Note: This review is based on the Japanese version of the game.
Strategy RPGs have been my passion ever since I played my first Langrisser game, and the series to this day is still number one in my heart.
This Langrisser, Langrisser Dramatic, is a combination of two previous Langrisser games, Langrisser’s 1 & 2. These two games were made some time ago and so the graphics are a little dated, but the gameplay is as solid as any game on the market today.
Langrisser Dramatic’s gameplay is vintage Langrisser (obviously, since these two games started the series ^_^) with super deformed characters, grid movement, and zoom-in battle actions. I LOVE this type of setup in a strategy/RPG; it’s so simple, yet so wonderful. Langrisser Dramatic (LD from now on) is very easy to get addicted to gameplay wise, because it’s so much fun and there are so many things that you can do. Langrisser’s gameplay, in a nutshell, is like a really cool game of chess. You have generals and under the generals you have troops and you control both, giving commands such as: move, attack, magic, summon, and so on. When you select to attack an enemy, the screen switches to a side view of your general (or troop) attacking the enemy’s general (or troop).
The boards are separated into scenario’s and the choices you make affects which scenario you’ll play next. There are usually three different scenario paths you can take, path A,B, or C with a total of about 72 scenarios (you’ll play an average of around 30). Most of the paths you choose depend on your relationship with the girls of your party, whether you make them happy or sad etc. I absolutely adore this layout and Langrisser (especially 1 and 2) pulls it off the best.
Graphically LD suffers big time. Both Langrisser 1 and 2 look very bland and if it wasn’t for the outstanding artwork (by Satoshi, the king of art) I doubt many people would be able to play it today. The colors are dull, and the backgrounds, while detailed, get crushed compared to games such as Lunar Complete. There are some nice anime scenes, though, and even with the slight grainy look, I still enjoyed them very much (mainly because of the wonderful art in them). The graphics are nothing to write home about and there’s no way in heck that you would buy the game for them. The key to these two games is the gameplay not the graphics.
The sound in Langrisser is excellent, while the music isn’t as great as in Langrisser 5, it still is pretty darn good. But what is even better than the music is the voice acting: there’s tons of it! Everyone talks and I mean everyone. It’s so cool; even if the person is a moron side character with 0 defense and 0 attack he/she still has a voice. Before battles, during battles, and after battles, people talk to each other, it’s just so cool! To me that shows how much Masaya loves its Langrisser series and that they’re willing to take more time to make a better game.
I can’t really comment on the story because I can’t read or speak Japanese, but let me just say that it’s packed with a ton of emotion. Characters die and all that good story stuff. If I could read Japanese I probably would have cried a couple times along the way. I don’t know what they were saying, but it sure looked good folks.
In the end I would recommend LD to anyone with a Sega Saturn and even if you don’t have one it would be worth it to buy a Saturn just for this game. Of the two, Langrisser 2 was my favorite, because it was a little easier and it had more characters. Still I was very pleased with both of them, and I had more fun playing them then a human should have. If you asked me what the greatest video game of all time is I’d say Langrisser Dramatic in a heartbeat, because it houses two of the greatest video games of all time on one cd. These two games are so good I don’t have enough room here to tell you how awesome they are, just go get the game!
