YMMV / Valkyria Chronicles II

• Breather Level: Noel's Classmate Mission, "Rescuing Father," certainly qualifies, especially in comparison to other classmate missions. There's only one area, no abnormal deployment restrictions, few vehicles, and the only other enemies are Scouts and Shocktroopers. The turn limit is a bit stricter than most missions, at 6 turns, but many other missions are likely to end in about that many turns anyway, so it's a negligible difference. It's quite easy to rout the enemy before then, with no casualties on your end to boot.
• Cliché Storm: Virtually all of the characters are not-so-subtle expies of various well-known archetypes that has been appearing in war movies, shounen series, and JRPGs; the combination of war story and academic settings make this mostly-seamless. Even their Character Development can be seen coming from a mile away!
• Demonic Spiders:
  • V2s. They are introduced in the very first Escort Mission of the game, just to make sure the player feels threatened by their presence. Even after destroying their Supply Vehicle, their damaging interception fire makes it a chore even getting close to or past them.
  • Ghost Tanks in post-game battles. They have ludicrously high HP and defense that lets them shrug off even a Lancer Elite or Mauler attack from the rear, and they wield enhanced versions of the V2's laser. In the very last non-DLC map of the game, your units start with THREE of them in your face right from the start, each of them having over 5000 HP! Have fun with that.
• Even Better Sequel: Despite downgrading from the PS3 to the PSP, the game manages to stand as a bona-fide sequel in its own right by improving on the already robust battle system of the first game by balancing classes and adding a great deal more customization in the form of advanced classes. Additionally, supporting characters are given far greater character development through character specific cutscenes and missions.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Avan can learn a Potential from every class he changes into, including their upgraded forms. This comes out to a lot of potentials, and can lead to hilariously broken builds. It helps that his stats are pretty good overall, especially in the health department.
  • Light Tank B. It only cost 1 CP, has off-road capacity, and a durability close to that of a Medium Tank. Equip it with a flamethrower and any non-boss unit dies in one hit.
  • Flamethrower APCs. It doesn't have any anti-tank capability, and it dies to a single mine, but it can single-handedly torch, melt, slag, and immolate anything that's not a tank. Those, you can leave to the Lancer you stored inside, and if you come across a mine, well, you have an Armored Tech in there, right? Or if you don't need to worry about mines, there's space for a unit class of your choice. Plop a Fencer in there, and you've basically tripled their first turn movement. They'll even take out bunkers, turrets, and cannon towers in a single blow without having to worry about silly things like facing the back of them.
• Goddamn Bats: Despite being one of the most fragile classes, enemy Engineer Elites have the highest evasion rating short of Aces, can inflict status ailments with shocking ease, and can, of course, heal themselves and others.
• Les Yay:
  • Between Rene and Magari.
  • Also, in an August issue of Lotte's newspaper, she expresses great disappointment that Juliana won't be taking part in the swimsuit section of the Miss Lanseal competition. This was, of course, after the latter started to soften up.
• Moe: Many fans see Magari as this.
• Narm: "NO! HE WAS SUCH A GOOD GUY!" A noble attempt to humanize the rebels you kill ends up making you laugh your guts out, every single time.
• Never Live It Down: Avan is infamously remembered for trying to help Cosette overcome her hemophobia by shooting himself, then ordering her to treat him.
• Player Punch: Dirk killing Julianna.
• Replacement Scrappy: Avan is seen as one to Welkin, since he is a Stock Shōnen Hero instead of someone more down-to-earth and relatable. This, along with the infamous scene where he shoots himself to try and help Cosette, causes many players to see him as nothing more than a shallow cliche with little to no redeeming qualities.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The Credit system for changing classes. The amount of credits awarded to each unit are entirely random, and it seems to have just been added to the game for the sake of grinding. Especially noticeable are the Certificates and Diplomas: you can potentially use one unit to do most of the work during a mission, and yet have a character who has done almost nothing get not one, but three of them for a single action. Granted, there is a method of controlling who gets the Lead/Runner Up (e.g. capturing bases is almost twice the credit bonus as killing an enemy soldier) but that just makes it more annoying when the Lead gets Credits they don't need, rather than the ones they could really use right now.
• Stoic Woobie: Jamill for his backstory.
• That One Boss: Baldren Gassenarl, especially in the level you first fight him. He has 800 AP (almost twice that of a Scout), a shield that can stop most interception fire, a maul that can One-Hit Kill all but Fencers, and a machine gun like that of a Gunner's for long range and interception. As if that wasn't bad enough, he has the ability to dodge even rear attacks and can use Orders to revive his downed troops every turn and/or teleport from base to base without using CP. He's basically four classes mixed into one (Scout Elite, Heavy Gunner, Medic, and Mauler).
  • It gets worse. During the rematch (where you have to actually take him out), you find he's swapped out that shield for a breastplate. That's not for show. It basically forces you to get headshots, anti-tank, or area of effect weapons (flamethrowers/swords), and he's still got that interception machine gun.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Juliana. Not too long after defrozing and acknowledging her faults, she is killed-off by Dirk during a cutscene.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: II boldly tried to come up with ideas for how to handle a post-war story, progressing the overall plotline and even incorporating a couple of Sequel Hooks. Unfortunately, no game since has been interested in building on what it did, instead just going back to the Second Europan War to mine it for side-stories and interquels.

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