Victory Belles: Shipgirls

This is a solid game with the potential to be quite good. It improves on AL in both depth of simulation and maturity of writing and characterization. Be aware, though, that it involves players on Discord LARPing as naval commanders and strategists and that the decisions made on Discord will become canon in *your* supposedly single-player game, no matter how much you disagree with them. Recent events brought about the destruction of an American naval icon due to poor decision making on Discord, and you, despite being an individual playing a SP game, cannot opt out.

The basic premise is there. The lack of information is fatal! This game is decent in that department everything else is good. Just the lack of information provided to the player in regards to unit and enemy compositions is atrocious. I’m level 15HQ with level 30Belles and they are dying on a level 10 mission, sometimes they die on a level 5 mission. There is no info on how or what to do to disperse damage. More often then not the enemy just focus fires one belle and it just melts in the first round. Why are you shooting at a destroyer that’s barely detected assuming that’s what the arrows mean. Why not my battleship? It’s got the armor to tank! Why am I fighting enemy carriers when I barely unlocked a single cruiser. Repairs are expensive and random! To repair 2 hp on one ship costs the same to repair 10k on another. I first though it was based on max HP, but no. Some ships with a high HP total are super cheap to repair! Artwork and voices are great. Battles are not enjoyable.

I know, I know. I looks like Kancolle. But under the Kancolle shell is a dedicated team who did not want a cash grab. They wanted a simulator game. Under the portraits and numbers popping is one of the most detailed naval battle sims of any game on the market, comparable to games like Rule The Waves. Under the cover of this book is a compilation of hundreds of thousands of words of story content giving each Belle a unique and often incredibly interesting personality. To bring that personality to life, they’re all voiced in their native languages. None of that silly “USS Iowa speaks the Yankii version of Japanese” stuff. I waited 7 years for this game, and it delivers everything it promised to be. Thanks for not being Star Citizen.

Though it may look like Kancolle and it certainly draws its inspirations from it, unlike the former, this game takes full advantage of a balanced approach towards history. I’ve always taken very serious problems with the revisionism and self pity Kancolle takes with itself in a sort of defense of Japanese actions in the second world war that goes so far as to model the abyssal fleets as representative of the USN and her moves during the war. This game, however, takes a stand in how its factions are conniving and while trying to defend against an extraterrestrial invasion, still self serving. There are Belles with political allegiances that as a modern viewer one would find problematic, but contextually make the world feel truly alive—there is no magical disappearing of less desirable leadership in countries like Germany, morally speaking, you can play the bad guys; however, the devs have given the players the power to shape the world around us, as we play these nations we may see opportunities for a change in leadership as situations either brighten or fall apart!

I really enjoyed the game it’s art and it’s unique mechanics it’s pretty fun I will say maybe some ui changes or a help section would be nice because the game can be a little confusing on certain elements I liked it a lot and recommend it it’s a fun little game

Definitely worth downloading.

Victory Belles is very impressive. Clever mechanics and a setting that makes sense for the genre combine to have an intuitive upgrade path compared to other games. The writing and characterization are stylized but the mechanics shine irrespective of player preference.

The artwork is very beautiful, using moe style anime good girl art. The voice acting is cute and very well done. I love the use of different languages. The game play is simple to understand for a strategy game. Very fun!

Victory Belles is a different breed of shipgirl game. Think of it as a spin-off but with more varied characters and historically-inspired story telling. The characters are way more unique in every aspect. I can actually tell them apart whereas shipgirls in other games, are mostly the same. Long hair, bangs, tiny skirts, and other assets (to be polite). It begins to look all the same like you’re collecting clones. That’s fine if you’re into that and want purely assets. But there’s people who want more and VB is shipgirls with substance and assets. Also - and this might scare off some people - it’s one of the few games where I am learning something about naval warfare while having fun. In terms of gacha, it is probably the least gacha-like in its genre and you have more control of who you want to recruit. The War is especially fun since they have nation vs nation and alliance vs alliance. Devs have hinted that winning factions influence which characters and campaigns unlock - it’s too early to tell - but I hope this is the case. Go Allies!!

Love the design of the ships and each girl’s costume. Shows a real attention to detail to the different nationalities and their history.