Langrisser II (english translation) Review by: magimangr - 9.5/10
Langrisser 2I actually found this website looking for this game to play in English and I am thrilled that they have it hear and that its in English!
Langrisser 2 is the sequel to the American titled game Warsong and is for the Sega Genesis. Warsong was one of my favorite war simulation games and this game is now too. Personally I wish they would have made this game originally in English and for the Genesis maybe a year or two after Warsong was released. I know Warsong wasn’t the most popular game in the world, but I think it was a pretty good war simulation game I beat it many times and knew others that thought the game was really good and that the sequels should have been released in America. I actually hate how so many good games are made for Japan only. I mean some of the best RPG's and War Sims, this game included, are never released in the US. I guess they aren’t as profitable as I think they should be or something. Thankfully this game is here on this site and it’s been made into English so I can actually understand what people are saying and not just see Japanese symbols that I don’t understand at all. I have actually tried playing a few games that were Japanese text only and gave up trying to figure out what was going on. Hopefully the remaining sequels will be made into a English version too. I do believe that one of the sequels called Der Langrisser is now on this site in English. I am looking forward to playing that game soon after I beat this one a couple of times. Now for the game itself.
The story focuses on a hero trying to save a woman who the enemy is initially after. She eventually joins him with many others on a quest to save the kingdom they are from. The game is based on missions. I believe there are 20 of them. You start with the main character and his friend and you are initially trying to save the woman. Later you get many other people to join you to fight each with their own reasons. Each character has their own "life" and actually have many different things to say about their lives during the game. I don’t remember that much in Warsong and I think that’s a nice change to the game. The characters gain levels based on defeating enemies and using magic. Unlike in Warsong you can actually gain experience casting healing magic on your characters. Each character can have up to six guards / troops to help defend them. Each guard / troop type is dependent upon what class the character currently is. For example the lower level character is a fighter and can only have soldiers, but when they level up to Lord, they can have soldiers and pike men. To level up to a new class your character has to get to level 10. This is exactly the same way that Warsong did it. The best way to level up is of course to kill enemy commanders. Even the weakest of commanders can give you a fair amount of experience. Their soldiers do give some off too and I think the higher the level they are the more you get. I would recommend killing every enemy though and try to gain as much experience as you can early on. You really want those weaker characters leveled up quite a bit before you fight the tougher missions. It would be annoying to fight and just keep having certain character keep getting killed after all. For some reason healing spells can give quite a bit too. My healers actually leveled up faster than my main fighters, which actually worked well for me so I didn’t have to worry about them getting killed as easily. They did get killed easily at the start until I figured out how to protect them better. All of the troop character do receive a bonus to their attack and defense if they are in range of their main character. These bonuses can be quite large and can really change the tide of the battles. The main characters also can gain attack, mp, and or defense when they level up too. If you do not keep your characters in range of their character the enemy will more than likely attack that troop first. You can heal your troops as long as they don’t die, but if they get killed you lose out on them. As with Warsong the terrain can help you out too. If you fight on mountains you can get an increased bonus to your defense as opposed to say fighting on water or something like that. There are a few other new things from Warsong. First you actually can use some of the money you get from defeating enemies to buy weapons and armor and relics. In Warsong you could only just 1 item and each item was given out after you complete missions. Of course most of the really good items weren’t able to be received until late in the game. Now you can buy stuff after each mission. You also can have a weapon, a piece of armor, and relic per character instead of just one of those per character. That’s a really cool new feature in my opinion. I also like how you can use them to make the weakest character pretty strong. You do still receive some items from completing missions like in Warsong, but most of them can be purchased in the shop. You do have to be careful though since you also have to buy your troops and some of them can be quite expensive too. Another new feature is the ability to use more than one type of troop for your main character. In Warsong you were only able to use one type of character so you could only use a soldier or a horseman or an archer each time. Now you can actually use all 3. You can actually have 2 soldiers, 2 horsemen, and 2 archers to help you fight the enemies. This has added a huge new advantage into the game. Now the enemies can also have the 3 types too, but if you use a good strategy you can use this to your advantage. Also as with Warsong each troop is stronger against certain other types, but weak against others like a solider is good against an archer, but weak against a horseman. An archer is strong against a horseman, but weak against a soldier. A horseman is strong against a soldier but very weak against an archer. There are many other character types including flying troops, which are pretty cool and very strong.
The graphics are similar to most Sega genesis games and looks just like Warsong did. I never really had an issue with Sega genesis graphics though. I do not remember seeing any cut screen stuff just the pixel stuff with the missions and the pre mission stuff. I do believe the game is quite colorful though. Lots of different building structures throughout the game and the characters each look quite different which is good since many older games have lots of characters that look very similar just with a different color or something to that affect. Also, the troops look very different from one another. You can even tell the difference between soldiers and pike men pretty easily. That’s good too, because certain characters work better against others and it would be annoying not knowing which type I was fighting.
The sound is typical of most war simulation games from this time. The music changes per map and is fine unless you have a long mission. I don’t think most people will have any problems with the music. I also haven’t had any instances where it sounded messed up at all. Most are just drum beats with other instruments added in to make it sound like you are actually fighting some kind of war. I actually do like some of the beats too.
This game is quite addictive. I haven’t been able to stop playing it besides for going to work and sleeping. I will probably beat this game a few more times because all of the characters are able to change classes and you have to pick 1 out of three classes for each character when they reach level 10. They will each do this twice so each character can have quite a few variations. In warsong they could only pick 2 different classes each time so you were a little more limited and that was fine for that game. I personally prefer the 3 class way so you can really get a lot of variety with your characters and their troops that also can change quite a bit based on what you choose as the next character class. It just makes the game a little more interesting and can add something to the experience of it. I also like to see if I can win certain maps faster with different strategies and if I can beat the characters are you aren’t really supposed to beat, but just avoid. I actually did that a few times and was impressed that I could. I think most characters can actually have up to 13 different classes depending on what you choose for each of them.
The depth of the game is quite large. It takes many many hours to beat. Some missions can actually take over an hour depending on how you play the game. I usually use as many people guarding my main characters as I can so it takes a while to move each character around. I would say that this game could take as many as 20 hours to beat depending on how many troops each character has and how much you know about war simulation strategy. I do not believe there is a published strategy guide out there and really I don’t think there needs to be. The game really is more fun just trying to level up your characters and see what the new levels bring you. I also like not knowing the plots of each mission before I play them.
The difficulty of this game isn’t too bad. The controls are very simply. You mostly just use the arrows to move your characters and then attack people when you want to attack. I would honestly rather have a controller for my computer to use. It’s actually getting a little taxing on the wrists constantly pushing one or two buttons. I think a controller would greatly improve that for me so hopefully I can buy one that will work. As for the game itself it’s not too hard. You can constantly save your game so if you think your character might get killed attacking someone you can just save the game and then see what happens when you attack. If you live that’s great and if you get killed just reload the game. There are certain characters that are like boss characters. Some of them you have to beat to win the mission and some you just have to avoid until you complete your mission. I have been killed a number of times, but just reload try a new strategy and then try again. It can be time consuming though, but the game is worth it. Just make sure you save a lot and protect your healers and weaker characters.
Overall this is one of the best war simulation games I have played for the older systems. Each war sim has its own feel though, but I think overall this is one of the better ones. It is exactly as it describes. It has a very long main mission with lots of characters fighting to save their world. The plot isn’t too bad either and that always helps. I would give this game a 9.5 out of 10 overall. It’s just a solid game for the Genesis. Thank you for reading this review and please try out the game for yourself!
Graphics
9 Sound
9 Addictive
10 Depth
9 Story
8 Difficulty
5