Langrisser is an SRPG series but outside of the mobile game, only the first title had an English release (called Warsong). Now the first two in the series are being bundled in a package with remade art. A demo has released that lets you play the first three scenarios of I and the fourth to sixth of II.
Money for Mercs
From playing the demo (that has no tutorial that I can see) it has some different and interesting mechanics to the usual SRPGs. For one, your commanders hire mercenaries from certain classes before battle. Any kills they make give your commander experience. Enemies also have led units but killing the commanding officer will make their subordinates disappear (and vice versa). So while it’s good to kill the other units for experience, you’ll also want to position yourself to cut them off at the source.
You can move and use units as you want. If you’re a bit lazy and end your phase without moving mercenary units they’ll follow their AI command. Attacking or keeping a close range to their leader depending on the AI setting you’ve chosen.
Strategic Options
While with most moves you can move then attack, magic requires you to do it first (no moving afterwards!). This means you’ll need to be constantly placing your magic units within spell reach of enemies, while making sure they can survive until the next turn to to actually cast a spell.
Even from the first few maps there’s some difference in required strategies. Unfortunately sometimes it requires protecting allies who are, stupid at best. In the Langrisser II demo a fire spread from the top of the map requiring me to push down towards the hordes of enemies. Reinforcements are also quite common for the enemies. While mercenaries cost gold I found that I usually made a good profit so I didn’t hold back. There’s also sparklies on the map to collect giving gold or items. I had to go out of my way to get them and sometimes the scenario would end beforehand.
There are basic units, with class promotions for commanders. The usual buffs and some spells that work more on different enemy types. Outside of commanders there are some interesting unit types such as harpies, fairies, archer elves and lizardmen among others.
I’m not sure if the game has been balanced differently. I only failed once, in the sixth chapter of Langrisser II because I put the one important unit in a bad spot. In the full version of the game you’ll be able to replay chapters in case you need to grind.
Classically Remade
While there are some good points about it, most of the presentation is quite lacking. You can choose between Classic and Remastered art, with the option to apply this to only characters or the maps as well. Sadly this does not change how the units look on map. Which is my main gripe with the appearance. All units are drawn in a chibi-esque style that is strikingly familiar to Fire Emblem Heroes. Especially odd when they have a mobile game with its own chibi style for units. Even with full Classic art on, in the battle screens the backgrounds will be that of the remaster. Enemy fights will show units clashing but you can turn those off completely or just skip them manually.
I found the female characters to look better in the original style (mostly) and vice versa for males. Outside of some of the women’s outfits I found the redesigns to not be that drastic. Of course there is no pick and choose option. The remake art also gives some CGs which are okay but they cut in without warning and often with a second of black screen between them.
There is Japanese only voice acting, I’m not sure if there will be English but I doubt it. The music itself is great. You can choose between the original or remastered soundtrack and personally I found either to be sufficient. Since it’s the same song they sound good either way.
Overall
While the presentation is a sore point, the overall gameplay mechanics were interesting enough to me. It doesn’t seem that there is save data transfer since you can’t save after the last battle. The demo does say you’ll get a bonus for your demo save data. I might be picking this up at a later time, as it releases in a busy month (and on Animal Crossing launch day in my country!).
Ooooo. I’ve become very fond of SRPGs in the past year or two. I think I will definitely take a look at this one.
I LOL’d at the “protecting allies that are stupid at best.” Such a common problem in these games. They have no self-preservation at all sometimes .
Not entirely true. Langrisser actually had another localized release on the 3DS, an original title called Langrisser Re:Incarnation Tensei. However, it not only did it come relatively under the radar back in 2015, but it was panned to heck and back for it’s bad action graphics (and IMO unfavorably compared to Fire Emblem) and art style changed (which was a big bummer). It was a fine game once you turned off the cheap battle animations, and you can probably find it cheap online if so interested.
As for the impressions on Langrisser 1 and 2, I do agree the original art by Satoshi Urushihara is top notch. He worked on character designs for not just all the old Langrissers, but Growlanser as well. The fact that they give the option to use his art style or the new one is a bonus since he really does draw beautiful women (just don’t look him up in a public place. NSFW and all that). But I guess in remastering the old games they didn’t change much of the AI. The first few levels just don’t want you to try and level grind, but do the escort and/or retreating as fast as possible.