How Not to Remake: Langrisser Edition

I’ve been a fan of the Langrisser series for a long time. The series’ debut entry, Warsong, is the only one that received an official localization until recently. Unfortunately, the Langrisser 1&2 remake available on most platforms is not only missing much of what makes Warsong special, it’s not even a particularly good game in its own right.

There are several things included in the remake that are actually good changes. It includes a fully viewable class change chart, with “secret” final classes spelled out (much of this was hidden in the original games). The skill system is actually a great addition as well. It gives more customization options and incentivizes exploring the tree a little more. It also gives a little more flavor to characters that are otherwise very similar, like Thorne and Hawking. Likewise, route branching is more clear – for example, you can see that things can change later on if you leave certain enemies alive in scenarios. Without hints like this it might be difficult to find certain routes (especially in Langrisser 2, where these routes are more meaningful).

Unfortunately, there are other things that are baffling. New stat types were added without any kind of explanation in the 30-page help system, terrain bonuses are not as clear due to split accuracy/defense bonuses, general stat bonuses are percentages (and typically equal for all stats, reducing leader variety). While the ability to “rewind” and replay old stages is welcome (especially in the context of the new class change system), the inability to “fast forward” makes replaying early stages an exercise in tedium since many scenarios have large maps. There are also scenes in between scenarios that are inexplicably not shown if the classic artwork is in use, leading one to believe that there’s simply no plot between maps.

While the attempt to rework the combat system from Langrisser 2 is appreciated, it left this remake with virtually no challenge. Even without the “easy start” option, money is never an issue. After the first class change, you can ignore the “rock-paper-scissors” type advantage system – the second tier of troops are given to you quickly, and the enemies don’t get them until much later. My only defeat in this game was an escort mission – which have been particularly rough with the suicidal AI.

Perhaps the most upsetting thing to me – and admittedly, a fairly irrational one – is that the engine and map rework ignores specific plot-related context. In the very first scenario of Langrisser 1, instead of defending the water, the pirate Tyler is defending battlements on the bottom of the map – where both his and the enemy’s aquatic troops make no sense. And that’s ignoring the fact they changed Tyler’s first class from a cool crocodile knight that throws spears to some dude with an axe. In a later map – the one where I suffered my only defeat thus far – Hawking says he will defend civilians and then doesn’t move for two turns, allowing them to get massacred by enemies that appear nearby.

Another odd change is a pair of consequences of the rebalancing – in the original Warsong, a particularly tough early scenario involves a forest full of slimes. Your win condition is simply “survive 11 turns”. It’s expected to be a losing battle – even if you’ve managed to level Garett (Ledin in this version) to his second class, Sabra (Narm) is consistently in danger. After a half dozen turns – by which point you’d be lucky to have a few mercenary troops left – allies turn up with torch-bearing guardsmen. The slimes are weak against fire, and the reinforcements mop up the slimes impressively. In this remake, the slimes are never remotely threatening – you’d have to try to avoid killing them to make it to the 11-turn win condition. The guardsmen unit type was removed in the engine rework. Instead the reinforcement leader, Thorne, comes with normal troops. He still tells them to use their torches, then casts a fireball on the nearest commander slime, killing all their troops as well. It’s a kludgy way to make it appear as if the same thing is happening, but it makes for a much less impressive rescue (and simultaneously gives the fireball spell to a fighter character who shouldn’t have it). This rescue prompts more anger at the stealing of free experience points than gratitude that reinforcements appeared (ironic – because in the original, the experience Thorne and Mina [Chris] received murdering slimes carried over when they joined you).

This rebalancing issue persists throughout much of the mid-game as well (as of this writing, I’m at Scenario 12). In the original game, losing mercenaries throughout the stage was unavoidable. They’re better than your opponents’ troops (typically), but even good management leaves you limping along by the end of most stages with just your commanders and one or two support troops. This not only speeds up maps towards the end (less trying to fit mercenaries into cramped areas) but also gives a feeling of vague satisfaction – having survived something brutal and lost along the way. Throughout my play of this remake so far, every leader had some troops left by the end, which the game has diligently spent time evaluating every single turn even when they were no longer anywhere near combat.

This remake, like the Actraiser remake, allows for some “retro” options such as classic artwork and music. The classic artwork (I think) comes from the first Langrisser remake, but it’s pretty good. The new artwork looks a little too polished by comparison, and lacks much of the personality of the original (how dare they trim everyone’s pauldrons down to something reasonable – if only half the armor’s weight is on your shoulders, it’s not enough). Unfortunately, these retro options do not extend to character map sprites or combat, but at least the original music makes things a little better.

A major (to me) problem in the Langrisser series is that the combat scenes have gotten more cartoonish with every successive entry. In one of the few strategy games that is trying to simulate a large engagement, this creates a lot of dissonance. Warsong makes the combat scene visceral despite small sprites, with soldiers physically clashing (or, if one unit is atop a wall, throwing weapons at each other). You can see the actual evaluation of the combat happening in real time – as actual soldiers come face-to-face. It is obvious that as a troop becomes wounded it can deal less damage, because there are fewer soldiers to engage the enemy. In Der Langrisser (the remake of 2 which inspired most successive remakes of the first two games), the sound effects got less realistic but the combat was still visible. In this remake, chibi characters swipe at some imagined foe on both sides of a cloud, and then damage numbers appear sporadically. Occasionally some of the characters fade into the background. It’s frankly somewhat pathetic, and these scenes are better turned off immediately. The only good decision is that a small troop of bodyguards accompanies leaders into battle scenes – but leader troop types don’t match their bodyguards, so it’s kind of a weird “I guess it’s there” choice.

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