Warsong

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Warsong; 9.5/10
Topic Started: Feb 16 2008, 11:25 PM (179 Views)
Sean	Feb 16 2008, 11:25 PM Post #1
Select a music! Posts: 3,870 Group: Members Member #24 Joined: August 24, 2005 Gender Male	Title: Warsong Genre: RPG/Strategy Console: Sega Genesis Introduction As far as role-playing games are concerned, there are a few big names that, when mentioned, RPG gamers' ears perk. A few examples include Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, Ultima, just to name a few. Let's go back to 1991, where there were only a handful of popular RPGs. Enter Warsong, released in 1991 for the Sega Genesis. Warsong introduced the concept of strategical RPGs before it was a popular concept. Think of Warsong as a really old version of Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, and Final Fantasy Tactics. For veteran players of the Langrisser series: Der Langrisser (SNES) /Langrisser 2 (Genesis), Langrisser 3 and onwards, you might recognize this game. Warsong is the first installment of the Langrisser series. Storyline The story begins in Castle Baltia, where the game begins with an enemy siege on the castle. You control Garett, the prince of Baltia, and Baldarov, Garett's retainer. Alfador, King of Baltia, orders that Garett flee Castle Baltia and move to Sulras (a nearby town) for reinforcements. Along the way, Garett and Baldarov meet Mina, Garett's friend. While on the march to Sulras, Garett, Mina, and Baldarov are attacked by bandits. Eventually, after meeting several new allies, Garett and company march to Castle Baltia in order to liberate the castle from the enemy, who had sieged and captured the castle in the very first level. For the first game in an impressive line of sequels, Warsong's storyline can be best described as cookie-cutter, but epic nonetheless. Well, it's epic for an RPG that was released about 17 years ago. Graphics Movement in battle consists of moving along panels on an overhead view. Simple as it seemed, it was intricate at the time. Gameplay Because Warsong was one of the first strategy-RPGs, I want to thoroughly explain the gameplay and compare this to the unrelated successors, such as Fire Emblem. I'd like to start by explaining how the AI works. The AI always attacks, even if it will lose all of its units and not dealing 1 point of damage to you. This lack of strategy from the computer makes this game far too easy, but to circumvent this, the enemy's units are usually higher level than yours. Even then, one could easily rack up experience points by placing a group of archers next to a group of enemy horsemen and watch as the enemy commits suicide on your archers. Like Fire Emblem, if one of your heroes died in battle, he/she was lost forever, with the exception of Garett. If you lost Garett, you lost the game. Much like in Fire Emblem: If you lost Lyn, Eliwood, or Hector, in any battle, you had to start the battle over. Next, the weapon triangle from Fire Emblem makes a similar appearance in Warsong, except it's with units. In fact, it's similar to the unit combat system in Romance of the Three Kingdoms 10, as far as I'm concerned. Archers are strong against Horsemen, Horsemen are strong against Foot soldier, and Foot soldiers are strong against Archers. Mastering this concept is key in Warsong, as it will give you less trouble with the stronger (but still stupid) computer. Aside from Archers, Foot soldiers, and Horsemen, there are other soldiers that you can use. Guardsmen are really good against Slimes, Mermen excel at fighting in water, and Civilians have 0 ATK, 10 DEF, and can rarely kill 1 person in the enemy's unit. You can never buy Civilians, but why would you in the first place? Anyway. Next, the level up system in Warsong is similar to other strategy-RPG games. In that I mean when your heroes level to a certain point (in this case, Level 10), he/she gets a class change. That basically means that they can upgrade their class, get more attack, defense, maybe more movement, possibly a few spells, and maybe more units. Also, their units get a better stat boost in battle. A 2nd class change will take longer, however. Sound First, the music. When it is your turn to move your units, you have your music to listen to. Then when it is your enemy's turn to move, there is another tune playing. The music sets the mood, for example, the music on the first level sounds epic. Alternatively, if you don't like the music, you can always use the Sound Test cheat to adjust the music. How you unlock Sound Test is up to you to find out. Sound effects are simplistic. When a soldier dies he shrieks and falls backwards. When a commander gets hit he/she screams. When a unit dies it explodes on the map screen. Difficulty As stated earlier, to make up for the lack of intelligence the enemy has, the enemy usually, if not always, has stronger troops and levels. The enemy always outnumbers you, and sometimes the bosses are ridiculously hard. coughGreatDragoncough It's not so hard that it makes you want to stop playing, but it's hard enough to keep you coming back for a rematch with the boss. However, I think the hardest aspect of Warsong is the challenge of keeping everyone alive and leveling each commander equally. Replayability In terms of new unlockables and such, Warsong has none. However, gamers have developed "challenges" for this game, such as, soloing each level with Garett, killing off your other allies whenever possible. Another popular challenge is to simply keep all your allies alive. Personally, I believe that keeping everyone alive is harder than soloing the game with just Garett, simply because the enemies are usually in favorable positions and if you make one mistake, the enemy usually takes advantage of it, and that might mean the end of that commander. Alternatively, you can go for the other class changes in Warsong. It's impossible to get all the final classes in one playthrough, so you'll have to go back and play it all over again if you want to see all the classes in this game. Plus, there's a semi-hidden class in Warsong that only certain characters can have... Target Audience RPG fans should definitely give this game a try. Actually, if you like RPGs, I'm forcing you to play this. It's that good. Really. And after that you can try the other Langrisser games too. Final Words I heard Warsong was put on Nintendo Wii. That's cool I guess. Maybe I'll get a Wii now, but if I play Warsong on Wii, I can't use my savestates... <_< Miscellany Credit to Wikipedia for information on release year and the sequels after Warsong. SCORE: 9.5/10 Storyline: 9/10 Graphics: 9/10 Gameplay: 10/10 Sound: 10/10 Difficulty: 10/10 Replayability: 9/10



Fayt	Feb 16 2008, 11:37 PM Post #2
Sakon, has left the topic. Posts: 3,675 Group: Members Member #9,265 Joined: August 19, 2007 Gender Male	OMG, I remember this game from many years ago, it's pretty much one of the forgotten RPG series, I remember it by the name of Langrisser actually. I felt it got overshadowed by many of the other RPGs you listed, including the Shining Force series which was another outstanding one for the 'ol Sega. It was a fun game though, I was pretty young when I first played it and was quite amused by the way battle scenes happened with two sides running at each other like a bull. :lol:
	Star Ocean Universe ^ Thanks for the mini TV tags Jiahe! ^


SlickSlicer	Mar 8 2008, 05:30 PM Post #3
- Posts: 3,367 Group: Banned Member #7,082 Joined: April 29, 2007	Yeah, I've heard this was a good game. I've only personally played [I think] Langrisser 2. I forget if it was 2 or 3, as well. Twas a good game though...with a few VERY, VERY long boss battles...



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