Despite its trial-and-error gameplay, I found VC to be a pretty great game, with an engaging story and endearing characters, and a unique and pleasing visual style. It was enough to make getting this companion worth the effort.
The Design Archive is the first game art book I've ever bought, and it's a doozy.* It really is large and high quality: it comes in a thin sleeve, the cover is made of a soft, textured plastic, and the pages are glossy).** It's not a strategy guide and thus doesn't have the typical walkthrough, but it does start off with a full recap of the game that goes through every mission and cutscene (including those side-missions you could buy through the reporter), with mini-maps, screencaps*** and briefing information . The layout can be disjointed at times but is generally fine. It's been around a year since I played the game so this is an excellent synopsis and points out all the little details I forgot about.
The rest of the book is filled with sketches, renderings, and concept/design/pre-production art (with plenty of accompanying notes) on every character, location, weapon and uniform/outfit in the game (right down to the swimsuits!). You'll see different hairstyles for Alicia, a height chart that includes the enemy generals, and even rejected emblem designs. The notes are easy to read and give a lot of insight as to the creative and design processes needed to flesh out and fine tune rough ideas for the final product. All this and I've still barely made a dent in the thing, so there's a ton of stuff left to discover.
* It's already big, yet Amazon shipped it in a box twice its size, half-filled with air bags!
** The book has a bit of an odor to it. It smells like patching plaster when you first take it out. I'm serious!
*** A small disappointment is that the book's text has been translated into English, but the screencap text is still in Japanese. For all the release delays, I'd think they would have re-capped it or at least subtitled those caps.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2011
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MC
A brilliant addition to any book collection, and a must for any Valkyria chronicles fan.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 13, 2016Verified Purchase
timothy
Great book, far more detail than any other game/book/story ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 11, 2016Verified Purchase
Juhana Matti Valta
A must have for a Valkyria Chronicles fan.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 18, 2013Verified Purchase
Olexiy Zhernovy
The book don't have hard cover but it still very ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 21, 2016Verified Purchase
Darragh Ohalloran
Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 26, 2016Verified Purchase
