Valkyria Chronicles: Beaten.
Not much to say here. The game is excellent on presentation, the gameplay is very innovative and tons of fun, and the characters are endearing enough. Pity about the overall plot degrading into typical RPG cliche stuff as you got further into the game.
Let's see here. PC cast was good and had some nice chemistry. Welkin was man enough to run his squad in a relaxed fashion without losing his authority. Alicia was very likable and generally developed well. Isara played pretty well with just about everyone in one way or another but especially with Rosie. Rosie herself worked as the stubborn bitch who opens up. Largo filled his role as tough-guy veteran very well. Captain Varrot was hot (not really).
Plotwise... The mega huge spoiler halfway through the game was sudden, unexpected, and I felt far more affected by it than I would have expected. After that things just took a turn downwards. I don't have much to say here other than that the character stuff was done well enough to make me like the PC cast and follow the plot. The presentation was very nice too, what with the gorgeous artwork and good music.
Gameplay was fun from beginning to end, I think. It's true that the scoring system puts too much emphasis on quick victories, but I don't see too much of a problem with that. MORE KINDS of maps would have been better. Some extra "kill everything" maps would have been superior to the massive number of capture-the-flag maps. But in general the classes, equipment, and strategies were fun enough to keep me engaged constantly. I confess to whoring out a maxed out Alicia as soon as I got all her skills. When you can, in one turn, finish off a map that would otherwise take a long time and a lot of planning... well sometimes it's just too tempting to pass up.
Anyways, good game, and I'll think about grabbing the DLC. Though I now remember this is Cid's copy. Should pick up my own sometime.
