Valkyria Chronicles III

• You know how Fencers were the best things ever in 2? Now they kinda suck. Their shields are much smaller, so they barely block any damage now, and since they move so slowly they get absolutely torn apart by intercepting fire.

• On the other hand, Snipers are amazing now. I can't remember if it was a thing in 2 (probably not), but they eventually get a branch of guns that shoot three times for a manageable accuracy trade off. Since intercepting fire does a lot more damage than in 2, they're super useful (especially for taking out the new enemy only armored soldiers).

• If you want to take out a tank with infantry, the go-to order is now penetration. It should do the trick.

• The class system has been revamped. Basically, use a person enough in battle and they'll promote, from their base class to Class Veteran to Class Elite. The promotions come with AP bonuses (for scouts), the potential to learn a new potential (), and the ability to use certain branches of weapons. I.e, you can't use flamethrowers, grenade launchers, anti-armor sniper rifles, etc. until promotion.

• On that note, flamethrowers have been nerfed. Only certain branches of Shocktrooper weapons let you equip flamethrowers with them, and they're universally worse than the ones which can't use flamethrowers. On top of that, flamethrowers are normally a two hit kill now.

• There's a somewhat misleading tutorial message that seems to imply you now have the ability to appoint a character as a leader, for extra CP if they get deployed. You can't actually do this until later in the game, so if you can't find the option, you're not going crazy.

• Everyone can change to any class now, but everyone has two classes they excel at. These aren't listed, but when you're in the class change menu, you'll see some clearly marked stat bonuses for these two classes.

• You learn a high potential by learning either potential on each side of the high potential on the master table. Once you've done this, you need to look at the master table before you actually learn the skill.

• In the mission briefing, make sure to check if the map has an enemy ace. The ace weapons are incredible some of the time (and inexplicably terrible some of the time, but that's beyond that point) so you'll want them. I'm talking 10 shot Scout weapons much stronger than any alternative, or a shocktrooper weapon with high accuracy, really high damage, and status effects.

• While each character has two classes they excel at some can be actively detrimental to put in them because of their base stats. Valerie for example has way too little HP to warrant staying on as a Scout. You should try to be very picky with Scouts in particular, as low HP there means they die almost instantly from interception fire even with Defense Boost on them. Instead lean heavily on Riela and Alfons early on in the game and work Shin and Frederica into the fold once you get them.

• Only three characters in the game excel at Gunner, and only one has really high HP (Cedric). Although it would be nice to have another high-HP Shocktrooper you kind of want to have at least one really great Gunner for defending bases so I'd recommend keeping him at Gunner.

• Riela gets a potential after chapter 9 that makes her pretty useless because she'll have a chance to simply stop in her tracks when her AP is drained halfway. It goes away after chapter 16.

• On that note, Zahar sucks for pretty much the same reason except his potential never goes away. Use him only for defending bases.

• I have no idea what the limits are for training, and after dumping 100+ hours into the game I never hit any so they may as well be limitless. You might as well use Orders as the limits, which would be: Durability Level 40, Accuracy Level 24, Evasion Level 27, and Anti-Armor Level 16 (I forget what the levels are for Anti-Personnel, Defense, and Resistance but you'll get them before you get the final AA order).

• The best missions to grind are ones where you have to capture a single enemy base, because often you can complete them very quickly with a Defense Boost-ed Scout. The free mission in Chapter 3 in particular is outstanding in the early game.

• You really want one Engineer Elite. They get the ability to play instruments which buff allies. The thing is that the highest level upgrades of these, which are accessible reasonably early, boost two stats that are impossible to boost otherwise: range and shots in a clip. These, in addition to the other stat boosts they grant, make buffed units absurdly deadly. It's around a 35% boost on shots, so shocktroopers get 27 shots, and snipers with the 3-shot rifles get 4. A good strategy is to just have them pop out and buff your deployed guys at the beginning of each mission; they get huge boosts in killing power.

• You can only get one of each ace weapon now. This sucks, because many of them are ridiculous.

• Interception fire hurts. Strong-Willed or Anti-Intercept are really useful potentials, often taking interception fire down to 1 damage thanks to the way it's calculated (they halve attack power rather than damage dealt). A Scout Elite with the Tank Vest (+20 to all defenses) and Anti-Intercept is damned hard to kill a lot of the time. Margit is a Lancer who gets Strong-Willed, making her a very good candidate for taking out tanks by running straight around them.

• The three main characters get special SP abilities later on in the game. What the game does not mention is that using these refills the character's health, ammo, and movement for that turn. You can have Riela move two or three times until the game's AP penalty kicks in, then use her SP ability and have her move her maximum movement range. For this reason, as well as her higher relative durability, Riela in particular is best left as a Scout.