Langrisser Review

  I often love mobile surprises and, as one who will every once in a time download one of the games on their Instagram or Twitter feed, hitting gold is as rare as hitting gold.  While nothing on the mobile market has really hit a level as anything off the console market there is some game that will hold their own within it.  As a fan of tactics games like Fire Emblem I was in the dark about Langrisser and that it was a JRPG that had not seen the light of day in the states.  What I also didn't know is how well this game translated to a mobile game.

Maybe Not Knowing Is Important

  With Fire Emblem I have played the game enough in its AAA format to know what it is supposed to be but I have never played Langrisser.  The game is a tactical JRPG with a familiar paper scissor rock mechanic with troops and some outlier troops that kind of add to the whole mix.  Your lancers are good against cavalry, which are strong against soldiers, which in turn are strong against lancers.  Units like flying and monster are thrown into the mix which then are countered by ranged and healer respectfully.  This mashup of units leads to some pretty interesting fights and require a bit of thought and planning while going in.

  The problem is, this is a mobile game.  With mobile comes the need to unlock heroes, gear, and items to level up heroes and gear.  Of course, there is the ever-present option to buy said items or the plethora of achievements, dailies, and shit going on that you are not even sure about but hey it gives you some premium currency.  Enough currency that you will be able to do their version of the loot box frequent enough that character collecting, for at least the early game, is sufficient. 

  Auto-play is usually one of my sticking points to games like this.  I understand the importance of it in the mobile market but if the game doesn't need me I start to feel distant.  I think Lagnrisser nailed it here.  Auto-battle is really nice when you are grinding an area. Some side events even give a mad health bonus for having defeated it so you can just start it and walk away.  While it's nice for the grind, you can't necessarily beat new scenarios like this.  The AI is too aggressive and the game too tactical to really set it down.  This to me is a perfect as you an auto-battle is only worthwhile after you have won the scenario at least once.

  So does the game suffer because of this content?  Yes and no.  Yes in the way it gates you from leveling and moving on to fast as sometimes you have to go back and build up the characters you need for a fight but no because the gate isn't that bad.  The game feeds you plenty of the energy you need to do a quest, there are several ways to earn stuff to boost your characters,  and even after a four-hour stint of playing it at one point, I was not stopped from still completing thing if I wanted to.  In fact, after easily 10 plus hours of gameplay, I don't really feel held back at all.

This Game Has Some Production Value

  The music score isn't terrible but I am starting to feel the main screen score get a bit repetitive.  The voice acting is Japanese so I can't tell how great it is but it sounds alright to me.

  One issue I have is that there are two stories that you will have to play through to keep your characters moving.  The main story of the game, which I am starting to get a hold of, and a mode where you play an abridged version of the past games.  The problem is that you have to play them interspersed with one another so I find myself getting a little confused by which enemy belongs in which timeline.  The crazy thing is, I am following them none the less and the writing isn't terrible.  I am finding myself slightly invested and in the freemium mobile world that almost never happens.

  It's a little cluttered on the home screen and there is a lot being thrown at you real early but if you can get past that and want a decent tactics RPG for your phone this one is a pretty decent find.  So decent it got me to write a blog post after taking a six-month hiatus because I still play video games at my age and none of my friends want to talk about them.