I don't talk about it often but I'm a sucker for strategy games, Patapon, Disgaea, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, heck I even fancy myself some Civilisation VI from time to time. Played a bunch of then, loved a bunch of them too ! The one getting all the honors today however is Valkyria Chronicles.

Firstly what is Valkyria Chronicles ? It's a Tactical Turn Based Game Serie made by SEGA [A proof that they can actually make good games fufufufuh~]. In each game the main character is the commander of an army during [or after for the second one] the second great war of Europa. You may think that living the same war for 3 games is uninteresting ? The catch of this series is how each point of view is seen.

In the first game you are an army of rebels trying to free your home town Gallia: a strategic point for their many ressources for both the Imperial [The bad guys] and the Federation [The "Good Guys"]. The Gallian army don't have much interest in this war, they just want to be free.

The second game as mentionned before happens after the Second great war of Europa. You control a student of a millitary school getting educated on war from the point of view of the Federation and his deceased brother who were a war hero.

The third game happens at the same time as the first but this time you control a squad of war criminals called "The Nameless" who has to help the gallian army fend off the imperials in all secrecy. This game might be my favorite or my second favorite game [The first one is really good too] as it's not aeveryday that you follow the point of view of those who are forgotten after the war.

Finally the fourth game happens a bit weirdly before the first game. This time you follow a commander of squad E within the Federation [Woohoo !]. So finally you follow the war from the eyes of the Federation.

But enough dilly rambling about the games. You're here of THE GREATEST JOKE CHARACTER IN FICTION and I will give you said character.

Vancey Fiore

Vancey Fiore is a member from Squad E, she only appears in Valkyria Chronicles 4. You think her cheeks are a bit red ? Perfectly normal ! She's a drunkard, her passion is drinking fine alcohol [Mostly whisky]. She used to from an elite operation team but an unfortunate accident made her the only survivor of said team, due to such traumatic event she copes with alcohol. Here's what the game says about her:

Edinburgh Army Squad E shocktrooper, age 27. A heavy drinker, and almost always inebriated, to the annoyance of her squad. Loves whisky the best. Even drunk, she's a crack shot. Despite her wobbling hand, she rarely misses her mark, shooting in-between long swigs of vodka. She relies on alcohol to help her cope with traumatic memories. Torn between her pain and responsibility, she turns to wine for comfort.

So why is she a joke character ? Well firstly let's take a look at her talents, each soldier has a maximum of 4 talents that defines them personnaly and each can either buff or debuff them. For Vancey ? well let's take a look at that:
Drunken Stagger: Getting counterattacked by an enemy decreases her evasion.
Low Blood Pressure: Acting before anyone else lowers her firing accuracy.
Flashback: When no allies are around, she's haunted by memories of the past, which lowers her defense.
Hammered: At times, dropping below half AP will leave her to drunk to function, and unable to take further action.

Only debuffs ? Doesn't really puts her under the best light here isn't it ? Especially the "Hammered" debuff, when they say "unable to take further action" it really means that her action is over and you have to select her again to use finish what you wanted to do. AP is the movement bar, when a character finishes their action, the bar only partially regenerate [It only fully regenerates after ending the turn]. So if you use Vancey several times within the same turn, her AP bar will be below 50% at the start of her turn. It already happened to me that while using Vancey several time she instantly ended her action.

She's the only character with only debuffs and such heavy ones at that. Under any normal circunstances she's a laughably bad character and a bad joke at that. But thankfully she has a redemption: Her squad story. Each saud member has their squad story in which 3 characters gets a story development. In Vancey's one called "Worlds Apart" whom she shares with Zaiga and Gertrude. We follow how each one of them sees the world, Vancey sees that the alcohol is the only escapism and the youngsters like Zaiga are the breath of fresh air of the world, Zaiga thinks that you'd always need someone to look up to and Gertrude is racist.

Upon completing the mission Vancey's horrible talent "Hammered" gets replaced with "Former Elite': Muscle memory from her days as an elite soldier raises all her stats.
All of her stats you say ? It means that all the stat debuffs she can get are nullified by this talent alone, this talent is so good that the only person with a similar talent is Alicia "Destructive Laser" Melchiott [And connoisseurs knows why she gets it]. With this talent alone she skyrockets from being the worst shocktrooper to being the absolute best ! And her raw stats aren't even that bad either ! She's the second most accurate shocktrooper, one of the best dodgers and a decent ammount of hp too ! This character is how the game encourages you to use each one of your units. Because if you don't, you might fly past the best units that might exist.

This character is a joke, a tutorial, a masterclass and a prime exemple of anything the game has to offer. 10/10