There’s a pretty wide breadth of stuff here. On the Downloadable Content side, you can shore up your copy of Sonic Unleashed with new stages and missions — all of the various Adventure Packs for Sonic Unleashed are discounted, with tons of daytime and nighttime missions. I’m a big fan of the daytime stages, and all of the available packs feature more daytime than nighttime missions (but for Werehog fans, there’s plenty of nighttime missions as well).

Speaking of Sonic, the “very hard” missions for Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 are also discounted, so if you were ever looking for a dirt-cheap excuse to complete your Sonic collection, there you have it! But the real gem — at least in my own humble opinion — is the extra content for Valkyria Chronicles. This includes all three DLC packs, featuring bonus missions and the amazing EX mode, which has a ton of new features, weapons, and increased difficulty.

I’ve already written lots about my undying love for the tactical strategy of games like Shining Force, and Valkyria Chronicles is absolutely the spiritual successor to these games. While I can’t say enough good things about the game itself, I also am incredibly impressed with the DLC that’s come out — it’s not just an ad-hoc collection of maps or standalone missions, but several new ways to play the game that deepen and add to an already complex and emotionally engaging story.

Don’t just take my word for it though — our own honorary Gallian, Ruby Eclipse, has fought long and hard for this game as a labor of love. His message to the fans who have worked so hard to help make this great game succeed:

To arms, Gallia! In support of the season and our fans’ amazing dedication, we’d like to say thank you with a special 40% off holiday sale across all three packs of Valkyria Chronicles DLC!

See the battlefield from Selvaria’s eyes in Behind Her Blue Flame, take on challenging odds with some of Squad 7’s rising stars in Enter the Edy Detachment, or add a whole new level of difficulty – and earn new, powerful weapons – with Hard Mode EX!

Did I say PSP games before? Oh yes! A little while back the community team here at SEGA took a look at some of the best & brightest PSP games SEGA had made, in celebration of the launch of the PSPgo. Now those titles are slashed 40%, and it’s nigh time to take a look at shoring up your collection of portable games.

I already wrote about Sonic Rivals, and now both Sonic Rivals and Sonic Rivals 2 are part of the Holiday sale. This was an awesome experience — I hadn’t actually played them until recently, and didn’t really know what to expect. I was surprised to find that these are incredibly well-crafted racing games, but with the exquisite level design that’s always been core to the best games of the Sonic series.

Aside from the great Sonic games that graced the PSP I’m thrilled to say that some of the most eclectic and unique titles ended up on that system as well. I am speaking here of the incomparable Crazy Taxi and Crush. Crazy Taxi is exactly what it sounds like, and this is a very good thing. It’s also good that it’s on a portable system, because this is one of those games where one’s body tends to move in direct proportion to the craziness of the game as you twist & turn your way through crowded city streets.

This really just scratches the surface — you can also pick up the gnarly road-battler Full Auto 2: Battlelines, the charming & addictive Super Monkey Ball Adventure, and the awesome 2D action shooter, Gunstar Heroes!

Lastly: Here’s the complete list of title available at the 40% discount!

PSP:

• Alien Syndrome
• Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars
• Crush
• Fo0tball Manager 2010
• Full Auto 2: Battlelines
• Sega Rally Revo
• Iron Man
• Sega Genesis Collection
• Sonic Rivals
• Sonic Rivals 2
• Super Monkey Ball Adventure

PSN:

• Gunstar Heroes
• Sonic Unleashed Apatos & Shamar Adventure Pack
• Sonic Unleashed Chun-nan Adventure Pack
• Sonic Unleashed Empire City & Adabat Adventure Pack
• Sonic Unleashed Holoska Adventure Pack
• Sonic Unleashed Mazuri Adventure Pack
• Sonic Unleashed Spagonia Adventure Pack
• SONIC: Very Hard Shadow Missions
• SONIC: Very Hard Silver Missions
• SONIC: Very Hard Sonic Missions
• Valkyria Chronicles Edy’s Mission “Enter the Edy Detachment”
• Valkyria Chronicles Hard EX Mode
• Valkyria Chronicles Selveria’s Mission “Behind Her Blue Flame”

A number of you have been asking about this on our weekend posts, and today SEGA has the answer. Beginning with tomorrow’s April 16th’s PlayStation Store update, gamers will be able to return to Gallia to fight some new EWII battles.

Here are details on the Valkyria Chronicles DLC, direct from SEGA:

• Hard EX Mode – fight your way once again through the entire Imperial army, where the enemies are more lethal and your main tank Edelweiss is unavailable. You’ll have to be more strategic in order to overcome your opponents.
• Edy’s Mission “Enter the Edy Detachment” – six members have been separated from Squad 7 and on their journey to reunite with their squad, they stumble upon a tiny village under attack by the Imperial Army. Play as Edy and command your outnumbered team to defend the small village from annihilation.
• Selvaria’s Mission “Behind Her Blue Flame”– Taking place right after the outbreak of Gallian battle lines, you play as Johann, a young and meek engineer assigned to Selvaria’s troop. See the action as it unfolds behind enemy lines and see the war play out through the eyes of the enemy.

We don’t do reviews or really inject opinions into the news we carry on PlayStation.Blog, but if you haven’t tried Valkyria Chronicles, you really owe it to yourself to try out this beautiful, PS3-exclusive, strategy JRPG. There’s a demo available right now on the PlayStation Store.

Also, we’ve got a few more PSB-exclusive screens for you to look at here.

First I want to remind everyone who is eligible to go out and vote today! Once you’re done with that, I hope you’re going to settle in and play a little Valkyria Chronicles. The buzz surrounding the game is growing all crazy like bamboo. People are saying Valkyria isn’t just the best tactics game around but it’s one of the best games on the PS3. Period. I’d have to agree.

Haven’t gotten the game yet? Then check out some of the new trailers we’ve released this month! We focused on the characters that make up Squad 7. You can see Alicia, Rosie, and Welkin in action both on and off the battlefield.

Oh wait, I promised you an announcement, right? I wouldn’t let you guys down. You might have read that the Japanese folks got an extra mission and an Extra Hard skirmish mode as downloadable content.

It’s my sincere and distinct pleasure to let you know that we’re bringing those two content packs over to the US and European shores early next year. We did this to support all the fans of the game and make sure that everyone can get all the enjoyment out of the game. We hope you enjoy it!

Thanks again to all our fans. It’s great feeling for us to bring such high quality games to the PS3. We couldn’t do this without your support.

Squad 7, Move Out!

I’m Christopher Kaminski, the US Producer on Valkyria Chronicles, here to update you on a couple of things. First of all, we’ve released a few new trailers recently that showcase some of the main characters: Squad 7, Welkin and Alicia. As we approach launch, we’ll be showing off more of the key units who appear in the game’s imminent release!

Now let’s dig into the meat of this post. I’d like to tell you how the pre-launch event we had at the Sony PlayStation Store in San Francisco last month went!

Eager fans lined up to meet and get an autograph from our most-esteemed Producer from SEGA Studios Japan, Ryutaro Nonaka. Each person walked away with a limited edition autographed box sleeve, a handy item to have when they pick up a copy of Valkyria when it comes out in less than two weeks (November 4th!).

We even had Alicia Melchiott to greet the fans!

This was a great opportunity for everyone that attended the event to get a little sneak preview hands-on with the demo before anyone else. For those of you curious about how Valkyria Chronicles plays, it’s been available on Qore for the past 2 weeks, and hits the wider PSN today.

We raffled off some very cool items such as the official soundtrack from the game, toy figures Nonaka-san brought with him from Japan, signed art pieces from the game and of course the Sony PLAYSTATION 3! Pictured below are some of our lucky winners!

This was Nonaka-san’s first trip to San Francisco. He really didn’t know what to expect from this visit. Afterwards, he told us how genuinely overwhelmed he was by everyone’s enthusiasm for the game. He really was really excited to meet all the Valkyria Chronicles and SEGA fans and appreciates everyone coming out to support the game. Just look at that face in the picture above. He really hopes that everyone will enjoy playing Valkyria Chronicles as much as he enjoyed working on it!

He also took time to answer some of your questions, sent in by readers of PlayStation.Blog:

1. What games or other materials would you say were inspiration for this game?? What inspired you to put Vyse and Aika in Valkyria Chronicles?

The game’s fundamental story wasn’t really influenced by any other games. The reason for the “Skies of Arcadia” characters appearing had to do with staff like Chief Director Tanaka and Chief Artist Kanazawa and other folks who had worked on “Arcadia” as well. Since we had around 50 soldiers to create for the game, we decided to add them. “Valkyria Chronicles” and “Skies of Arcadia” take place in different worlds, but try not to overthink that too much. Besides, for players unfamiliar with “Arcadia,” they won’t even realize that these characters aren’t just other random soldiers.

2. Why did the team choose the watercolor painting art style for this game?

We wanted to show the triumph of the human spirit, even amidst the hardship of war; to do this, we felt it necessary to show not just the reality of the battlefield, but of real, human characters and emotional drama. This led to us creating the CANVAS system, our new graphic engine, to really show a sort of warmth and caring touch by creating imagery that looks like hand-drawn watercolors. To generate this real-time, hand-painted look takes quite a lot of processing power, and I think that we’ve accomplished what we set out to do.

3. Without spoiling anything what can you tell us about the storyline?

There’s an Empire, and there’s the small country of Gallia, which is a member of a confederation of smaller states. The Empire invades this small country, and so the heroes, including Welkin, who’s just this normal guy, along with Alicia and her military comrades, get wrapped up in this war. There are also legends of something known as “Valkyria,” and that’s something that plays a big part in this battle that these people get caught up in. You’ll have to play the game to find out more, though.

4. Is this game friendly to newcomers of the genre?

The user has a lot of freedom in this game (like the ability to select what units to bring into battle and how to set up their squad, how to utilize their squad on the field), and the fundamental gameplay mechanic is rather simple. I think that even beginners should be able to have a fun time with this game, and that they’ll get used to how it all works very quickly.

5. Are there any plans for downloadable content, expansion packs?? Any other unusual additions?

In Japan, on 8/8, our first batch of download content was released. This includes a new side-episode that centers on some of the side-characters, as well as a new extra-hard difficult. At the end of October, we hope to have our second content set released. (This will center on the Imperial Army’s Selveria squad fighting against the Gallian army in another additional episode). Plans for download content for the overseas releases are still to be determined.

All in all, the event went well and we were very happy to see everyone playing and enjoying the game. It was great to meet everyone and thank you for taking the time to come out to support Valkyria Chronicles.

For more information on the game, visit www.valkyrichroniclesgame.com.

Thank you!

You might be wondering, what makes this event so special. Glad you asked! There are a few things:

Play the demo! We’re giving all the attendees the ability to play the super-exclusive pre-release demo of the game. It comes out next month, but you can be the first on your block to give it a whirl!

But wait, there’s more!

Raffle! Do you like stuff? I know I like stuff and I’m guessing you do too. Fortunately for you, we’re giving stuff away! We’ve got a super secret raffle going with exclusive prizes we had made just for this event.

Special Guest! The Japanese producer, Nonaka-san from Sega Studios Japan, will be attending and signing autographs. We’re really excited to have him come out to visit and meet you guys.

More Special Guest! I even hear rumors that someone will be all dolled up in an Alicia costume (no, not me).

You might want to know where you should go to experience all this fabulous stuff. Wonder no more:

9/26 (Fri) 5:00-9:00PM
PlayStation Store at the Metreon
101 4th St, San Francisco, CA
‎

Now for those of you who (unfortunately) won’t be able to attend – here’s how you can participate: Ask your Valkyria Chronicles questions for Nonaka-san (the producer, remember?), and he’ll answer them in a future blog post. Just put them in the comments area below, and we’ll make sure he sees them when he gets in from Japan.

Hope to see you there!

The graphics in Valkyria Chronicles appear similar to an animated watercolor painting, with a bit of the colored-pencil-sketch action seen A-ha’s 1980’s “Take On Me” video. As you’ll see in the video below – it really works.

Speaking of the video, it features Sega Associate Producer Christopher Kaminski detailing the unique battle system found in Valkyria Chronicles – it completely takes the Strategy RPG genre “off the grid.”

We’ll have more on Valkyria Chronicles here on the PlayStation.Blog as we near its November release date.