
	Platform Genesis Genre Strategy RPG Publisher Treco Developer Careersoft ETA 1991
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Warsong

There are no lack of RPGs and strategy games that were released in Japan during the 1990s that never saw the light of day in the West. At this time, neither genre was getting much support from publishers in North America. Occasionally some big name series would make it out this way, such as Shining Force, or Final Fantasy, but by and large the people in charge saw both RPGs and strategy games as being too niche, and not worth the investment to localize for this region. One series in particular to suffer from this was Langrisser. While the series had a number of entries in Japan, we only ever saw the first game released over here, renamed to Warsong for the Sega Genesis. It’s really a shame, because this game, and the series as a whole, were (and still are) top notch fair as far as strategy RPGs go.

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The entire series focuses on an ancient battle between the gods of good and evil, led by Lushiris and Böser respectively. With each new age in the world these gods rally humans under their banners to do battle, giving the leader of each side a sword infused with the power of the gods. The forces of evil get the sword Alhazard, while the leader of the good guys gets Langrisser. In this

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first game, players control Prince Garett of Baltia and his allies as they fend off the invading armies of the Dalsis Empire. It’s fairly typical epic storytelling for the time spread out over 20 campaigns.

By comparison to other SRPGs that were released during the 90s, Warsong looks a little bit dated. Environments and characters all have a very blocky look that was prevalent during the late 80s, but had largely been abandoned by the game’s contemporaries for more appealing visuals by the time Warsong was released. The art, though, was handled by Satoshi Urushihara, who would take the reigns in this respect throughout the series, and later in the Growlanser series (as well as making a name for himself as a hentai animator). Music in the game was quite well done, however. The melodies and whatnot really stood out, and I still find myself humming the tunes from the game every now and then.

Combat itself was very well done in Warsong. Battles were generally on a very large scale, with players controlling both generals, and their various units. As one might expect, the generals were particularly powerful, and when in close proximity to their units they could rally their troops, providing a stat bonus to them. So, it made sense to keep generals close to their men. Also, they could heal themselves and their units, so all the more reason to keep them all together. Players would navigate the battlefield as it was divided into a grid-like pattern with various types of geographic topography helping or hindering units that passed over it. Unfortunately, there was no way to streamline the fights, or skipping some of the tedious animations every time forces crossed swords. One nice feature, though, was the ability to save anywhere. It’s a shame a lot of developers still don’t realize how handy such a feature is almost 20 years later!

It’s too bad that the Langrisser series didn’t get much of a chance to shine outside of Japan. Things only got better with each subsequent installment. If you can find it, though, it’s well worth spending some time with Warsong. It was a very solidly built SRPG that deserves more attention.

Mr. Nash

November 28, 2009