PUBLISHER – Zlong Game Ltd./Extreme
DEVELOPER – BlackJack Studios
The Basics
**Note – This is a preview for the US Closed Beta Test from late 2018. The full game release is due in early 2019**
The original Langrisser for the Mega Drive system came out in 1991 in Japan, for the Genesis at about the same time, under the title of Warsong. It was the first of many innovative strategy games that were eventually released for just about every system out there, including many consoles, PC, and mobile. Its features included the ability to customize how your Commander units are upgraded, choice of which troop types they employed, and a “face to face” combat system later borrowed and adapted by series such as Fire Emblem and Yggdra Union.
The US translation, aside from some questionable names for some of the characters, was remarkably true to the original. Combat uses a “triangle” style for the most common melees (infantry beats spears, beats cavalry, beats infantry); healers beat demons and archers beat fliers, though those ranged attackers suffer badly when forced into melee combat. Pirates and Assassins have no particular strengths/weaknesses, and are good overall; the same is true of mages, though they, too suffer in melee combat. Both your Commanders and your troops are assigned to one of these types, and they may very well differ, depending on your choices. Each also have their own separate HP bars.
Langrisser/Langrisser Mobile, which is among the most popular games on the Chinese mobile market as of this writing, is now seeing an English-language release. Note that the game also allows the user to select Japanese audio, if desired. This is a free-to-play, “gacha”-style game at its heart – in other words, when you gain new units outside of the storyline, they are obtained randomly, though you can make better drops more likely by saving your summon tokens for specific “bonus” events, or by concentrating on special missions that guarantee a specific character upon 100% completion. Rarities of characters (and gear) go from N(ormal) => R(are) => SR (Super Rare) => (Super Super Rare). In an exception from this type of game, there is little to no pestering you to actually buy any virtual currency nor items.
Story & Flow:
Standard young folks have a hidden destiny and need to save the world type of stuff. You know the drill. It is, however, done well, which helps to keep things interesting.
Where this game branches out are in the portion of the game where you can relive the plots of prior games in the series (beginning with Langrisser II/Der Langrisser) in order to gain tokens needed to upgrade your characters. You can also access a relationship system, PVP, and more.
Controls
Easy to use controls for menus, movement, combat, etc really help to facilitate actual game play. All of the abilities you need in combat are literally at your fingertips.
Graphics & Sound
Clean and vibrant colors. Eye-popping character designs – especially on female characters – inspired by the work of Urushihara, the series' former character designer, who is known for his work on **ahem** works of an adult nature. It gets pretty blatant at times, which honestly feels a bit distracting.
The music is gorgeous, and the combat music/sounds in particular really help to “sell” that portion of the game. The voice acting is pretty good, as well, though (perhaps due to it being in beta) do not always match the script shown on-screen. Also, a glaring error is that certain repeated terms (e.g. “Demon Tribe”) in text end up as something else (“Demon” in this case) in speech, which can be jarring.
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