The series' own awkward transition to 3d, Growlanser: Heritage of War nevertheless deviates from the others in two notable ways. First, it fragmented the story into brief prologues covering different perspectives, nations and time periods before coalescing to a main route. Almost a miniature, linear take on Suikoden III. Second: the addition of free movement mid-combat, seamless battle transitions and mostly AI-controlled allies basically pushed the battle system as close to an RTS as possible. Even the RPG systems diverged, tweaking ring weapons and gems to revolve around small, player-crafted skill trees defined by equipment-dependent ability mastery (sadly not given enough options or space to explore). Other updates are a mixed bag. On one hand, QoL changes and shortcuts meant that both control and menu tedium were reduced to a minimum. On the other hand, their effect made battles rather dull and passive, while leaving its annoying targeting system, animations and jarring pauses untouched.

If the series' war focus threatened to spiral out of control in Growlanser IV, it completely took center stage here. While fairly underwhelming in the dialogue department, the story is their bleakest statement yet - the culmination of their anti-war message, and a stark contrast to the vibrancy of old. Thankfully, Career Soft haven't completely forgotten the levity of prior games, and here it acquired a bizarre flavor that managed to contaminate a few missions. A lot had changed, but the experience overall is either forgettable or ineffective, due to a revolving cast of characters, excessive filler, and disengagement from mission to mission. What redeems the show are the occasional morbid sci-fi horror situations.

Growlanser 5 was the last game I owned for the PS2 that I hadn't finished. I remember stopping the game almost immediately after buying it at release almost 13 years ago. I couldn't remember why since I had really liked 2 and 3 and then bought 4 as soon as that was released on the PSP a few years after 5 was localized and I enjoyed that one. Well, now I remember.

Poor graphics that look like a PS1 game this late into the PS2's life, where even the painted style backgrounds are dull. Poor music. Skill system is like an idiot tried to combine FFIX and FFXs weapon and sphere grid but you are setting skills into a grid yourself where the paths you go are more random until they aren't and not highlighting a certain paths weakens the skills you've learned on it. Fetch quests/hidden events constantly have you running back to previous areas multiple times, not that there is even reason to be aware of many side quests and events without a guide. Childish story and writing style. Easy slow fighting would be unbearable without an emulator's turbo button, and even at about three times the speed it still often felt too slow with the game constantly stopping anytime a skill or spell was used along with the poor accompanying animation (which is pretty much just some lights). One of the dullest settings I've ever seen, also one of the smallest that keeps having you running back and forth between the same areas even as you get further and further into the game. Made even more ridiculous by story events like taking a boat to get someone and then being told it would be faster to walk back through about four section screens rather than go back to a town to take another ship, a hidden well exit to a base essentially takes you through half the continent based on where it comes out. Barely used characters, with two being able to join your party of five at the very end of the game and characters that kept showing up to do nothing and barely had a role in the entire game. Even the title of Growlanser is never mentioned unless you choose two of six different short epilogue scenes where they out of nowhere jokingly call you by it.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1264179528709976064

This was an incredibly ill conceived game. It makes perfect sense how this came out moments before Career Soft went bankrupt.

Honestly I wouldn't even know where to start. Just from playing, it becomes clear how many of the game's concepts were aborted (the multiple protagonists prologue and how the character designs make no fucking sense when it's been consistent in every growlanser game prior to 5).

I wouldn't be able to recommend this game to anyone. If you're really desperate for a 3D growlanser game, go play 6 instead. At worst that game is just a below average growlanser game and not a complete clusterfuck of mistakes like this one.

A good game, has its flaws but they don't ruin it completely, and imo not as bad as many would think
+Grey-and-Gray Morality is the story's strongest aspect, along with its side chapters that focus on different sides of the conflict that enrich its worldbuilding
+Soundtrack features a lot of charming tracks with their reliance on air instruments and sitars
+Krious Based
+Sherris my queen uwu
-Story pacing was off in some places, and its plot points were poorly handled
-Battle System feels underdeveloped, its randomness can make it unnecessarily grindy.