his back. |
| 614 | ** Princess Cordelia without her headdress, [[spoiler: which hides the fact that she's not Valkyrur at all, but ''Darcsen''.]] |
| 615 | * WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: For all the main characters in the credits, and all the secondary characters in your squad when you completed the game in the EncyclopediaExposita. |
| 616 | * WholeEpisodeFlashback: "Signs of Awakening", a sidestory which takes place after the Battle of Barious and chronicles [[spoiler: Faldio's discovery of Alicia's HealingFactor, the first step to discovering that she's a Valkyria]], deliberately cannot be unlocked until several missions after it happens chronologically, when [[spoiler: Alicia's Valkyria status is publically revealed]], and one sidestory where [[spoiler: Ellet discovers Cordelia's secret Darcsen heritage]] isn't unlockable until a NewGamePlus campaign. |
| 617 | * WoundedGazelleGambit: Selvaria pulls off a masterful one. [[spoiler:She makes a point of not activating her powers and then feigns exhaustion when Damon comes to capture her; it's a set-up that ends in the annihilation of the entire army. It's also one of the most obvious instances of ProtagonistCenteredMorality in the game.]] |
| 618 | %%* WreathedInFlames: Active Valkyria. |
| 619 | * WrenchWench: |
| 620 | ** Isara Gunther. She's also the one to first appear at a gun fight with her father's [[TankGoodness customized heavy tank]]! Yes, a {{Moe}} tank operator. |
| 621 | ** In the 4th game in the series, Riley Miller qualifies, being your squad's engineer as well as having been a research scientist prior to the game, she also goes out in the field as a mortar expert. |
| 622 | * WrittenByTheWinners: [[spoiler:Everyone in Europa (or who studied Europan history) believed that the Darcsens were responsible for the calamity that affected the continent until the Valkyrur saved them. The real history, as recorded in the inner chamber of the desert ruins and to Princess Cordelia's knowledge, says that the Valkyrur are the actual invaders, while the Darcsens were framed as the culprits.]] |
| 623 | * WritersCannotDoMath: In the English release, the population of Gallia was named to be around 430,000. For a good comparison, that's a lower population than ''most large cities today.'' This is thankfully averted in the design archive, which gives Gallia a more realistic population of 4,320,000. Their army, despite its relatively small size of 30,000 can be excused, since Gallia also has a policy of armed neutrality and universal conscription, meaning that they can call up hundreds of thousands of militia troops in the event of invasion. Had the invasion gone against them they might have called up even more than the militia units seen in the game, plus Belgium (one of the Low Countries that Gallia is based on) has a regular army of around the same size. |
| 624 | * YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Maximilian does this to [[spoiler:Selvaria when he realizes her Valkyria powers won't give his forces an advantage anymore.]] It may apply to [[spoiler:Borg]] too, in a sense. |
| 625 | * YouHaveFailedMe: Coincides with the above entry, as Maximilian also does this to [[spoiler:Selvaria for losing a critical battle to the Gallians.]] |
| 626 | [[/folder]] |
| 627 | |
| 628 | ---- |
| 629 | |
| 630 | !!The Manga provides examples of: |
| 631 | |
| 632 | [[folder: Manga Tropes]] |
| 633 | %%* AdaptationDistillation: |
| 634 | * AccidentalHero: [[spoiler: Nadine]] mistakes [[spoiler: Cezary]] as the one who saved her from an enemy sniper. But what really happened was that [[spoiler: it was actually Marina who shot the sniper while Cezary was going to let it happen.]] He tries to explain the truth it to [[spoiler: Nadine]] but [[spoiler:Marina]] gives him a DeathGlare to make him shut up and not talk about it. |
| 635 | %%* AnyoneCanDie |
| 636 | * AscendedExtra: All of the Militia members in the game get their own scenes or an extra role in the manga. |
| 637 | * BloodierAndGorier: Seeing people bleeding getting shot and injured in the manga makes the anime look like child's play. But nothing compares to seeing Alicia saving an injured farmer [[spoiler: only to learn the other half of his body has been blown off.]] |
| 638 | * CliffHanger: [[spoiler:Read Volume 3.]] |
| 639 | * {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Welkin (again), even more so than in the anime or the game. Having forgotten that the schedule for a strategy meeting was changed, he went off to watch an ant colony and collect spotted leeches. |
| 640 | * DarkerAndEdgier: See WarIsHell. |
| 641 | * HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: "Mr. Merchant" during the attack on Bruhl, much to Alicia's horror as she pulls him from some rubble. |
| 642 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Cezary tells Nadine to stay with him to be safe during a battle in the forest. [[spoiler: Whether it means he's becoming less of a jerk or really does have feelings for her is up for you to decide.]] |
| 643 | * LeeroyJenkins: Spoofed; during the vasel engagement Jane is shown charging towards the Imperial lines (much to Rosie's annoyance), frothing at the mouth and yelling obscenities whilst firing her machine gun...only to get clotheslined accidentally by Largo's anti-tank lance when he turns around to see what Jann wants. |
| 644 | * LoveDodecahedron: Welkin might have feelings for Juno and Alicia and know his best friend Faldio has feelings for Alicia. Alicia has feelings for Welkin but feels conflicted because her good friend Juno has feelings for Welkin too which in turn makes Alicia fall for Welkin's best friend Faldio. Juno has feelings for Welkin but is unaware that her good friend Alicia also has feelings with Welkin too as she thinks Alicia has feelings for Faldio. Faldio has feelings for Alicia who may have feelings for him but feels conflicted as Welkin may have feelings for Alicia but Juno too. |
| 645 | * TheRival: Edy's one-sided rivalry with Rosie is finally become two-sided with Rosie seeing Edy as an idiot [[LargeHam attention seeker]] that might put the squad in danger. |
| 646 | * ShownTheirWork: The manga author averts doing HollywoodTactics and instead did some research on [=WW2=] and modern combat tactics and made most of the characters do accurate and practical battle tactics like giving covering fire, taking cover, snipers working in pairs using camouflage, teamwork, etc. |
| 647 | * WarIsHell: The manga doesn't shy away from how war affects everyone from civilians to soldiers on both sides. |
| 648 | [[/folder]] |
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