Your pros are my cons. I liked the focused nature of the original game and the fact it had very, very little map reuse (if you never play optional missions, you never play the same map twice). VC2 in comparison is a grindfest of epic proportions taking place on maybe 4 or 5 distinct map segments that you see over and over and over again, chasing medals that are literally rewarded completely at random. It's the epitome of unfun.
The cast is also generic at best and horribly irritating at worst. After several hours I found I simply didn't give a crap about any of them - a far cry from how well I connected and sympathized with the cast of the first game. Valkyria 2's cast is literally nothing but stereotypes, even outlined literally in
the OT:
Thankfully, Valkyria 3 seems to fix most of these problems - the cast is way more interesting and the grindfest structure is all but gone, though the fact map reuse continues is a shame. Too bad Valkyria 2 shot the chances of the better game ever coming out here to hell.
