Valkyria Chronicles 2 speedrun done in 3:29:06

This is the best speedrun I have ever done.  Valkyria Chronicles 2 done in 3 hours, 29 minutes, and 6 seconds.  The category for this game is Any% Normal, which is to beat the game as fast as possible through 55 missions spread out across 12 months on Normal difficulty.  Time started on file confirm and ended at the final shot on Baldren.  This speedrun was recorded with a digital copy on a Playstation TV.

The run was far from perfect.  It had glaring mistakes.  But the RNG, all the randomness in the game, somehow lined up for me to not only save time, but also to finish the speedrun.  It's not perfect, but I pulled off most of the execution and was able to recover from some really bad mistakes. And that is what truly matters in this game. I started strong and ended with a bang.  All the practice, all the failed runs, everything lead up to that very moment.

There are many things that can make me reset a speedrun of this game.  Well three main things early on.  First off, I need to get enough steel materials to build two tank parts in R&D.  Usually this isn't a problem, but I have had runs die due to lack of material drops.  Secondly, I need Avan to be a Scout Veteran by April and Zeri to preferably become a Trooper Veteran before August.  The credits I get from each mission are totally random, but I need those credits to upgrade the two of them.

There is a special kind of turret I go for early on in the speedrun, specifically the Cptd AA Gtlg A1.  It's by far the most broken weapon in the entire game, easily killing enemies with deadly accuracy.  The problem is that I have to repeat a mission to get it.  Whether or not it drops is totally random.  I guess it has a 1/3 chance of dropping.  Because I spend roughly 2 minutes 30 seconds repeating that mission, I reset right away if I don't get it.

There have been nights when I couldn't even get a speedrun going.  And that is only the beginning.

I'm very lucky if the game lets me finish a speedrun.  Sometimes it could be the wrong kind of enemy placement in a mission, since it's randomly determined.  An enemy dodging my shots or a grenade could throw everything off.  I could be slightly off with how I try to launch an enemy out of a camp with a grenade launch.  Things will go wrong in Valkyria Chronicles 2, and it was up to me to figure out how to get myself out of each situation.

I make my units run past enemies that should kill them right away, but I take advantage of them.  I launch enemies out of bases with carefully placed grenade tosses.  I kill enemy units and vehicles with the kind of crazy accuracy a tank isn't supposed to have.  I throw my units in the most dangerous situations, knowing how the enemy AI will react.  Or at best, guess as best as I can.  Near the end of the game, I skip most of a mission with a carefully placed tank shot at a target where I'm not supposed to hit it.  Just 1 shot skips 3 minutes worth of stuff I would otherwise have to do.

I spent two years working on this game.  When I started, the speedrun was roughly 5 hours and 30 minutes.  It has since dropped down by 2 hours.  Ghoul02 originally ran this game, and I took over with this game when he moved on to other games to speedrun.  I want to give a special shoutout to InfiniteSheldor, who got involved more recently and suggested strats that saved more time than I could have imagined.  He also had the best words for speedrunning this game.

"Practice makes perfect. Unless you're practicing Valkyria Chronicles 2. Let's face it, you're never going to get a perfect run even if you played for a billion years" - InfiniteSheldor, 2016

Even though a perfect speedrun of this game done in a single segment will never exist, it took me hours of practice and attempts to even reach sub 3:30.  I had runs die in the middle of the game.  The most crushing blow was a run that died right at the very end, at the final boss.  I could have walked away from the game, but I wanted that run.  I never gave up.  And a few nights after the run that died to the final boss, I got the run.  To finally reach my last goal of sub 3:30 was a feeling like none other.

I am proud of this run and I do not regret running this game for these last two years.

I hope you enjoy this speedrun of Valkyria Chronicles 2.