YMMV / Valkyria Chronicles 4

• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Minerva in Chapter 5. A lot has been building up to her and Claude finally settling things in a mock battle, and she likes to begin the mission with a very intimidating advance on your main camp, accompanied by the Glory. But in doing this, she tends to leave her base completely unguarded, letting you end the mission easily without having to deal with her.
  • Mika talks about Major Burke as a pretty serious threat, but he never appears in person and neither is he heard. Only the tank he's commanding is seen and it can be easily destroyed because it is foolishly parked right next to a ragnite crate.
  • Klaus is lauded as the commander of Ausbruch, which wiped out the Federation's reserve unit along with most of Squad F at the end of chapter 7. Whereas Crymaria is said to be the most powerful Valkyur, capable of creating blizzards and sank two Federation battleships at the same time. Yet, a single shocktrooper can drop both of them back-to-back in seconds and end the "fight" in 1 turn if you abuse order stacking^note "order stacking" simply means issuing multiple commands to the same unit. Since the effects "stack" it allows you give them multiple attack/defense/or evasion buffs at once (detailed in the first two Game-Breaker examples).
• Base-Breaking Character: Minerva can come off as this to players due to her pompous and arrogant attitude toward Claude. At the end of Chapter 7, she takes this attitude even higher, furiously blaming Squad E for Squad F's demise since Claude had made the decision for Squad E to destroy an imperial supply depot during the retreat and thus showing up late to the rendezvous. However, there are those who like her because they consider Claude to be a Designated Hero with Minerva being fully in the right to blame him for getting her squad killed due to his inaction. Then there are those who hate both for their flaws, while others like them for said flaws and even a contingent of fans have proclaimed they ship her with Claude instead of Claude/Riley.
• Cargo Ship: Similar to Salinas in the first game, Aulard can get remarkably excited when near or talking about tanks. Dan is also very fond of his Cactus, and would prefer sleeping in the confines of its carriage over a proper room.
• Complete Monster: Heinrich Belger is the commander of X-0 and a cruel man obsessed with the power of Ragnite and Valkyria. Formally Albert Miller's partner and friend, when Miller stopped his research after realizing how dangerous it was, Belger had him and his family killed and stole his research to continue it. Becoming a member of the Empire, Belger continued his research, experimenting on soldiers with stimulants and "reconditioning" for years and allowing the Empire to use it before forming X-0 to observe the Valkyria both from his and the federation sides. Awed at the destructive potential of the Valkyria and Ragnite, Belger intends to steal the Centurion to satisfy his curiosity and commits war crimes to do so, even turning Chiara and Nikola into broken suicide bombers. When the ceasefire was declared, Belger used this chance to steal the Centurion with the intent of having it explode near the capital for data and eliminating his enemies so he could continue after the war.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Enemy Grenadiers. They can target your infantry from long range, have unfair accuracy and reload speed compared to your grenadiers intercept fire, their blasts have wide radius and send you flying. Made more infuriating since they also inflict a speed reduction ailment to make it harder to avoid being hit again. If you're in a tank, their mortar shells instantly deplete your tank's AP, which will impede you during missions that require Claude to reach the target area.
  • Gatling Gun Turrets and Anti-Tank Turrets are equally frustrating and just as plentiful during late game missions and hard/expert skirmishes. Both can spot you from long range and fire with incredible accuracy, and the turrets can rotate 180°, so any attempts to run past them quickly results in your unit's HP being shredded in seconds. The only real saving grace is that the Anti-Tank Turrets can't target infantry, and the Gatling Turrets do no damage to tanks, but sometimes they're paired together in such a way that getting past them requires someone to take a lot of damage.
• Designated Hero:
  • Captain Morgen (an NPC) is depicted as being wise and kind, despite him being fully aware that his ship is Powered by a Forsaken Child and that the child will be used as a Fantastic Nuke to destroy the enemy's capital without warning. He never shows any moral reservations about any of this. When the player characters find out, they do have some reservations, but only a Deus ex Machina stops them from completing the plan.
  • To a lesser extent, some of Claude's own decisions are questionable, at best, to downright dubious depending on the scene and who he's dealing with. His idea of disciplining insubordinate troops is to assign them to mock combat (using live ammunition) against the Ranger Corp.^note which nearly gets Simon, Viola, and Emmy killed or horribly wounded during the "Mischief Makers" squad story. But he'll readily and repeatedly turn a blind eye to his friends insubordination, by letting Raz off twice. And when he and Riley find out Kai betrayed them, Claude doesn't even ask how or what her reasons were. He and Riley literally laugh it off and say they don't care. Yet, during the "Price of a Picnic" bonus DLC mission, Claude, Raz, Riley, and Kai punish Zaiga and the others for a considerably lesser offense.
• Disappointing Last Level: The final level is a boss fight, with the assisting troops not posing much of a threat at this point. The boss is a submersible drill tank, larger than any other land vehicle by far. This enemy effectively teleports around the map at random and has almost as many guns as you have squad mates. In theory you are supposed to climb on top of it by building ladders on it and shooting the radiators with anti-tank lances. The problem is that the hitboxes remain bugged months after release, and sometimes it will just completely ignore a direct critical hit from a lance. At other times, the radiators will all retract, preventing you from hitting them. Further still, it will sometimes get bugged into that state forever, making the battle unwinnable. And you have to fight it twice to get the good ending.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Many non-officer squad members have proven rather popular among the player base, though naming all of them would take all day with such a huge cast of characters. Aoife, Neige and Vancey seem to be generally regarded as the most popular among them, mainly due to their personalities, and partly due to how some aspects of their kits are second to none in their classes.
  • Amusingly enough that even the SEGA Twitter got in on it, some players have taken to getting so many of their named squad members killed that the generic troopers started gaining popularity, both for being a sort of Self-Imposed Challenge approach, and also for the females being surprisingly cute for having Hidden Eyes with their helmets.
• Foe Romance Subtext:
  • Walz refers to particularly challenging opponents as his "Soulmates".
  • Minerva is technically on the same side as Claude, but she loudly and repeatedly makes it clear she hates him and wants nothing more than to surpass him. She also holds him in very high regard and frequently gives him a form of encouragement when he's struggling. The radio chatter during Chapter 5 has Minerva's own squad members wondering about their relationship.
• Game-Breaker:
  • If used correctly, Claude's orders will allow you to make a complete mockery of late game missions and even Expert skirmishes by breezing through them in only 1-2 turns. That includes boss encounters against Klauz and Crymaria. Speaking of which...
  • Wanna turn the Klauz battles in chapters 14 and 16 into a joke, each in 1 turn? Have Claude give the Demolish^note boosts anti-tank damage for 1 unit and Penetration^note bypasses the target's defense and inflicts critical damage orders to any shocktrooper, then have them run up to Klauz's tank and open fire. They'll shred through its HP in seconds and scrap it before he even has a chance to move.
  • Once you've unlocked the Hafen's smoke screen upgrade, you can use it to cheese your way through subsequent missions undetected. Even Nikola and Chiara can be taken out easily by blanketing their immediate vicinity with smoke, then simply walk up behind them and fire.
  • The Gautt R is the game's only anti-tank sniper rifle, unless you purchase the "A Captainless Squad" DLC. It has a vs. armor stat of 750 which will allow any sniper to 1-shot tanks and anti-tank turrets from long range! Assuming you're lucky enough to get your hands on it, that is.
    • However, the game's most powerful anti-tank sniper rifle is the ZM SG X2(e), which is obtained by killing the enemy Ace in the "Struggle on the Bridge" expert DLC skirmish. All its stats are considerably higher than the Gautt R's, including its vs. armor stat (1500)! Except you'll likely no longer need it by the time said mission becomes available. Either way, once you have either of them, you'll never need lancers again.
  • Dan's APC can also help you end missions quickly thanks to being able to transport multiple units at once and because of how much ground it can cover in a single turn. Best of all, all units onboard are safe from enemy fire until they're deployed. So even slow moving units like grenadiers and snipers can quickly and safely be put into position across field.
  • Completing the The Two Valkyrias DLC unlocks the Dunkel, Nikola and Chiara's crossbow, as a weapon for Scouts and Engineers. It's by far the best weapon option for them, being good in any possible situation. It has a better range and accuracy than most rifle models; the damage per shot against infantry is on par with high-end sniper rifles; the anti-armor power is enough to destroy turrets in one shot and heavy tanks in two shots to the radiator; and it inflicts Attack Down, so any infantry unit that isn't killed by a shot can only deal Scratch Damage until the end of the next turn. The only downside is that it only gets one shot per reload.
  • Equip Minerva with the fortified armor accessory^note the fortified armor is the reward item for clearing the "Crossing the Bridge" post game skirmish with an A-rank. Congrats, you now have an unkillable scout that can charge straight into multiple anti-tank turrets and mortar shells and barely notice they're there. Her Double Movement potential allows her to literally cover over twice as much ground as Dan's APC, and Noble Commander boosts all her stats whenever she uses the "Command" function. Hard skirmishes...? Not anymore.
• Goddamned Boss: Nikola and Chiara, most times they're encountered, have some abilities that make them extremely annoying to deal with. Having the movement of Scouts lets them easily zip around your lines and pick off weakened soldiers, and like Selvaria in the first game, they're almost guaranteed to dodge shots they can see coming. (And being souped-up Scouts, they have a 270 degree sight radius). They do have a weakness though - they are defenseless from behind. They also spend an inordinate amount of time shooting your tank with their crossbows, which is about as effective as it sounds^note The crossbow actually has boosted damage against armor, but that still wouldn't do that much damage against your tank unlike lancers, AT guns, or AT mortars. Just don't put your infantry around the tank.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Vancey's alcoholism stops being funny once you complete her squad story. Gertrude explains that Vancey is the sole surviving member of an elite unit that was wiped out during a covert Op that went wrong. The particulars of how it happened aren't known and Vancey says she drinks to help her forget.
  • It may be hard to hear Zaiga's line "Hey Raz, check this out!" after Raz dies in Chapter 16.
  • The conclusion of Christel's squad story ("A Chivalrous Heart") becomes a massive one, by having Minerva vow to cherish her loyalty, which Christel thinks of as a wedding vow. To which, she happily replies, "Till death do us part." Then you remember how chapter 7 ends...
  • The "Two Valkyria" DLC where Selvaria tells Crymaria that love is a powerful thing that can give anyone purpose. The fact Selvaria genuinely believed in Maximilian, a man who cruelly manipulated Selvaria's love for him, makes her death all the more painful. On the other hand it becomes Heartwarming in Hindsight for Crymaria, as those that play the main campaign will know the man Crymaria loves stops her from offing herself and truly returns her feelings, especially since the scene of Crymaria's near death is almost a shot for shot Callback to Selvaria's Senseless Sacrifice until Klaus subverts the scene to save her. Still it still remains Harsher in Hindsight to know that if Selvaria's words rang true she could have been saved like Crymaria.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Raz being a Darcsen becomes quite hilarious when you realize his Japanese voice actor, Kazuya Nakai, also voiced Zaka in the first game.
• Iron Woobie: Nico was abandoned at a convent as a baby and has lived in poverty her entire life. She's nonetheless one of the kindest characters in the game and never makes a big deal of her problems.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • It's hard not to sympathize with Minerva's resentment towards Claude since, according to the game's narrative, he's repeatedly upstaged her since their days at the academy. Made all the more infuriating for her, because he usually does it without even realizing it and usually with only half the effort. It makes all her efforts to try to keep up with him seem for nothing. Then the game adds insult to injury by making Claude indirectly responsible for death of Minerva's entire squad at the end of Chapter 7.
  • Rebecca lost her old squad because she wasted all of their Ragnaid minutes into a long battle. She's haunted by it and suffers recurring nightmares. It's also led her to be testy and belligerent, even if she does care about her new squadmates.
  • Godwin has lost everyone he cared about and faced discrimination his whole life for being a Darcsen. He's also a rude, cynical man who makes a living by robbing the dead.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Near the end of the game the characters learn that their mission is to detonate a magical nuke inside the Empire's capital, seemingly one of the most populous cities in the entire world. Obviously, the heroes don't go through with it.
• Low-Tier Letdown: The Glory isn't considered worth the effort to deploy. Partially because it's so fragile that it's likely to be destroyed by an enemy lancer or tank in one shot even without getting hit in the radiator. Players have even less incentive to choose the Glory because of the Hafen's superior firepower, plus the Hafen is mandatory for most missions. Nor can the Glory compete with the sheer utility of the Cactus, meaning the Glory usually remains in the hangar collecting dust. Only players going for some serious self-imposed challenges would ever deploy Glory.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Claude Wallace is the leader of Squad E, whose ruthless and efficient leadership and vast creativity led his squad in accomplishing the near-impossible Operation: Northern Cross. Having witnessed the destruction of his home by the Empire, Claude joined the military where he excelled, leading his team into elite status and uniting them together in one cause even if it means breaking protocol and using force. Assigned the mission to invade the Imperial Capital, Claude leads his group against all obstacles, defeating the elite tank unit Ausbruch, breaking through the impervious Siegval Line, and even defeating the Valkyria Crymaria using cunning and cruelly efficient tactics. Learning his mission is meant to sacrifice Angie to destroy the Imperial Capital killing thousands, Claude still followed through out of loyalty, only stopping when the Empire declared a cease fire. Though written off in official records due to being involved in Gallia's dirty secrets, Claude Wallace is still by those who nows him as a great leader who has mastered warfare.
  • Klaus Walz, leader of Ausbruch, was born the bastard son of an Imperial noble, but after suffering enough abuse forewent his inheritance and grew stronger by climbing the ranks with his own hands. Now the respected commander of the Tank Unit Ausbruch and driver of the Vulcan, Klaus was given the responsibility to eliminate the Atlantic Federation forces and numerous times nearly wiped them out through his own cunning and charismatic leadership. Despite his losses, Klaus took his defeats with humility, which earned him a spot on X-O, a Special Imperial Force, for his talent and becoming one of the group's most effective members, even working perfectly with the unstable Crymaria, becoming one of the greatest obstacles Squad E faces. After seemingly killed, even Squad E showed great admiration for his tenacity and after the ceasefire was announced, he and Claud showed great respect for each other that he even helped them put an end to Belgar's plans.
• Memetic Mutation: Players insisting that Ragnarok is the goodest boy. Even SEGA promotes this meme in their surveys.
• Moe:
  • Angelica is the youngest character in the game and is a very sweet-natured, helpful girl. She's even this in-universe, with Riley even getting a potential based on her desire to protect her. On the darker side, saving her from de facto enslavement by the Federation is also Forseti's motivation.
  • The three youngest squad members- Nico, Neige, and Eileen- are all very cute. The cut-in for Nico's Saintly Smile potential even has her smiling and giggling.
• Narm: After a dramatic moment in Chapter 17, Kai's voice actress takes three deep, gasping breaths. The subtitles say "Kai: Huff, huff, huff."
• Overshadowed by Controversy: When it was first released, a lot of talk of the game itself was overshadowed by people complaining about the scene where Raz gropes Kai's butt with most citing it as an example of sexism in gaming. Most tend to ignore that Kai proceeds to justifiably beat him up for doing so, largely because Raz is never formally punished for it.
• Player Punch: Chapter 16, full stop. The Centurion is caught inside an Imperial trap and the only plan to escape involves sending two soldiers on a very likely suicide mission. Not only does this result in the death of Raz but the player is forced to choose another squad mate to die with him.
  • In a meta sense, the player might feel this as they slowly realize that the ship they've been serving on for the better part of the game is not merely a cruiser on its way to capture the enemy Capital, but rather the fantasy counterpart to the Enola Gay.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: The first game had no difficulty options, but VC4 has Normal and Easy. Furthermore, having your main tank destroyed no longer results in you losing the battle, although you lose the ability to use orders without it.
• Replacement Scrappy: Crymaria is this to die-hard Selvaria fans. Her storyline is seen by many as the writers attempting to correct the mistakes made in the original Valkyria Chronicles regarding Selvaria's plot^note Crymaria's backstory and emotions are given more focus. Klaus vocally and explicitly stands up for Crymaria and convinces her to see worth in her life (in contrast to Jaeger who was an Accomplice by Inaction until it was too late). Klaus seemingly dies protecting Crymaria and then helps her to control her powers through his true love for her and they even abandon the Empire to get married. These concerns are even acknowledged in-game as Crymaria less difficult gameplay-wise than Selvaria and a DLC mission even states that the former was jealous towards the latter. The contrast between Maximillian (a charistmatic and attractive prince who groomed and pretended to love Selvaria to make use of her more effectively) and Belgar (a mustache twirling mad scientist who controls his minions through brute force) also made it feel like Crymaria had less of a reason to fight for the Empire than Selvaria did, making her arc less compelling overall. All these factors contribute to the notion that Crymaria is an inferior copy of Selvaria that got the happy ending that the latter was more entitled to.
• Spiritual Adaptation: Squad E is essentially Edinburgh's equivalent of the US's 101st Airborne Division. Thus Valkyria Chronicles 4 can be thought of as Band of Brothers: The Game.
• That One Level: The second battle in the DLC Squad E to the Beach! can be this for players given how easy the previous battle was, even with the three round limit, given that one can easily kill all the aces and get the swimsuits within a turn or two at max. Despite 20 turns standard this time, players will encounter a lot of shocktroopers that have the ability to make you lose ammo the moment they hit you. Thus, snipers and those with explosives can be rendered useless by one enemy shocktrooper hit, requiring he use of your own shocktroopers and their infinite ammo flame throwers. The western flank is also a giant trap and next to useless in getting to that one enemy ace, who is very well hidden in cover and can't be hit by grenadiers. Oh, and attacking from the north means going through tanks and machine gun placements, which you might not be able to take out if your lancers are hit with ammo drain. Luckily, buffing a scout all the way can make the job easy, once the fortifications are clear. And Claude is a scout, not a tank commander this time. All worth it to get Minerva's Barely There Swim Wear.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • During the journey to west coast, after the failure of operation northern cross, Claude opts to make a detour to shut down an Empire supply base for personal reasons, since it was supplying the soldiers fighting against Gallia, his homeland. His team arrived too late in the rendezvous point and as result, the Squad F was almost killed, with only Minerva and Ronald surviving. Even not knowing the reasons, Minerva blamed Claude for every death of her Squad, holding a grudge towards him. The plot never explored the potential consequences of Claude's actions and how Minerva would have reacted to that, considering she was doing her duties while Claude was fighting for personal reasons.
  • Some supporting characters have bare to none background show in their own squad stories, with notable examples like Aladdin which is completely overshadowed by his fellow Snipers Neige and Leonhardt personal issues, despite being mentioned in his bio he lost his love in the war and potential "frustration" for being beaten by Kai.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: You play as the Atlantic Federation, fighting back against an invasion by the East Europan Imperial Alliance. So far, so good. However, over the course of the game it becomes apparent that your leaders are somewhere on the spectrum between ruthless and evil (Powered by a Forsaken Child says hello!), which reduces the feeling that you're fighting for something worth defending.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Forseti can come off as this in the eyes of some once his backstory is revealed. He’s meant to be seen as a Well-Intentioned Extremist who defected to the Empire in order to save the Valkyria in Federation captivity. But his motivations ring hollow given that he willingly joined the Empire which had been conducting similar experiments on its own Valkyria, him selling out his former comrades, plus his contemptuous treatment of Crymaria, all of which end up making him a selfish hypocrite. Few players shed any tears once Kai kills him, as his actions make him out to be an Asshole Victim rather than the Tragic Villain writers had intended. It takes a lot of thinking to start sympathizing with the guy, if one remembers that Forseti had also planned to flee the Empire once his job was done, as he did NOT want any more Valkyria turned into weapons or batteries.
  • On the other hand, it can be really hard to root for the protagonists during that same chapter knowing that they are planning to have Angie blow herself up. Riley's argument that "she chose this" rings extremely hollow. Choosing to power the ship again to save her friends lives is a far cry from choosing to die.
  • To some, Riley might fit this trope herself. When she first joins the team she's downright hostile to former Childhood Friend Claude. The reason is that, when they were both children, they witnessed her family's company building being burned to the ground by imperials, her family still inside. Claude prevented her from running to their rescue, and they all died, thus she holds Claude partially responsible for their demise. However, no one ever point out to her the obvious fact that, as a small child, she likely would have never been able to save anyone, and had Claude not been there to stop her, she would have probably lost her life herself. While it's understandable why she feels the way she does, and eventually "forgives" him, the fact remains that Claude also suffered heavily from it all, spending years overwhelmed with guilt in a traumatized daze. Riley never acknowledged any of this, nor she expresses any regret about what Claude had to go through himself.
  • The scene where Minerva lashes out at Claude and Squad E for the deaths of Squad F rubbed many gamers the wrong way. Regardless of justification^note since Claude disobeyed direct orders to report directly to the rendezvous point, along with rest of the Federation's reserve troops. Nor was he authorized to attack the Imperial supply base, which also made Claude and the rest of Squad E guilty of insubordinate action., gamers felt Minerva was 'unjustly' harsh on Squad E, causing some to hate her for it.
• Values Dissonance: Aladdin is referred to as a "feminist" in his Personnel profile, which might come across as weird to westerners. This is actually a case of Lost in Translation, as the Japanese loanword "feminist" doesn't mean what it does in English; its meaning is closer to Chivalrous Pervert (which describes Aladdin perfectly).
• Viewer Species Confusion: It's not made entirely clear what breed Rags is supposed to belong to, if any. Its former use as a sled dog suggests Copper-Red Husky, its general appearance suggest Shiba Inu, or it might just be a mix of those or anything in between- or, altertatively, he belongs to the lesser known Japanese Akita.
• Win Back the Crowd: Upon the game's announcement, fans were once again reinvested in the series (especially considering Sega refusing to bring the third game overseas and the overall lukewarm reception of Valkyria Revolution).
• The Woobie:
  • Angie has a alcoholic father and three younger siblings she has to look after despite being only twelve. And that's not getting into being experimented on or used as a power source, much less the Federation expecting her to blow herself up to destroy Schwarzgrad.
  • Claude hasn't had an easy life. When he was younger, he blamed himself for the death of Riley's family and spent several years after catatonic. He joins the military to get stronger, and manages to become the commander of a well-respected special forces unit, which means his squad goes up against some near-impossible challenges in the war. And later in the game, he has to send two of his subordinates, including one of his close friends on a suicide mission. And after that, he's charged with personally detonating the bomb that will destroy the Imperial capital.
  • Vancey is constantly drunk to blot out the memories of her old special forces unit, who were all wiped out on a mission that went wrong.
  • Crymaria is the most powerful Valkyria in the world. She's also spent much of her life being subjected to inhuman experiments and suffers from a severe inferiority complex. Luckily for her fans, she lives unlike Selvaria.
  • Leena, Leena, Leena. By the time the story wraps up, she had to: keep up a façade of being another person the whole time, with all the stress that entails; gets shot and almost bleeds out at Siegval, is coerced into playing The Mole for the Empire by her own brother, is overwhelmed by the guilt of betraying the trust of her close friends and allies, loses the man she loves not long after admitting her feelings, and finally has to confront and shot said brother, only to find out shortly afterwards that he still loved her very much, in his own twisted way, and wanted nothing more than a quiet, peaceful life with her and Angie. Then after that, she has to go on the run with the young Valkyria. Of the (surviving) main characters, she probably had it the worst. To put it mildly, the girl could use a hug.

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