GOTD – Warsong
Warsong (Langrisser 1) – Strategy / RPG (GEN)
Treco / Masaya / Career Soft
This game had to be my first entry, since it’s a game that grabbed and has kept my attention for many years – but nobody’s heard of it.
Why? It’s rare. It took a good deal of time to track it down before eBay and online used retailers kicked up, but
it was worth it.
What’s this game got on other Strat-RPGs? It has a robust enough, and fun enough, system that after playing this game, I never went back to Shining Force.
Warsong, simply put, has a strategic beauty to it that isn’t found in more standard T-RPGs, because it adds a critical element, namely troops. Whereas other games can only bring across the concept of a small skirmish at best, Warsong can – and does – pull off a “War”.
This is somewhat helped by the neat-looking cutscenes that take place whenever you enter battle – shown in the top two screenshots below. Commanders are shown by themselves, while troop numbers are based on the health of the unit. The class system branches – another feature which is quite nice – and better commanders get more variety of troops and add higher bonuses to them.
The game isn’t especially hard(it is possible, albeit hard, to win without hiring troops), but it does have a learning curve. Remakes and sequels exist, but from what I’ve played, nothing tops the original. Der Langrisser will do in a pinch, but it was difficult for me to track down even in Japan.
Screenshots:
