Book Review: 戦場のヴァルキュリア (Valkyria Chronicles) Development Artworks

Here's the art book for Valkyria Chronicles, or in Japan which is known as Battlefield Valkyria: Gallian Chronicles (戦場のヴァルキュリア -Gallian Chronicles-, Senjō no Varukyuria -Gallian Chronicles. It's published in 2010, almost two years after the game.

What's unique about the game is perhaps the graphics, which resembles watercolour paintings. It reminds me instantly of the game Okami which also uses a traditional art style.

This is a 400 page paperback art book with the dust jacket. The pages are non-glossy matte, my favourite type.

The book is split into different chapters, namely Story, Characters, Weapon Machine, Military Affairs Natural History, Geography, Illustration, Preproduction and Interview. It's loaded with beautiful concept art for all aspect of the game. Character designs, storyboards, background art, promotional art, etc.

If you haven't played the game yet, the first chapter covers the game. This section will be a major spoiler as it covers the key events for every battle from start to finish.

There's plenty of character design. There are so many characters I lost count somewhere. Each character has different drawn profiles, uniforms, weapons, armour and gadgets. Just like the game, all these are in watercolour style with pencils. There's also plenty of (Japanese) commentary.

Under the Weapons and Machine sections, lots of tanks are featured, among other war machines. You'll get to see the different sides of the tank profiles and 3D models before and after paint is added. They are very beautiful and detailed. Absolutely gorgeous. All the fact sheets are included, as with all the characters.

And there are also the set and background concept art for the locations. Most of them are development sketches and paintings.

Right at the end are few pages of interviews with the production team and the music composer Hitoshi Sakimoto.

This book might be relatively pricey but it's well worth the money. It's loaded with so much content that every page takes a while to admire. There are so much details to see and much to read.

Highly recommended to fans of the game, artists and those who just like anything military related.

This is the story section which features screenshots with brief summaries of key events. If you haven't played the game, beware of the spoilers as every battle is covered.