Valkyria Chronicles 4 Demo: I'm confused

Valkyria Chronicles 4 opens with a picture of a tank in a flower field; and that picture pretty much sums up my experience with the demo. This game is such a potpourri of contradictory features and elements that it could totally have been subtitled 'Cognitive Dissonance'.

How the heck did you come up here without crushing flowers, buddy?

First, you have the fighting system, which I would describe as 'realistic, yet not quite'. VC4 sure looks like a wannabe FPS at first sight, with its various weapon types, its aiming feature and its naturalistic-looking battlefields; yet weirdly enough, units get tired after a mere couple of steps and everybody can eat several bullets before kicking the bucket, pretty much like in any other grid-based SRPG under the sun. This mishmash of FPS and SRPG would be tolerable, if not for the fact that it makes battles painfully drawn-out and tedious. So my units cannot take more than ten bloody steps at a time, yet they have to choose the right weapon for each enemy and aim precisely? Give me a break — and automatic aiming, game. You cannot be realistic just when you fancy it.

Cannot walk more than 50 meters, but has faux cat ears and camel toe. Nice sense of priorities, Sega.

Then you have the atmosphere, which is just way too mellow and easygoing for a warzone. It's all lovely villages surrounded with pristine green pastures: is there even a war going on there? Also, the game mixes light-hearted bantering and anime tropes with a supposedly serious story about a bloody war covering a whole continent; maybe that's just me, but I cannot help but think that there's a teeny-weeny tone issue in that picture. I'm also growing too old to swallow the fact that only youths are fighting in that supposedly all-encompassing war. Oh, and the journal gimmick is just ridiculous. Who has the time to keep a neat, tidy little journal when toiling on a warzone?

Err... Nevermind.

Last but not least, the art is painfully out of touch. For once, VR4 boasts way too many pastel colours and not nearly enough red and browns for a game that's all about war. (I never though I would call for browns in a game ever, but there you have it.) For another, there's a serious issue with character design, and especially with outfits. Are leggings and short skirts really the most practical options for female soldiers, in a game that wants to play it realistic to a certain extent? And what's with all the boob, butt and crotch shots? I really cannot take meetings about the next operation seriously at all when you're zooming on the commanding officer's bosom, game.

On the left side: soldiers. On the right side: fan-service.

In a nutshell, there's one thing I want to say to that game, and by extension to Sega: you cannot have your cake and eat it too, buddy. You need to choose: either you go for a full anime setting, and then you get off my case with annoyances such as manual aiming and messy realistic-looking battlefields; or you go for a gritty, FPS-ish setting with the colours and the seriousness to match — and then I won't touch your game with a ten foot pole, but that's another matter. As it is, I won't come closer to VC4 anyway. I wanted to love that game, I really did; but it's just too confusing and disconcerting for poor little me. And too slow and cutscene-laden too, which certainly doesn't help matters. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!