Valkyria Chronicles - Episode 25

Come the end of the last episode of Valkyria Chronicles, things were looking up for Gallia, with Selvaria defeated by Alician and Maximilian's supposed plans of marrying Princess Cordelia in tatters. With two episodes left to go though, you didn't expect things to be that simple did you?

Of course, there was more to Maximilian's plans than just marriage, and as squad seven desperately try to fight their way towards the Dreadnought he crashed into the palace, all is revealed - He is in fact there to pinch the huge Valkyrur spear that just so happens to be part of the castle, affixing it to his vehicle to create an ultimate weapon above and beyond what even Alicia is most likely capable.


With this super-weapon (with unsurprisingly nuclear-esque tendencies) at his disposal, just what is Maximilian fighting for? This is the question that Jaeger finds himself asking, with a simple answer - Power, and lots of it. Inevitably, come the end of the episode this new weapon leaves the Empire facing off against Alicia, and leading us into an action packed finale with the latter requiring rescue.

Come this point in a video game inspired series, I find it's best not to take things too seriously, as with an action title like this one in particular things tend to turn towards epic, action-packed final battles at the cost of any subtlety and emotion. So it goes with Valkyria Chronicles, which dumps some of the surprising emotional depth of earlier in the series for lots of big explosions, gunfights and an over-the-top villain, with Maximilian doing his best to make Code Geass' Lelouch look like a shy, retiring train spotter. If you can forgive this shift in focus, then this episoe was entertaining enough beyond some pretty half-hearted animation, but by the same token it was also utterly predictable, leaving you all but counting the seconds until Alicia's arrival to save the day, and again counting down until she required saving herself. It's pretty much as I expected of this series as a whole, so it's just about doing okay in those stakes (albeit hanging on by its fingernails to its recent mediocrity) even if it can't live up to earlier episodes.