Valkyria: Azure Revolution

Valkyria: Azure Revolution
Developer(s)	Media.Vision
Publisher(s)	Sega
Director(s)	Takeshi Ozawa
Producer(s)	Youichi Shimosato Katsura Mikami
Artist(s)	Hiro Kiyohara Takayama Toshiaki
Composer(s)	Yasunori Mitsuda
Series	Valkyria
Platform(s)	PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita
Release date(s)	JP: January 19, 2017
Genre(s)	Role-playing

Valkyria: Azure Revolution (Japanese: 蒼き革命のヴァルキュリア, Hepburn: Aoki Kakumei no Varukyuria, lit. "Valkyria of the Blue Revolution") is an upcoming role-playing video game developed by Media.Vision and published by Sega for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. It is planned to be released in Japan in January 2017. It is part of the Valkyria series, but is considered to be separate from the previous games.

Gameplay

Valkyria: Azure Revolution is a real-time role-playing video game with strategy elements. The flow of the game consists of the player preparing at their base, going to the battlefield to achieve their objectives, and then returning to the base again.^[1][2] The game includes permanent death, meaning that characters that die are removed from the game; the player can choose to retry if one of their characters die.^[3]

Plot

Setting and characters

The small country of Jutland is economically blockaded by Rus, a powerful empire that expanded its territory and achieved rapid industrial development after discovering the azure mineral Ragnite; this mineral is used as an energy resource, but also has magical properties. Wanting independence from colonial rule, Jutland strikes the base of the empire's army. In addition to humans, the game world is inhabited by Valkyria; they are "supernatural" in comparison to humans, and close to being gods. Players take the role of Amleth, the commanding officer of Jutland's elite anti-Valkyria unit. Among other characters are Jutland's princess Ophelia, and Brynhildr, a Valkyria who is on the Rus empire's side.^[2]

Development

The game is being developed by Media.Vision, and is directed by Takeshi Ozawa and produced by Youichi Shimosato and Katsura Mikami. The characters are designed by Hiro Kiyohara and Takayama Toshiaki, and modeled by Flight Unit. The game uses the Gouache Drawing Engine for the graphics, with which the development team intends to depict the game in a painting-like manner.^[2] Work on the game began with the development team wanting to create something new related to the Valkyria series; at first, they considered making a real-time strategy game, but decided to make a real-time role-playing game instead, as they thought more people would want to play that. Ozawa said that while there are aspects of the game that are similar to Valkyria Chronicles, the game is mostly different. Shimosato saw it as a new series within the Valkyria franchise; he referred to it as the Kakumei ("Revolution") series, and called previous Valkyria games the Senjou ("Battlefield") series.^[2]

One of the game's themes is death; the development team felt that if characters would not die, the player would not feel fear, which is what led to the inclusion of permanent death in the game. They included story events for specific characters, to make the player feel motivated to keep everyone alive; while the main story continues, events relating to specific characters do not occur if that character is dead. However, they intended for it to be possible to experience everything in the game if the player puts effort into it, with it being possibly to retry if a character dies. The development team did not want to tone down the obstacles the player faces in the game; instead, they plan to include an easier mode.^[3]

A demo for Azure Revolution was included with the PlayStation 4 release of Valkyria Chronicles; Sega gathered feedback on the game from people who play the demo.^[2] This was a change compared to previous games by the developer, where the demo was released close to the release of the final product, making it have no effect on the development.^[3] They received around three times the amount of feedback they had expected; according to Kozawa, a lot of it was "harsh". This led them to change the game's battle system, to make it feel more like a role-playing game and less like an action game: in the demo, the action focus made it difficult to strategize during battles, so the developers added an action gauge to allied and enemy characters, with actions being possible to perform when the gauge is filled up; they also added the option for players to stop time while using weapons or abilities. Among other changes in response to the feedback were an increased number of party members and the removal of field encounters. Kozawa also said that he was thinking of a way for the player to customize the artificial intelligence of their allies, and that they were working on a way to make direct commands.^[4]

The music was composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, who chose to use a classical sound for the game. He intended to express the game's worldview through the music, and used seamless switching between battle and field music, something that was new to him. The main theme was performed by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra; according to Mitsuda, the scale of the recording session was larger than what was usual for Japanese video games. One song, "Eternal Rest", was sung by Sarah Àlainn; according to her and Mitsuda, it is a positive song themed around death. Because of its similarity to hymns, Àlainn attempted to express the song with a "mystic yet dark feeling to the singing".^[5]

Promotion and release

The game was announced for PlayStation 4 in November 2015 alongside a PlayStation 4 version of Valkyria Chronicles.^[2] On August 26, 2016, Sega announced the game's release date in Japan to be January 19, 2017, as well as the addition of a PlayStation Vita version due out the same day.^[6]

References

External links

• Official website (Japanese)