Video Game / Dark Rose Valkyrie

From left to right: Luna Ichinomiya,Asahi Shiramine and Ai Yakumo

"Valkyrie Force, prepare for combat! Here they come!"

—Asahi Shiramine catchphrase when battling against Chimera with his own companions.

Somewhere in the other universe of Japan in 1818... A meteorite called "Black Garnet" crashed into planet Earth containing a so-called "Chimera" virus. Both animals and humans can be affected by it. However, research has shown that men are more susceptible to this virus compared to women. The infected become mindless creatures that seek the destruction of humanity.

As a result of this virus, humanity faced a huge crisis as it killed around 3% of the world's population and infected many more. Fortunately, Japan quickly realizes the danger and isolates themselves from the outside world. As a result, this helped lessen the blow the virus would have on the nation.

112 years later in 1929, You play as Asahi Shiramine. The captain of the newly formed Valkyrie Force who are essentially the part of ACID unit (Anti-Chimera Intercept Division) so that they can stop the Chimera virus and then destroy those infected. While you're the captain of the Valkyrie Force, you're also interacting with your friends and companions in the squad so that you can accomplish the mission to exterminate the chimeras and they are none other than: The sweet Ai Yakumo, the daughter from one of the prestigious families in Japan, Luna Ichinomiya, the perverted but easy going Naoyuki Kazami, the energetic Kengo Shinohara, the girl who pretended to be a guy, Amal Franson, Amal's quiet and aloof but smart sister Coo Franson and the stoic who loves to take orders Yue Hiiragi.

The game is a JRPG that was developed by Idea Factory / Compile Heart along with the key staff of Bandai Namco's Tales Series including the character designer Kosuke Fujishima and the scenario writer Takumi Miyajima. It was released for the PlayStation 4 around 2016 in Japan while the American and EU version were released in 2017 and the PC version was released in 2018. While it mostly functions as a JRPG, it also has a visual novel mechanic like the ones that Ace Attorney or Danganronpa had so that you could maintain your relationship with your companions in Valkyrie Force and also identify a potential traitor among the player's party of characters.

This game contains the following tropes:

• Abusive Parents: General Victor Franson is this to both of his daughters Amal and Coo. He only views them as a disappointment and wants to see one of them get married and give him a boy. He is also the one who is responsible for Amal pretending to be a boy and Coo's shyness. In the present day, he is also trying to discharge both of them when they're fought for Valkyrie Force. Despite this, both Amal and Coo love their father.
• Action Girl: Of course! Most of the female characters in Valkyrie Forces system are fit for this trope. Yue Hiiragi is the biggest of them all since she's a soldier after all.
• Aerith and Bob: Most of the characters have a

Japanese names. However, people like Coo and Amal and their father, Victor have names that would be out-of-place for Japanese people. Probably they're foreigners who ended up staying in this country.

• Anachronism Stew: The game takes place in 1929 Japan yet the setting and the technology look like the things that sometimes we see and use in our modern-day world. Somewhat justified since the game itself was set in an alternate universe.
• As You Know: Taiki's introduction has him explaining the relevant history of the world to Asahi. He knows there's no need for it, but it's protocol.
• Bespectacled Cutie: Kana Hazuki, the cafe maid. If you look at her wavy hair, her sometimes cute nervous face and her CGI sprite that makes her cute up to eleven especially when she smiles while doing her winning pose. You're in for a treat. And of course, she does wear glasses.
• Bifauxnen: Amal Franson, who despite looking and acting like a boy, is actually a girl. Her attempts to pass as a guy would prove more effective if she weren't wearing the women's uniform, which is apparently not strictly enforced as Miyako wears the men's uniform.
• Big Bad: The Director of Anti Chimera Intercept Division (ACID), Taiki Shinohara, was revealed to be behind all the bad things that happen in the game, as he manipulates most of the factions to work for pro-chimera evolution group, Quo Vadis, and is also the one behind the split personality that the Valkyrie System created.
• Bookworm: Amal's younger sister Coo Franson. She not only loves to read books but also keeps a lot of them in her room.
• Cain and Abel: Ai and Sol, who is in actuality her older sister Youko. Later on in the game, one can add Kengo and Naoyuki to the list as one of the two will stay with Valkyrie Force while the other goes rogue and joins forces with the enemy.
• Comic Relief: Naoyuki Kazami is this to the team. Due to his perverted behavior and sometimes cracking jokes to Asahi.
• Fish out of Water: Luna Ichinomiya is this. As she is from a rich conglomerate and got spoiled by her grandfather and the guards around them, she doesn't know how things work outside of her environment after leaving alone for the Valkyrie System, like how to do shopping properly.
• Foreshadowing: In the earlier chapters, Director Taiki Shinohara mentions that he had an acquaintance in the past. This was true in the last chapters of the game as Cielo, one of the enemies that Valkyrie Forces has to fight, is actually Taiki's friend.
• Freudian Excuse: Sol/Youko ends up joining the enemy side. When she saved her sister three years ago, she damaged her reproductive organs and was unable to have children. This made Sol hate her sister and turn herself into a chimera so that she could impress and help Taiki achieve his own twisted dreams.
• Genre-Busting: While the game is mostly a standard JRPG..... It has a visual novel elements in it to interact with your own companions. Not only that, in some scenes, it could turn into a bit of a puzzle game when you try to interview with one of the girls. And while you could say the game is also a fantasy one, there's also some science fiction elements in the game and it's also set in an alternate universe of Japan that looks like our modern day world.
• Gun Nut: Yue Hiiragi loves to collect guns in her room to the point she gave some of her guns names and treats them like a human beings.
• Hybrid Monster: As a result of the "Chimera" virus, most of the humans and animals transform into unique Chimeras, especially the animal ones like a dragon with a halo-like ring on his head, a werewolf, a giant mutated crab-like creature, a flying ray fish and so on.
• In-Universe Game Clock: The game has a day and night cycle when you're traveling through some areas in the town. While the time doesn't change while you're in the dungeon, it changes drastically when you're outside of it.
• Little Sister Heroine: Ai Yakumo is the heroic sister, in contrast to her villainous sister, Sol. She's also one of the protagonists of the game.
• Long-Lost Relative: It is revealed in the second half of the game that Naoyuki is Kengo's long lost half-brother and his mother was a maid for the Shinohara family. However, his father, Shogo, never visited him in the hospital or on the day when Naoyuki's mom died.
• Manipulative Bastard: Taiki manipulates all of the factions and even the Valkyrie System itself in order to hatch a plan to find the female chimera that is capable of reproducing, EVE.
• The Mole: Depending on who has the lower evaluation rating, either Kengo Shinohara or Naoyuki Kazami becomes this to the Valkyrie Force as they end up becoming infected with the Chimera Virus and later go rogue.
• No Sense of Humor: Asahi sometimes can't tell what's the real joke and what's not. It becomes a running gag in the game when Naoyuki calls out Asahi about this.
• The Not-Love Interest: Kana's job necessitates spending far more time around Asahi than the other girls, who are regularly quarantined and interrogated thanks to their Split Personalities, and due to joining late is not at risk of being a Chimera traitor. That said there are no endings with her as Asahi's Love Interest, it will always be one of the initial five girls and, with the True Ends, specifically the Chimera traitor herself after being saved.
• Quick Melee: When you fight an enemy, expect that one of the characters will deliver a huge No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to the Chimera while you're pressing the button, to not only quickly decrease the enemy's health but also gain more combos from it.
• Samus Is a Girl: Don't be fooled by Amal's appearance, as she is actually a girl pretending to be a little boy.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Amal and Coo are obviously this. Amal is hyperactive and boyish while Coo is aloof and shy. That said, the two cared for each other especially in Amal's case.
• Situational Damage Attack: This is the Riot Combo system in a nutshell. Attacks come in melee and gun forms, Atk and Shot, and within those are Ambush, Fierce, Hard, Melee, Snipe, Special, and Speed. Each character has three preset combo lines ranked 1-3. Depending on the combo rank and order of attack types the attacks will instead become Riot Combos, adjusting the number of hits, altering the range, changing up the element, or adding in status effects. Low tier attacks may become stronger while high tier ones will become weaker, making planning for power or status exploitation a necessity when arranging each character's combo sets.
• Split Personality: An after effect of using the Valkyrie System's Overdrive feature. Luna is the first to show symptoms of this, turning from humble if somewhat ignorant rich girl into someone who's quite snobbish and in Asahi's own words acts like "a queen". Later on, after the mission to rescue Coo and Amal's father, the remaining female members of Valkyrie Force develop one as well. For the most part they take developing these personalities relatively well, being far more concerned with the prospect of it being early stages of Chimeraization rather than the psychological damages they've suffered, thanks to knowing that it would happen to them in the first place.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Ai tends to behave as she normally does before switching into a more abrasive tone and mocking anyone who believes that the normal Ai is anything more than a facade, insisting that she is and always has been the real Ai.
  • The Baroness: Luna treats everyone as being beneath her. They are servants at best, but far more frequently little more than animals there for her own personal amusement.
  • Extreme Doormat: Yue simply can not function without orders, quickly slipping into a locked up panic if someone is not actively ordering her to do anything. Failure to issue orders leads her to start interpreting anything as one, necessitating a "Wait for further orders" order just to wait her out.
  • Insufferable Genius: Coo is much like Luna in that everyone is beneath her. Unlike Luna she simply sees everyone as so completely and utterly incompetent and that if she would just be given control of everything things would be so much better.
  • Yandere: Amal becomes violently obsessed with Asahi, which leaves him doing everything he can to avoid setting her off on a murderous rampage. Amal herself is concerned about her other self, Oh, Crap! being her reaction to piecing together Asahi's vague explanation of her behaviors.
• The Stoic:
  • Yue Hiiragi, the stoic soldier who tries to follow Asahi's orders no matter what and also displays a rather stoic expressions on her face.
  • Commander Miyako Osatani is also this, even if she's a bit stern towards the protagonist.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: The TCS Valkyries are massive weapons modeled after various normal melee weapons that also manage to incorporate a sniper rifle, missile launchers, shields, and an assault rifle, gatling gun, or shotgun.
• Team Chef: Kana Hazuki, a reserve member for Valkyrie Force who later ends up joining the team out on the field after the betrayal of either Kengo or Naoyuki.
• The Virus: The "Chimera" virus from the "Black Garnet" comet that infects people and animals and makes them become mindless monsters that try to destroy anything in their path.
• Warp Zone: The game has many of these, so that you can go to the other places such as the Mall,the Park,Military Base or you just return home.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Taiki's reaction after finding EVE is this as he just left Asahi and co. fighting with one of his chimeras to death and then proceeds to decimate the 80% of the functionality of the ACID headquarters with his army because they are not useful to him anymore.

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