Introduction
Over Yeless' sky, far above the cursed land of Velzeria, a red star of ill omen has risen: it heralds the arrival of an ambitious man. Not too long after this, Bernhardt of the Rayguard Empire stands in the face of the legendary blade of darkness, Alhazard. Legends say that this sword is the key to infinite power, and so, the driven man pleads with the sword to give him its power. And use said power to conquer the shattered continent of El Sallia... or perhaps… the world?
The man crowned himself as the Kaiser of a new Empire, and together with his trusted knights, he sought to conquer the lands with his unparalleled strength. The armies of the Kaiser left a wake of devastation as they blazed across the continent—bodies piling like victims of a wrathful god.
Little did the Kaiser know, the ravages of his war lend power to an ancient, dormant darkness. One that awaits a day of chaos and destruction. The ancient Glory of Darkness, "Alhazard," will rain terror on the people and bleed the land dry... The blade's true nature seeks only to lay waste to the land. In the grip of evil, humanity will be choked into ancient darkness. The end can only be prevented with the Might of Elthlead, "Langrisser."
The Langrisser Series
The Strategy RPG genre, on paper, simply combines aspects of traditional strategy and tactical games with aspects found in traditional RPGs. However, from its inception, many developers and teams have combined these genres in many unique and innovative ways that set these games apart, whether it be a game like Fire Emblem or a game like Shining Force.
Which brings me to today’s article. If you owned a Sega Genesis back in 1991, you may have played or at least heard of a little game called Warsong, which was called Langrisser (ラングリッサー, lit. Rangurissā) in Japanese, and originally romanized as Lungrisser in the Mega Drive versions.
This first game follows Prince Ledin of Baldea on his quest to reclaim his kingdom and avenge his father who was slain by Kaiser Digos and the Dalsis Empire. However, once Digos takes control of Baldea and unseals the sacred sword, Langrisser, he also awakes the army of Darkness, which had previously lay dormant in the land of Velzeria. This causes Prince Ledin to raise his blade against the army of Darkness as well. By the conclusion of the game, both Böser, the Prince of Darkness, and Chaos, the God of Darkness are defeated.
The first Langrisser was very popular in Japan and spawned numerous sequels. These sequels include Langrisser II-V, two Langrisser Millennium games, Langrisser Tri-Swords, Langrisser Re:Incarnation Tensei, a mobile game, and various remakes, compilations, and ports of those games. Langrisser didn’t only have sequels though. It also had prequels that never left Japan—The Elthlead Trilogy—which comprises the games: History of Elthlead, Crest of Gaia, and Guyframe. In addition, Langrisser would also get a spiritual successor series known as Growlanser which consists of about six games.
Fan translation of the PC-Engine version of Crest of Gaia by user D
Growlanser Generations, a compilation of Growlanser 2 and 3, for the PS2.
Its direct sequel, Langrisser II, was released in late 1994 on the Mega Drive and is known by many as the best entry in the series. The game established many series staples, refined and improved upon the mechanics introduced in Langrisser I, and also addressed a lot of its flaws. Not to mention its memorable and entertaining cast of characters.
This brings us to mid-1995 when the second game got a remake for the Super Famicom called Der Langrisser. More accurately though, this version is very much a complete overhaul of the Mega Drive version of Langrisser II. This version made very significant changes to the story, made some mechanical changes, expanded on some characters, and even added new characters. The most significant change, however, is the introduction of the branching story paths. Your protagonist character, Elwin, has the option to choose to side with the Army of Light, the Imperial Army, the Army of Velzeria, or even carve his own path independently.
Der Langrisser would prove to be favorable to audiences. It was the first Langrisser game I’ve ever played. This version was popular enough for the developers to opt to use this version of the game as the version that would be used in every subsequent remake of Langrisser II. And a lot of the time, outside of the core fanbase, when people refer to “Langrisser II,” they usually refer to Der Langrisser or its remakes, rather than the original Mega Drive version.
“But what are your thoughts on the game?” asked no one. Well, sit tight as I talk about the game and discuss what I like, what I dislike, and everything in between!
Fan Translations
Before talking about Der Langrisser though, I wanted to give some insight regarding its fan translations. There are about three fan translations that exist for the game, with the first one being released back in 2001. This first patch was created by a group known as No-Life Translations, a group formed in 2000 to carry on the work of another group called Warui Toransu from 1998, who did work for Langrisser’s 2 fan translation. That said, this patch is overall very unfinished.
The page only mentions the Light Path being fully translated, so I assume the other routes aren’t completed. In addition, you’d need a Version 1.0 ROM for the patch to work, as the game won’t boot up if you patch a Version 1.1 ROM.
The second patch was released in the following year in 2002 by a user named Langfand00d, which is likely a pseudonym for a user known as D-Boy. Taking a look at the page for more than a couple of seconds, you can probably surmise from the screenshots and the fact that this fan translation was released on April 1st, that this is essentially a Meme Translation.
The dialogue is completely nonsensical, the character names are inconsistent, many terms are spelled incorrectly, and everything in between. The Readme file contains a bit more insight regarding the creation of this patch, and I wanted to discuss the level of professionalism of this patch through this excerpt below.
❝ANYWAY THIS PATCH IS SO SWEET MY BROTHER KICKED MY MOM IN THE FACE WHEN HE SAW IT! I OPE YOU ALL THINK IT IS SWEET TOO!❞
On a more serious note though, apparently, this patch was released out of spite. It was essentially created as a way to lash out at a lot of the annoying users online who told translation groups to just “babelfish it.” Which, if you’re not in the know, Yahoo! Babel Fish was a free Web-based multilingual machine translation service from Yahoo that launched in June of 1995. It was essentially that browser’s version of Google Translate before it was replaced with Bing Translator in 2012.
Langfand00d has also made a few other fan translations. They made an English patch for Xak II (PC-98) for April Fools 2003, and an English patch for Silk Road 2 (PC) for April Fools 2004. Both are of equally poor quality.
The next patch is the patch that most people have used, the one released by Near, D, and several other contributors who made up the Der Langrisser Team. Even though the current version was released in 2012, the first version of this patch was released in 2007, and development on this patch started back in 2001.
The translation team mentions that through working on this patch, they quickly learned that Der Langrisser is one of the most sloppily programmed titles in the SFC library. They encountered numerous glitches in the hacking process. These glitches include one that caused character graphics to corrupt during play; another glitch that prevented the player's selected name for Elwin from being used during the ending dialogue; and yet another one that had several blocks of dialogue showing the wrong character portrait.
During the project, D eventually enlisted the help of Near, the author of the bsnes emulator and they were able to overcome and fix a lot of these bugs and glitches present in the game.
The patch features extensive ASM modifications, with over 85kb of new code, and several custom fonts which were specifically designed to look best on a real TV. Overall, this patch is very polished and rivals that of an officially localized game.
The patch also tends to amp up a lot of the dialogue which I don’t mind, personally. There’s a lot of swearing and more crass language used in the game, which a review I saw on the download page talks about. I found it to be really funny.
However, just like Neon Genesis Evangelion, there is a rebuild version. Which is referred to as v1.3.1-rebuild, and it can be found online. The story behind it is really interesting to me, and if you want to hear about it more in-depth, the creator of this version has their own blog post and download links that I recommend checking out here.
But to summarize, in v1.3, there was a character who had a line where they used an out-of-place homophobic slur during the opening dialogue in one of the game’s chapters. In the mid-2000s and early 2010s, terms like that were used a lot more facetiously, but now, it’s bound to make people uncomfortable.
That said, nine years later, Near was made aware of this and prepared an update to this patch which removed this term. Unfortunately, Near had passed away in 2021, and their website, which had this patch, had gone down. In addition, D had deleted their Github and no one had any way to contact them, which essentially made this update patch a piece of Lost Media. So, someone else had done some finagling, and got their hands on the translation tools, learned how to rebuild Near’s update to this patch, and modified the lines of dialogue that were changed originally.
ROMHacking.net had rejected this rebuild since it wasn’t officially submitted by D or Near. However, this patch was accepted elsewhere and is the most up-to-date patch of Der Langrisser. And as I stated before, it’s the preferred version of the patch to use.
Story
In this section, I want to give a brief overview of the first seven chapters of the game as well as introduce many of the characters, since that serves as your prologue before the game’s route split and sets the stage for the premise of your playthrough.
When you first start the game, you’re greeted by the Goddess Lucilis, who is referred to as Lushiris in this patch. She introduces you to the wonderful war-torn world of El Sallia and asks you a multitude of questions including your name. The questions are pretty vague in nature, but your responses to these questions determine your starting class, your starting inventory, and your base stats.
There are a total of 20 different questions she can ask you, but she’ll only ask you about seven of those. After the little questionnaire, she offers to explain some basic game mechanics and stuff like that. Once everything is done, your hero is created and you’re taken to the world of El Sallia.
Your journey starts with your protagonist, Elwin, a wandering swordsman—or whatever the hell his starting class is—who has been traveling the countryside aimlessly for quite some time. Elwin is the former prince of the Kingdom of Baldea and a descendant of Ledin, the main protagonist of the previous game.
As an infant, the Kingdom of Baldea had fallen, but miraculously his life was saved by a swordsman named Doren. Doren taught Elwin everything he needed to know about combat and swordplay, but their travels together ended once Doren was suddenly killed.
On his travels to search for Doren’s killer, Elwin encountered an apprentice mage named Hein who was in danger. After saving his life, Hein agrees to join Elwin in his travels and stay by his side as his loyal friend.
Hein is a reluctant and slightly cowardly mage-in-training who hails from the region of Salrath and is the game’s certified Best Boy. He can be impertinent at times and is the source of comic relief in many moments of the game, but he is a reliable and stalwart ally and is also the only character in the game who stays in your party regardless of whatever route you have your protagonist take.
Elwin’s travels eventually take him to Hein’s hometown, which is referred to as Wesse Village according to a novelization; the village is unnamed in-game. They rested at an inn for a bit and lived peacefully as villagers. That is, until one day, Hein came bursting into Elwin’s room with his face stricken as pale as a ghost’s. Imperial Knights who flew Rayguard’s standard disrupted the village and came with an imperial order to seek out a girl named Liana, who also happened to be Hein’s childhood friend.
A YouTuber I used to follow had an intense hate boner for Liana.
I don’t remember why since the video is now Lost Media and the channel has been deleted.
But seeing Liana always reminds me of him.
Liana is a slightly simple but kind-hearted young woman who fully commits to aiding those in need. Though a bit reserved, she has no issue resisting injustice and taking charge, which is seen here, as she agrees to be taken away as long as the Knights of Rayguard promise not to harm any other villagers.
Leading the kidnapping are three knights of the Rayguard Empire, Leon, Laird, and Baldo. Baldo… doesn’t matter, he’s just an asshole who serves as the game’s first boss.
Leon and Laird are a bit more chivalrous, which is seen in their conflict regarding the fact that they’re partaking in what is essentially a kidnapping. But due to the urgency of the mission, they have no choice. They even go out of their way to make the endeavor as safe for Liana as possible and promise not to harm any innocent bystanders.
The lead artist, Satoshi Urushihara, really loved shoulder pads.
Leon is the leader of the Blue Dragon Knights and the most competent knight in Rayguard’s Army. He is known for both his loyalty to Kaiser Bernhardt and his undying integrity. He’s a very level-headed man, and even as early as Scenario 1, you can tell he’s not a bad guy.
Laird is Leon’s subordinate and right-hand man. As such, Laird is passionately loyal to Leon, being by his side in most battles. While you don’t learn much about Laird’s character outside of his duties as a knight, in the Imperial route, he makes numerous big contributions to the Rayguard Empire from behind the scenes.
Anyway, Elwin and Hein aren’t going to take this attack on the village lying down and set off for battle. During the fight, we end up catching up to and defeating Baldo and manage to rescue Liana in the process. This causes Leon and Laird to retreat and plan their next attack.
After the attack, Liana and Elwin are formally introduced to one another. At the same time, Salrath’s Militia shows up accompanied by the Duke of Salrath, Loren, and his adoptive son, Scott, a proud cavalier. As Rayguard is likely to strike once again, Loren offers that we take refuge in Salrath.
After spending the night at Loren’s manor, Loren concludes that Estol, a shrine where Liana once served as a Shrine Maiden, would be the safest place for Liana to hide from Rayguard’s Army. However, on their way to Estol, they run into Leon and Laird once again.
During this fight, Scott will join your entourage. Scott is a very studious knight of Salrath, who excels in both tactical knowledge and politics. He’s a very by-the-books type of guy, as Loren was very strict when it came to Scott’s studies, and will consistently give you gameplay tips and tutorials in this early portion of the game.
As you’re escorting Liana to Estol, and fighting Leon and Laird’s forces, Leon receives word that some of the villages near the border are being attacked by monsters. This causes Leon to retreat from the fight leaving Laird to fight on his lonesome.
Later on, as Liana is getting near the escape point, enemies will spawn near her and try to attack her. However, Guts shows up and lends us a hand in protecting Liana.
Rohga is one of the characters who did not appear in the original Langrisser 2. He’s a gruff-looking mercenary known for his overwhelming strength on the battlefield. Like us, he’s a wandering swordsman, however, his travels are fueled by the goal of finding his long-lost half-sister.
Once we manage to ensure Liana’s safety, we press on to Estol. Once we reach Estol, we stay the night at the monastery. However, the next morning more trouble follows us. In a surprise attack, the monastery is under attack by Commander Zolm, the deputy commander of the Blazing Dragon Army, and Morgan, a high-ranking sorcerer of the Black Dragon Sorcerers.
In the Mega Drive version of Langrisser II, these two characters were individual bosses you fought in two separate scenarios. However, in this game, they pair them up together and you fight them side-by-side for the next few maps. And this is probably one of my favorite changes, these two are hilarious, and they pretty much bicker the whole map.
Zolm and Morgan are both sent to Estol on a mission to acquire a stone tablet from the temple, as well as lure Kalxath’s main forces away from their castle.
During this map, you have to defend Liana and the old Priest in charge of the Shrine. It’s essentially a defense map that ends once all the enemies are defeated. If you take too long though, Morgan can cast a spell on Liana that inflicts her with the berserk status, allowing her to attack your units.
As the map progresses though, some much-needed help arrives, courtesy of the Kingdom of Kalxath.
The fan translation kind of goes a bit overboard with Morgan’s dialogue.
Unless you made Elwin into a Hawk Knight, Cherie would be your first flier, and she’s a very competent one at that. Cherie is a very capricious and tomboyish girl who you later find out is the Princess of Kalxath. It’s not uncommon for her to neglect her princessly duties, though. She is a woman who finds more solace amidst the tumult of the battlefield, rather than amidst the opulence of the throne room.
Elwin, along with the help of Cherie, Hein, Rohga, and Scott was successfully able to push back Zolm and Morgan’s forces, causing them to retreat. Cherie then informs us that Kalxath and its neighboring kingdoms are forming anti-imperialist alliances to fight back against the Rayguard Empire. Cherie also offers to take Liana to Kalxath castle to keep her safe against the Rayguard soldiers who are after her.
When we make it to Kalxath Castle though, it seems to be under attack by the Blazing Dragon Army, led by none other than the feared General Vargas.
His in-game portrait kinda reminds me of Soda Popinski
Vargas is the General of Rayguard’s Blazing Dragon Army, and like Leon, he’s one of the four great Generals of Rayguard. In addition, his father, who was also a soldier, was a cowardly man who would abandon his comrades and run home during tough battles. Vargas was ashamed of his father growing up, and as an expecting father himself, he doesn’t want his soon-to-be-born daughter or his wife, Eliza, to go through the same thing.
As a General, he boasts tremendous strength, and at this point in the game, he is the toughest boss you’ll fight for a while if you don’t have enough support magic. During the map, as you widdle down Vargas’ army, and rescue the knights defending Kalxath Castle, Zolm, Morgan, and a generic warlock will join the fight to supplement Vargas’ forces.
Zolm and the generic will charge you in an attempt to sandwich your forces, meanwhile, Morgan will attempt to flee the battle like a little bitch.
This is the last time you encounter Morgan in this game, btw
After routing the enemy, this will prompt Vargas and Zolm to retreat, and Kalxath Castle is saved. Amongst the NPC soldiers who were saved, you have Keith, the commander of Kalxath’s Army, Cherie’s educator, and another competent flier. Contrasting Cherie’s brash nature, Keith is a lot more level-headed and stark.
Keith then opts to join Elwin in his adventure, meanwhile, Scott takes his leave and returns to Salrath. As Scott leaves, we rub shoulders again with the old priest from Estol. He informs us that he’s been studying those stone tablets since we left, and describes that Alhazard can command demons once it’s combined with the Dark Rod.
He also explains that the Dark Rod is also needed to be able to even use Alhazard to its fullest potential. This means that the Empire is searching for the ancient scrolls to find the location of the Dark Rod. With this info in mind, Cherie suggests we head to Rall River, where a powerful magician, named Jessica, resides and may know the location of this Dark Rod.
On our way to Rall River, we encounter Lester, a former pirate who serves under Jessica. When Lester was young, he had his life saved by Jessica and has admired her ever since. While seeming strict at first, he’s actually a pretty casual and laid-back type of guy.
I haven’t played much of the 2019 localized remakes of Langrisser I & II, so I don’t know how he speaks in that game, but for the English patch of this game, he swears very much like a sailor, dropping f-bombs very frequently. The image I posted earlier about the Romhacking.net review of this translation patch was pretty much solely referring to him.
Anyways, as we approach Jessica’s house, Lester gives us some lip service as he assumes that we’re Imperial Soldiers and doesn’t believe that Cherie is the princess of Kalxath. When Keith approaches him and talks to him, he realizes we really are telling the truth, as Lester and Keith used to go way back.
We then meet up with Jessica, who is a returning character from Langrisser 1. She is the human avatar of the Goddess Lucilis and one of the most powerful magicians in El Sallia, being able to retain a relatively youthful appearance despite being seven hundred years old due to her otherworldly magic. Despite being a playable character in Langrisser 1, and joining your army in this game’s story, she never formally joins you in this game. She just gets deployed as an NPC for some maps.
I don’t get a chance to explain it later, but in addition to the Dark Rod, the Empire also needs Liana and her sister Lána, the Maidens of Light, in order to revive Alhazard.
Meeting up with her, she already seems to know that we’re looking for the Dark Rod and explains that it is enshrined in the Sanctuary of Reitel. But trouble arises once the third of the four Rayguard Generals, Egbert, hears about the location by eavesdropping in on our conversation.
Fun fact, Egbert’s theme in the Mega Drive version is
completely different from the one in the Super Famicom version.
Egbert is the leader of Rayguard’s Black Dragon Sorcerers, and fitting this dark theme, he contributes to the Rayguard Empire from the shadows. He’s a famous magician and a genius tactician, serving Bernhardt before he even became Kaiser and convinced many other kingdoms to join the empire. In addition, Egbert was also once Jessica’s student but cut ties with her.
Egbert appears before us with a cocky taunt. Lester’s threats do not phase him—a man like Egbert isn’t dumb enought to show up to Jessica’s manor alone. Multiple enemy soldiers, led by Commander Camilla, show up surrounding the manor and we prepare for battle.
After a while, we notice that something smells like oil, and about a turn into the map, Egbert blasts a fireball into the forest behind Jessica’s house before warping to Reitel. This causes the area behind us to burst into a sea of flames, which is rapidly approaching our army, giving us a time incentive.
I love these two.
During the map, Vargas and Zolm will also appear on this map to offer support for Camilla’s troops. However, they can be ignored. After defeating the sorcerer Camilla, we must rush to Reitel before the Rayguard Empire can reach it. Before setting out though, Jessica notices the circlet Elwin is wearing which was passed down for generations. This is where Jessica explains that Elwin is the lost prince of the fallen Baldean Empire who is to be guided by the light.
We then rush to Reitel to look for the Dark Rod. Reitel is filled with nothing but demons, including werewolves, ghosts, slime monsters, and skeletons, and they are not happy to have visitors. And as much as we’d like to ignore the monsters, we have no choice but to defeat them in order to reach the Dark Rod in the throne room.
Unfortunately, Egbert reaches the Dark Rod before we do and swipes it away from right under our noses. The demons are still angry at us though, so we have to dispatch the remainder of them and lay their angered souls to rest.
After defeating all the monsters, we’ve concluded that stopping the Empire from reviving Alhazard is impossible at this point. So, our only real hope is to obtain its twin sword, Langrisser. Jessica explains that Langrisser can only be found within the ruins of Castle Baldea, the location of the first chapter of the first game.
Roll credits
On their way to Castle Baldea though, they come across a hamlet under raid by a band of marauding monsters. Elwin and his army then jump into action to protect the people in danger.
We learn that the person guiding the monsters is a woman named Sonya, who seems very intent on wanting to kill the humans who live there. A bit later, we learn that this Sonya person is actually the half-sister that Rohga is looking for.
Sonya, like Rohga, didn’t appear in the original Mega Drive version of Langrisser 2 and likely took the place of the only removed character, Ginam the Necromancer, a generic sorcerer boss. Sonya is a half-demon half-human girl who grew up in the same village she’s attacking currently and has an acute resentment for humankind. Because of her heritage, she was the constant target of ostracization, vitriol, and derision, which hit a boiling point when an illness befell the village. Everyone immediately assumed she was the cause of this illness, and the people attacked her and ran her out of town.
…If you couldn’t tell, she’s my favorite character in the game, her story just hits really close to home. But in this map, she’s exacting her revenge by terrorizing innocent people, so we kinda have to stop her from doing that. During this map, Leon and Laird show up and instead of fighting us, they help us protect the civilians from the army of monsters and scold Sonya for her actions despite being allied with Rayguard.
Rohga tries to convince Sonya to stop attacking the village, but his words fail to get through to her. The most he can do is cause her to flee from the battlefield.
After the battle, Rohga is understandably distraught at what’s gotten to his sister. Leon then commends Elwin for his work in taking care of the monsters, and the two have a bit of a heart-to-heart. Leon talks about his motives and what drives him to fight and explains how he believes that if the Kaiser can unite the continent under one rule, peace may be possible.
At this point, Leon will ask you if you want to join his side, which will prompt the first major branch in the game. If you refuse Leon’s offer, you will go to the Light route, which is the canon route, and it’s where the Descendants of Light led by the Kingdom of Kalxath aim to purge both the Imperial forces and the forces of Chaos.
Otherwise, you’ll go to the Imperial route, which is led by Kaiser Bernhardt, as he aims to unify the continent, by temporarily cooperating with the forces of Chaos. This route in itself can branch into either staying on the Imperial Route; going onto the Independent Route led by Elwin where he betrays both the Descendants of Light and the Empire as each party member aims to achieve their own respective goals; or the Chaos route, led by the Prince of Darkness Böser, which involves reviving an ancient entity symbolizing the God of Darkness, Chaos.
Furthermore, if you killed Laird or Zolm in the maps where they’re optional minibosses, you will be forced onto the Light Route. Likewise, certain answers in the intro quiz can force you onto certain routes.
Image taken from Niahak on Gamefaqs
If you don’t join Leon, Rohga will leave your party. However, if you do join Leon, everyone in your army except for Hein and Rohga will leave you. But you do get more units further down the line. When taking the Light route, in addition to getting Scott back, you also get Liana’s twin sister, Lána, and Cherie’s former combat instructor, Aaron.
On the Imperial route, you’ll get Sonya, as well as the three Rayguard generals I mentioned before. In addition, you also get the fourth General, Imelda, …who despite being the commander of the Ice Dragon Navy, doesn’t really have much of an arc or interesting backstory. She also just has less dialogue and plot relevance than any of the previous three generals, as well as Laird, Zolm, and even Morgan…
I uh, I think I should mention that the lead artist, Satoshi Urushihara, is also a prominent hentai artist.
I don’t know if that was obvious or not.
On the Independent route, you can also get Sonya’s subordinates, Est and Ost, who are two parasitic sibling monsters who used to work under Böser, but opt to join you once Sonya joins you on the Independent route. They are the only playable monsters in the game.
In Der Langrisser, they use generic monster portraits, which are just represented by an
eyeball surrounded by ghost flames. The remake made them hot.
Review
Now, with that out of the way, let’s get into the review, by first talking about the gameplay, as well as any praises and criticisms I have. When I first played Der Langrisser, something that took a while to get used to was the gameplay. Since at the time, the only SRPGs I had played were Fire Emblem and a few Super Robot Wars games, Langrisser’s different mechanics took a bit to get accustomed to.
Like most turn-based SRPGs, you trade blows with your enemy on the battlefield between Player Phases and Enemy Phases. Each map has a different objective, which can range from killing the boss, routing the enemy, reaching a specific seize point, or defending a specific unit or location.
The biggest differences come from the combat: whereas in Fire Emblem, you move an army of individual named units to engage the enemy, in Langrisser you move individual commanders in addition to their own personal troop of generic units. When a generic kills an enemy the respective commander will gain that EXP; however, if a commander dies, so will all of their troops.
In the image above, we have Elwin in the middle surrounded by his troop of six generic Grenadiers
Each commander also has a Commander Aura, which gives a large stat boost to their own generics whenever they’re in that aura.
Depending on the commander, you can hire a range of anywhere between one to six generics of a certain class. These troops can be bought during the battle preparation menu before every scenario. In addition, their relative strength and niches are factored into their prices.
When it comes to units, there are a couple of notable stats. First is their HP: normally, I’d say that “this stat is pretty self-explanatory, when you reach 0 HP, you die,” however in this game, there are a few more caveats. In this game, your maximum HP will always be 10; the max can never be increased or decreased in any circumstance. On another note, your current HP is also the maximum amount of damage you can inflict on an enemy unit with a physical attack.
Your attack (AT) will affect how much damage you do to an opponent while defense (DF) reduces how much damage you take from an enemy attack. MP is how many magic points you have, each magic spell uses up a certain amount of MP, and when you run out of MP, you can’t use magic anymore. Movement (MV) is how many tiles you can move, while Range is just the radius of your Commander Aura. Lastly, Bonus details the stat bonuses you grant to your generics when they’re in your Commander Aura.
Your generics have a lot fewer stats, they only have Attack, Defense, Movement, and HP. However, some generics that can be summoned also have MP and magic attacks. Additionally, there’s also a hidden magic defense stat, which reduces the amount of damage you take from magic attacks. For example, the High Elf troops are completely immune to magic, while Ballisticians are very weak against magic.
As for commands, you can Move your units; Attack an enemy; use a variety of Magical spells, which you gain upon level-ups; Rally, which allows you to restore 3 HP and MP to yourself and any adjacent generics; and Orders, which lets you select what you want the AI to make your generics do if you don’t move them manually. Additionally, certain classes or items let you Summon certain creatures or monsters.
When it comes to battles, damage calculation is a bit unconventional. Regardless of player phase or enemy phase, units will charge into each other en même temps, and take damage at the same time mid-combat. Damage is dependent on a few different factors: attack, defense, commander aura bonuses, terrain bonuses, the actual attack animation, current HP, and just a small percentage variation. Causing the player to approach the game with a more tactical lens and having them learn to plan around both the amount of damage you take and receive. Or you can just be a loser and rig.
I took 9 damage in the previous fight.
Another notable mechanic is how class changes work. Once you reach level 10, you will automatically class-change and can choose between two classes that you can be promoted into. Aside from increasing stats and commander aura bonuses, promoting will also give you access to better troops, and magic. Every unit has their own class tree of different classes they can be promoted into, and there are about four to five tiers of classes. Below, I have a table of Hein’s class tree for example.
As a Warlock, once Hein reaches level 10, he can become a Sorcerer or Paladin. As a level 10 Paladin, he can go either Saint or Priest and so on.
You don’t get a lot of playable units, but EXP is still a little scarce, and a lot of the fun in tackling the game is how you want to distribute EXP. Like your own commanders, when an enemy commander is killed, all their troops are also killed. This means every chapter leaves you with a decision: do you eliminate the enemy commander as soon as you can, clearing the chapter quicker? Or do pick off his or her generics for the extra EXP, allowing your favorite unit to reach their final class by the end of the game? In my recent run, I wanted to get Hein to his final class, Wizard, to be able to use the Teleport spell, which is good for trivializing certain endgame maps. …I couldn’t get him to his final class before the final chapter, and he didn’t even get Teleport since he gets it as a level 4 Wizard.
Speaking of classes, aside from just the class itself, each class also has a specific class type. These various types are Soldier, Pikeman, Cavalry, Archer, Sea, Flier, Demon, Undead, Gel, and Dragon. One important mechanic to keep track of is how these troop types interact with one another. One of the most important interactions to know is the Troop-Type-Triangle, like the Weapon Triangle introduced in FE4, or the Fire-Water-Grass starter effectiveness in Pokemon, certain troops have an advantage and disadvantage against other troop types.
Soldiers are strong against Pikemen but weak against Cavalry; Pikemen are strong against Cavalry but weak against Soldiers; and Cavalry are strong against Soldiers but weak against PIkemen. There are also other type effectiveness, like fliers being weak to archers, but the main triangle is the most important one to know. This is also taught to you during the game.
When your generic troops die, it’s not a huge deal, you only lose out on a small amount of money, but when your Commander dies, while there isn’t permadeath, a Loss will be added to that unit’s record. These losses will affect the ending your character has in the epilogue. Depending on how many losses that unit has, their ending can range from being either “they lived happily ever after and achieved their dreams,” to the saddest and most depressing endings ever.
And of course, if Elwin dies on any map, it’s an automatic game over.
When it comes to praises, I really enjoy the gameplay, the maps are very engaging, and there are rarely any moments where you’re just sitting around and doing nothing unless you’re actively trying to grind your units or do some other objective. The maps are decently challenging but not too overwhelming, none of them really feel like filler, and the game has a very natural difficulty curve, though it may swerve a bit on the easy side.
I also really like the sandbox nature of the class system, and how it’s implemented in this game. It allows for great customizability with your respective units but still allows them to retain their own respective identity and niches.
I also like the little bits of storytelling that come from certain classes, like Elwin’s final class being King, as a nod to his heritage, and that being the final class of Ledin in Langrisser 1. Or Egbert being the right hand of Kaiser Bernhardt, has Dark Master as his final class, which mirrors Böser’s class as Böser’s the avatar of the Dark God Chaos. And Rohga’s final class being Emperor, which mirrors Bernhardt’s backstory of him being a mercenary who rose up the ranks into being an Emperor.
I also like that the class trees aren’t too free, and have limits. You can’t just make Hein or Rohga into a flier, nor can you turn Lester or Aaron into experienced Spellcasters, at most they get basic healing magic and maybe some offensive magic. Even with Elwin having the ability to start in any class, that only affects his starting class, once he class changes, he just follows his standard class tree. Having too much free customization is a bit of a criticism I have regarding games like FE11, 12, or Three Houses.
The multiple different ways you can build a unit, coupled with the different story paths contribute to the game’s overall replayability as well. Not to mention the missable secrets, gaiden chapters, and strategies you can employ. This is one of the few video games I’ve completed more than once.
Aside from the gameplay, I’m also a huge fan of the game’s overall presentation. I really enjoy the writing in the game, especially the individual character interactions and dialogue. Even the generic nameless enemy commanders have funny dialogue that I look forward to seeing when I fight them.
While there are some characters who I feel leave a lot to be desired when it comes to the amount of dialogue they have, *cough cough* I still feel the character writing is one of the highlights of the game. In terms of the overall story though, my opinions are quite a bit more diverse.
For the Light Route, the overall story is pretty standard, if not slightly watered down from the Mega Drive version. The Imperial route is a bit weird though, especially near the ending. It’s made very clear that the Empire and the Descendents of Light have the same goal in mind, and it constantly had me wondering for what reason they have to continue fighting. Or why did the Descendants leave Elwin after he joined Leon in the first place? I understand that people are stubborn, especially with politics, but after you defeat Böser and seal the Kingdom of Darkness, for what reason do you need to continue fighting?
The next criticism I have is regarding the sprite art, while the maps and UI and stuff look nice, I’m not a fan of the character portraits at all. They look pretty goofy, are vastly inferior to their Mega Drive counterparts, and don’t really do Satoshi Urushihara’s illustrations much justice at all.
The Mega Drive version of Scott actually looks pretty cute.
Meanwhile, the Super Famicom looks like he's on the job at a place he's fed up with, but isn't able to quit.
The music is serviceable. I’ve seen people complain about the music when comparing it to the Mega Drive version, but I like it. Your own preferences mainly just come down to whether you prefer the Super Famicom sound chip or the Mega Drive’s sound chip.
That said, the music in this game has a very nostalgic feel to it for me, despite the fact that I only first played this game as an adult. It has a nice optimistic and energetic feel to it, and I think that’s primarily due to the instruments. Some standout songs for me are the Shop Theme which plays in the battle preps of every map, and Neo Holy War, which plays at the end results screen of every map. Hell, when I got my first job, Neo Holy War played in my head whenever I received a paycheck.
Another criticism I have that some people may not notice on the surface is that the game is very much held together by duct tape and crazy glue. By that, I mean that the game has many bugs and glitches. The most notable bug is in the intro quiz itself, after you answer all the questions and your stats, class, and inventory are decided, Lucilis will ask you to confirm if everything is correct. If you answer no, you have to redo the quiz, however, you still retain your inventory from your previous answers. So this can be exploited up to five times to get a number of different cool items early on, if you try to do it more than five times, the game will crash. This exploit has been used in many Low Turn Count runs. …well, I say “many,” but the only LTC run that I’ve seen is now deleted from YouTube... we miss you Harvester of Eyes 😔
There’s also a scene in the lategame in the Imperial Route, where if you don’t recruit Sonya, the following scene that plays is completely buggy and the text didn't display correctly.
There’s also a famous bug in the Japanese version with the Elemental class. It’s a generic undead-type class that is only playable in Scenario 14 when Sonya joins with them. Even though some of Est and Ost's classes are stated to be able to hire them, they cannot actually be hired due to a glitch. The fan translation simply removes the mention of Elementals being able to be hired.
While this isn’t a bug, there’s also a cool enemy control mode that seems to be intended for debugging. While highlighting an empty tile on the map, press: Down, Left, Up, Right, A, Left, Up, B, Down, Right, A, B, Down, Right, A. Once you hear a little ding! you now have control of the enemy units and can mess around if you want.
In the same vein, there’s also a Music Test, a Sound Test, and a Battle Test mode, similar to FE1. It can be accessed in the load game menu. Once you highlight any save slot and press Left, Right, Select, A, the menu will show and it’s quite fun to mess around with, although it is quite buggy.
I love how all the song titles are in German
A Böser fighting an army of Bösers in front of Waluigi Land
Other Versions
With all that said, I wanted to talk briefly about the different versions of Der Langrisser, firstly with the original Mega Drive version, Langrisser II. As I alluded to in various points in the previous section, there are significant story differences. The story of Langrisser II, is primarily a more expanded version of the Light Route, without any of the other routes and without Rohga, Sonya, Est, and Ost appearing as characters.
The Mega Drive version also has vastly superior graphics and music that takes advantage of the Mega Drive’s sound chip. In addition, the fan translation amps things up a lot less, and also reuses the same text font used in Warsong, which is a nice touch.
In terms of gameplay, Langrisser II is slightly harder and allows the player to mix troop types when hiring them. By that, I mean in Langrisser II, if a unit has the ability to hire both Pikemen and Soldiers, they can hire three Pikemen and three Soldiers, for example. In Der Langrisser, you can only hire the same troops, so you can only hire six Pikemen or six Soldiers, but not both. Enemies can mix troops in both games though.
I downloaded a save file online to show this, but notice how SH➤👑ー has two Horsemen,
two heavy Soldiers, one Gladiator, and one Phalanx deployed.
After that, there was Der Langrisser FX, which was released for the failed NEC PC-FX system. This one has animated cutscenes and overall a grittier color palette but otherwise plays the same as Der Langrisser.
The PS1 version, Langrisser I + II, comes with a remake of Langrisser I, but it’s virtually the same as the PC-FX version with different graphics which mostly takes from the official artwork.
Left is the PC-FX version and right is the PS1 version.
The Sega Saturn version of Langrisser II, also known as Langrisser: Dramatic Edition, is graphically very similar to the Playstation version with only slight changes and includes the same anime cutscenes. In terms of gameplay, the Saturn version adds two new routes, the True Light Route and the Destruction Route.
A promotional flyer of Langrisser: Dramatic Edition
Angy Sonya
Last is the 2019 Remake, Langrisser I & II, which was developed by extreme and Chara-Ani and localized by NIS America. This version is the only version aside from the Mega Drive and Super Famicom versions available in English, and this version is the only one that’s available in English officially. Langrisser I & II makes significant gameplay changes, features new redrawn graphics, a redone OST, and includes many other mechanical differences that I can’t comment on too much since I haven’t played the remake much.
Leon looks kinda lame in the remake, I mean, look at those shoulder pads. They’re tiny!
While I appreciate how the remake tries something different with a lot of the art, I don’t really think they hold much of a candle compared to Urushihara’s work in the original games. Furthermore, the Fire Emblem Heroes-esque map sprites also turn me off a bit, and I’m not a fan of the aesthetics of the maps. The music is pretty good though.
The combat system is a bit too different from the originals for me, but at the end of the day, it’s kinda just something I have to get used to. I may give it a shot sometime in the future.
The 2019 remakes are available on Windows via Steam. In addition, you can also get the game on the PS4, and the Nintendo Switch. Hell, I got the game for my Switch on a whim one day. I went to the mall with my sister and found the game on clearance at a GameStop for like 30 bucks…
I remember the company that did the remake mentioning that if Langrisser I & II sold well enough, there would be a possibility that the Elthlead Trilogy or Langrisser III would also get a remake. Five years later, I think it’s safe to assume that’s not happening, which is a royal shame since Langrisser III doesn’t even have a completed fan translation.
Conclusion
All-in-all, as a game, Der Langrisser is a favorite of mine. It has its downs, but the ups very much outweigh them. The gameplay is unique and stands out a lot compared to other franchises, the music is consistently fun to listen to, it’s very replayable, and the cast of characters is very memorable. It’s a very good gateway drug into discovering the underappreciated Langrisser series, and if you’re a fan of Strategy RPGs, I’d definitely recommend this game or the Mega Drive version.
In any case, I appreciate anyone who read through this whole review. Even if you don’t plan on trying out this game, I hope you took something away from this page. And with nothing else for me to say: Das ist alles für jetzt!
No comments:
Post a Comment