Valkyria: Azure Revolution

Valkyria: Azure Revolution, released in Europe under the title Valkyria Revolution, abandons the main series' turn-based tactics and replaces them with an action RPG featuring real-time combat instead of planning moves on a map. The player leads the Vanargand Flame unit in the small principality of Jutland, which rebels against the economic and military domination of the Rus Empire using forbidden and dangerous technology that draws power from a magical substance called Ragnite, capable of giving soldiers superhuman abilities at the cost of losing their humanity and gradually losing their own identity. The story focuses on the price of revolution, propaganda, and how easily liberators can become oppressors worse than those they fought against during a war. As the game progresses, the player discovers that not everything that initially looked like an unambiguously heroic act of liberating the homeland is in fact as black-and-white as it seemed at first.

The combat system combines direct character control with tactical squad commands and magical abilities based on Ragnite, making the game fundamentally different from the turn-based battles of the earlier Valkyria Chronicles entries - it is a title distinct in both craft and genre, connected to the series only through part of the world and some visual motifs, not through its gameplay system. Visually, the game retains the distinctive watercolor style known from the main series, but tells its story in a noticeably darker, politically charged tone, emphasizing the moral grayness of both sides of the conflict and the personal tragedies of individual members of the Vanargand unit. The use of Ragnite also comes at a cost for the soldiers themselves - the more power it gives them, the more it gradually drains their humanity, which becomes one of the central themes of the entire story.

Why play it: Azure Revolution is for players who want to experience the world of Valkyria in an action RPG guise, with a story about the price of revolution and propaganda, and who don't mind that it's a departure from turn-based strategy.