Langrisser 1 Remake
Turn based strategy game where your commander units are function like normal characters in games like this but each one can spend gold to hire units of soldiers before battles start, with the options available to them and the quantity available depending on their class and promotions. Hired units will be much weaker if they leave the command range of their leader and if they are adjacent to their commander they will heal some of their health at the start of each turn. Hired soldier kills will give their commander experience and if your commander or an enemy commander is killed all of their hired soldiers are lost with them. It's one of the better games on the Genesis and the sequel's Super Nintendo upgrade Der Langrisser is one of the best games on the SNES.
This version adds new branching paths with multiple endings and new stages to the original Genesis title. New CGs and added JP voice acting (not translated though when out of plot scenes). You can use old character and map art and music (except for combat animation), new art is hit and miss depending on the character but the new style is pretty generic. Hero characters now fight with whatever kind soldiers instead of awkwardly by themselves. New opening questions like in the sequel give equip/skills but effect little as they are mostly just going to give you equipment and skills that are soon to be replaced anyway. Missions can have some objective changes, usually being easier as the first map has an easy escape and time limits are removed. New health system is less intuitive, in the old game everyone just had 10 health with each representing a soldier in the unit. Too easy to level/promote, and you can go back to past areas in the story to follow branching paths with your levels kept. The battle animations are much worse, even in the old Genesis version it would show the soldiers meeting in combat where melee units could be killed by archers before reaching them leaving bodies on the ground, the terrain of each side effected the look of the fight where units would have to charge up or downhill if you had elevated positions, this follows more of an Advance Wars style where all units just stand on a side of the screen and attack at nothing towards the middle of the map while damage numbers show up. Maps look like a bad mobile and no longer have as many terrain differences. About halfway through the first playthrough it becomes so easy that you don't even need hired soldiers to easily win, defeating the main mechanic of the series. They also removed the treat command which was used for commanders to slightly heal themselves (and in some entries recover some MP) and replaced it by having everyone fully heal when they level up, making the game even easier and magic overpowered.
The new branching paths are mostly terrible (now that I've played Langrisser 2 I see that some of the branching maps are just random copies of maps from Langrisser 2 with different enemy placement). There was never much story to begin with in the first entry outside of a very simple retaking of your shortly inconvenienced Kingdom followed by holy sword defeats chaos god plot, and the paths add mostly nonsensical story turns where you will often end up playing on similar or the same maps as before fighting very short battles. There are five paths with each having two variations. To get a branching path you reach mission 11 of the 20 and then can start doing or not doing things that can put you on another path, a few missions after that it can split again. The two alternate options on each of the five paths could change very little, on one actually effecting nothing but a few random lines of dialogue.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1454915983735361537
Langrisser 2 Remake
Langrisser 2 holds up better than the first but that isn't at all thanks to anything the remake does and is just from it being a better game. The story path splits are a bit more logical and can come from a wider variety of actions, there are more characters that get a bit more backstory, there are more characters to use on route splits, 75% of the playable cast doesn't primarily promote to the same horse mounted unit.
It did feel much more balanced throughout where I never would have had an easy time never even hiring soldiers once I reached the midpoint of the game (though just nuking everything with the Meteor spell about 3/4 of the way through causing the mage to level up and regain their full MP so I can do it again was still massively overpowered).
Neither game is ever really bad but there's no reason not to just play the original on the Genesis/Mega Drive and the sequel on the SNES (or both of them on the Saturn if you read Japanese).
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1457624454805159939
Turn based strategy game where your commander units are function like normal characters in games like this but each one can spend gold to hire units of soldiers before battles start, with the options available to them and the quantity available depending on their class and promotions. Hired units will be much weaker if they leave the command range of their leader and if they are adjacent to their commander they will heal some of their health at the start of each turn. Hired soldier kills will give their commander experience and if your commander or an enemy commander is killed all of their hired soldiers are lost with them. It's one of the better games on the Genesis and the sequel's Super Nintendo upgrade Der Langrisser is one of the best games on the SNES.
This version adds new branching paths with multiple endings and new stages to the original Genesis title. New CGs and added JP voice acting (not translated though when out of plot scenes). You can use old character and map art and music (except for combat animation), new art is hit and miss depending on the character but the new style is pretty generic. Hero characters now fight with whatever kind soldiers instead of awkwardly by themselves. New opening questions like in the sequel give equip/skills but effect little as they are mostly just going to give you equipment and skills that are soon to be replaced anyway. Missions can have some objective changes, usually being easier as the first map has an easy escape and time limits are removed. New health system is less intuitive, in the old game everyone just had 10 health with each representing a soldier in the unit. Too easy to level/promote, and you can go back to past areas in the story to follow branching paths with your levels kept. The battle animations are much worse, even in the old Genesis version it would show the soldiers meeting in combat where melee units could be killed by archers before reaching them leaving bodies on the ground, the terrain of each side effected the look of the fight where units would have to charge up or downhill if you had elevated positions, this follows more of an Advance Wars style where all units just stand on a side of the screen and attack at nothing towards the middle of the map while damage numbers show up. Maps look like a bad mobile and no longer have as many terrain differences. About halfway through the first playthrough it becomes so easy that you don't even need hired soldiers to easily win, defeating the main mechanic of the series. They also removed the treat command which was used for commanders to slightly heal themselves (and in some entries recover some MP) and replaced it by having everyone fully heal when they level up, making the game even easier and magic overpowered.
The new branching paths are mostly terrible (now that I've played Langrisser 2 I see that some of the branching maps are just random copies of maps from Langrisser 2 with different enemy placement). There was never much story to begin with in the first entry outside of a very simple retaking of your shortly inconvenienced Kingdom followed by holy sword defeats chaos god plot, and the paths add mostly nonsensical story turns where you will often end up playing on similar or the same maps as before fighting very short battles. There are five paths with each having two variations. To get a branching path you reach mission 11 of the 20 and then can start doing or not doing things that can put you on another path, a few missions after that it can split again. The two alternate options on each of the five paths could change very little, on one actually effecting nothing but a few random lines of dialogue.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1454915983735361537
Langrisser 2 Remake
Langrisser 2 holds up better than the first but that isn't at all thanks to anything the remake does and is just from it being a better game. The story path splits are a bit more logical and can come from a wider variety of actions, there are more characters that get a bit more backstory, there are more characters to use on route splits, 75% of the playable cast doesn't primarily promote to the same horse mounted unit.
It did feel much more balanced throughout where I never would have had an easy time never even hiring soldiers once I reached the midpoint of the game (though just nuking everything with the Meteor spell about 3/4 of the way through causing the mage to level up and regain their full MP so I can do it again was still massively overpowered).
Neither game is ever really bad but there's no reason not to just play the original on the Genesis/Mega Drive and the sequel on the SNES (or both of them on the Saturn if you read Japanese).
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1457624454805159939