I’ve been an avid Langrisser fan since I played Warsong on a Sega MegaDrive emulator back in the 1999 or so. I’ve tried to get into the series time and time again, until some years ago I just decided to jump in unprepared with my very little Japanese language. I was decently surprised that it served me rather well and the system of gameplay is rather easy to use and intuitive overall.
Langrisser is one of the few turn-based-strategy games with huge scale of battles. Only in the beginning of each game you control few units, as before the mid-game you’ll have dozens upon dozens of troops in your command. There is no other series that has such calibre in overall design and execution. It seeps through the game, even if it’s in a language most people can’t understand, and yet despite the language barrier it hits like a meteor.
Naturally, Langrisser is an acquired taste and won’t hit everybody who want flash and bloom over proper content. While TBS veterans will tear these games a new one on normal difficulty, Langrisser games do offer nice challenge, even more so due to language barrier.
To those who haven’t read upon Langrisser most likely know the series due to Satoshi Urushihara’s art in almost every game. The rockin’ tunes the games have should also be mentioned.
Above; Why do I love these fantasy rock themes so much?
Langrisser hasn’t been relevant since the millena changed. Langrisser had an awful Dreamcast game named Langrisser Millenium, which was void of Urushihara, good soundtrack and Langrisser game in general.
It was a Langrisser game in name only. Just like the upcoming Langrisser Schwarz.
This, my readers, is a horrible, horrible, horrible way to slay a game series into the ground. Langrisser Millenium was an outright bad game, but it tried to bring something good and it kinda had good character designs in spirit of the series. But this black sheep that’s ramming at us not only disregards everything but abandons everything that Langrisser is known about. Even the sword itself (Langrisser is the name of a weapon in the series) has been redesigned into some kind of homosexual fantasy toothpick so that 15-year old anime convention girls could start making a project during woodshop hours when their teacher didn’t let them do Magic Knight Rayearth armour. The world design is awful from ground up. It looks bland.
While I sound like a raving fanboy here, I assure you that this game will fail even if it has the Langrisser name, a name that has been tacked on to make more sales. Turning a game series that is well known as a classical strategy game into a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. It seems that they’re trying to make a some sort of anime version of World of Warcraft. Whoever these Gamania people are, they’re doing a bad job. The list of games they’ve developer is filled of… well, lacklustre games that nobody heard of. The content of Langrisser Schwarz is nothing new. The music is from your stock fantasy tunes. The art direction is generic animu moebullshit you see in every corner these days.
I can’t see any redeeming values in here. If you compare what Langrisser Schwarz looks like to any previous Langrisser game (except Millenium) you will see that only the name is common between the main series and this game. I could do a comparison to the upcoming Persona fighting game, but the difference here is that Persona 4 The Fighting Game will most likely be pretty damn good, even if the series fans won’t like it. On the other hand, Persona games themselves are bastard children of Shin Megami Tensei games, so there’s no losses to any direction here any more. Oh I will get to Megami Tensei series some day, you just wait.
Langrisser Schwarz could’ve been good. Just like any modern game designer, they choose to ignore the audience and make a game that they wanted. They could’ve made a Langrisser game that would’ve used the best system from the games and refine it completely for a polished gameplay. The story is harder to tackle, as Langrissers’ stories (even if they are just walls of text) is rather well executed, and I believe that Schwarz will have your standard fantasy 3v3 plot with a twist or two at some point. I do believe a multiplayer Langrisser would be possible if done right. However, this isn’t the way to do it. First and foremost Langrisser game should be a Langrisser game, just like a Mario game should be a Mario game and nothing else. This isn’t Langrisser VI by any means, this is the second coming of Langrisser Millenium, if not something worse.
Now excuse me, I think I’ll boot my Sega Saturn and pop in Langrisser Dramatic Edition.
Aaltomies 
No worries. The Langrisser series is finished. It’s as accurate as it could ever be. Why do I think that? Because the stories of the canon games were known before the first game was even made. It can’t be ruined, it’s complete. I could make another one but that wouldn’t really include the sword I think. The people of the series are powerful enough to dodge/deflect bullets, take nukes to the face etc. You know why “Teleport” can’t teleport you all over the map? Because it’s considered the speed of light and it’s comparable to the speed people in the series could move at. That’s why it’d have to be turn-based. This is why you can’t make it into THAT. But I’m glad you enjoyed the series.
The thing with Langrisser, or with any game series, is that it’s only over when the customer have no want to purchase any more games in the series. Look at F-Zero, which didn’t make enough sales to warrant a new home consoles game after GX. Same goes for older franchises as well, like Mega Man or Star Tropics. Lagrisser Millenium came to be because the series had vitality to it. Seeing that Schwarz is vaporware, that vitality is no more. As such you could consider this post nothing more than a relic of past frustration at this point, which needs a follow-up. Nevertheless, Langrisser Millennium is the swansong of a decent game series, canon or not. Discussion about the story of Langrisser also is another thing, and I don’t really care for going into that discussion, as I was far more interested in the gameplay of the series than anything else.
The series is based on real life. That’s why it was made infact. That’s why I think the story shouldn’t be criticized because really, it’ll make you look like a fool when it comes out. Gameplay too actually. This is why a single guy could wipe out an army. I’m not the person to review the gameplay. But I am here to say that Langrisser isn’t Langrisser without turn based combat. If you want Langrisser in realtime combat, join the secret war. It’s happening in real life by the way. Believe me or not, I’m just here to say that if it isn’t a turn based strategy game, it isn’t Langrisser. It’s unlikely to be a success. I started it and if it’s incorrect, they didn’t have my help. I sincerely hope this comment didn’t freak you out too much. I’m really not expecting much, sorry.
That’s interesting, because no source I can track of cites Langrisser being based on real life outside the modelling of some gameplay elements after sixteenth and seventeenth century spearmen and archer tactics. As such, I cannot agree that the series was made because it it’s based on real life. It should be noted, that in war where soldiers clash against each other, one man can’t win against an army. No matter how good a single soldier is, a single soldier can’t kill a whole army. Simo Häyhä, a Finnish sniper could be said to defy this, but I doubt he would’ve survived if whole Soviet Army had been against him. Langrisser is far from Ambition of Nobunaga kind of game, which bases itself real history as Langrisser is a product of fantasy. Disregarding that, if any story is based on real events, then there is even more reason for scrutiny, as the story would need to represent the the reality as closely as possible. Seeing Langrisser does not base itself on reality, I do not hold it against reality either, unlike something like the Titanic movie.
And Langrisser is indeed at its best when turn-based combat is present, but that does not remove Langrisser Millennium from the list of being part of the series and franchise overall, or the fact that Schwarz was to continue as part of the series. That is not debatable. And no, Millennium was not successful on either DC/PC nor on WonderSwan, but neither was Langrisser’s later instalments. This is why Masaya and whoever owns the license now continued with the series (outside Schwarz which has not been released) and the main team continued with Growlanser, which is a whole another can of worms we shouldn’t open here.
I am bold enough to question whether or not you were the person who started it as you put. Seeing that Langrisser has its roots on bunch of PC-88 games, I don’t were there to start it, nor the developers would help in making their games from those who are not part of the devteam or able to bring in high-level coding skills.
Your comment did not freak me out, but your comment has been very hard to decipher to some extent.
It happened about a million years ago. If you want to see a single man take out entire armies, join the secret war. It’s not about being good at it. These people are naturally good at it. It’s about power. Normal humans have a smaller maximum and they train and master skills a lot slower. A LOT slower. And really, it’s not about if they want to make these games for me or not. I don’t want any credit or anything. I don’t really deserve any in my opinion. But really, they didn’t even know THEMSELVES what they were making. The government knows people like us exist infact. The freemasons mainly. They’re who we’re fighting against. They use witches themselves. I’ve said too much already and I think I’m crossing the line with this but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOv1zlnoDpY here’s a guy who plays along to the point of getting arrested and continues to “play along”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T57JCHXNY7w Personally, I like this one better. Believe me or not, this is good to know. These people are evil, these people, unlike normal people, have no morals. These people are the core of evil/corruption. Once they’re dead, that’s the end of evil for good. These people can’t be negotiated with. They worshipped Lucifer who we now killed. The Langrisser series tells you next to nothing about how the actual combat works. You have to know how it works to understand it. Hey, a single man can’t take six meteors to the face and survive either, right? The actual logic is never explained. Anyway, we predict they’ll be done for by December. In real life, the sword is called Lagrisser because there’s a dragon that’s called Langrisser. There’s no relation to my knowledge but considering Erwin is of the legendary dragon race and that dragons were what created Lagrisser, it kind of makes sense. It hasn’t been noted that Lushiris (who is known as Labrador, the goddess of mermaids) would have much to do with its creation. Just that it was about Labrador and Chaos Glory fighting over the sword. What I find funny is that Chaos Glory is the cousin of the current first leader of the army of heaven. It’s like “How? The first leader looks like a human.” Well the way you’ve seen Chaos Glory is actually his celestial form. No idea how he looks like normally. Said first leader of the army of heaven could also be evil. COULD. According to him, when Leon went into the dimensional rift, he went back in time. Surely, you’re creeped out by now.
I doubt any of that could have happened millions of years ago, but whatever floats your boat. I’m not convinced.
Not trying to convince you o.o But going to say now that I was wrong on many points in my last comments. Learned a lot more at this point.