MK404 Plays Langrisser Mobile | Stream Session 1
31Recorded on January 25, 2019
Got Matt, Billy, Ace, and Terper here.
Mel shows up at some point: http://www.twitch.tv/snakemommelissa
So does Steven: http://www.twitch.tv/WaddlerD
I have a Tumblr: http://mageknight404.tumblr.com/
I have a Twitter too: https://twitter.com/mageknight404
"I bet if we tap and hold we can chug these down faster than a fratboy at a toga party!"
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Fire Emblem has always been the premiere SRPG for me for 15 years now, with only a handful of other IPs daring to try and step in to the limelight. Some years ago I was introduced to its Sega made rival, Shining Force, and did a playthrough of its GBA remake a bit later. It was a good time! But there was one other SRPG that Sega help publish...
Langrisser was first birthed some time in April of 1991 by Masaya Games. Like Shining Force, it too shares many of FE's tropes, but its main difference was its sense of scale. While FE and SF routinely pitted you in maps where it was a few named player characters against a dozen or two faceless mooks, Langrisser had generics running on [both] sides of the gamut alongside named dudes. Your named characters would typically be commanders of a batallion of troops at their command and there's plenty of big numbers flying around, not unlike what you'd find in Advance Wars(and indeed, similar gameplay to Ninty's own Famicom Wars released two years before). It did feel like you were in a war during gameplay, something FE wouldn't try to recreate themselves until Genealogy of The Holy War. Langrisser would go on to experiment with branching paths in its story with wildly different endings in its later entries.
Some of you may know of this game as "Warsong", as it also saw a localized effort in North America, though the characters themselves had their names(and even the appearances of a few!) changed in the transition. Langrisser and its several entries have seen little exposure outside of Japan - only the first game and an unrelated spinoff on the 3DS have ever left the country, though fan translations of Langrisser II, its SNES remake Der Langrisser, and Langrisser IV on the Sega Saturn exist.
I myself have had very little exposure or interest in the series, save for one many years ago with a friend on an IRC chat. He had gotten interested in Warsong and Langrisser's related series "Growlanser" and regaled some tales to me, but otherwise I have been safely left in the dark.
Recently, Langrisser has gained a resurgence in popularity with a one-two punch - a fairly low-budget looking remake of Langrisser 1 and 2 on the Nintendo Switch which is set to be released in Japan soon... and this.
Langrisser Mobile, developed by the old crew at Masaya Games and published by Chinese producer ZLONGAME, is itself a direct sequel to Langrisser V. The player walks around on a vast overworld fighting a strange and sketchy crew of evildoers willing to plunge the world into darkness by using fun and familiar gameplay. Similar to FE's own mobile entry Fire Emblem Heroes, you bolster your numbers by summoning characters from past entries in the series to help you out. You are also aided by a lovely sorceress named Jessica(Calais for you Warsong players out there), who much like FE's Anna, has been in every game since its conception. You also get to experience the Time Rift, which allows you to play faithful recreations of iconic moments of the main series, complete with dialogue and even generics!
Where this game differs from FE Heroes is how unafraid it is to stretch its legs and not be content with compromising its gameplay. The gameplay is still a fair bit different from its home series, but feels more like an organic evolution of its style mixed with FE's own named character centered gameplay, while at the same time provides the player with an astounding amount of depth and customization at the onset. This game has had 6 months to flourish in China with a solid outlook so far - the cast has remained small and each unit has a dedicated niche, with even some R units as meta defining.
While FE Heroes was great and fun at its start, it slowly but surely lost steam as the months went by and has remained stale for at least a full year, with its fixes being slow and future development feeling quite tone deaf at times. Time will tell if Langrisser will befall the same fate, but so far it's made a significantly strong first impression, and the amount of content available at launch is impressive. I'm definitely interested in this and hopefully it maintains its good will!
(I'll add timestamps later...)