Langrisser Re: Incarnation Tensei is the latest title in the Langrisser series that has been developed by Masaya and distributed by Aksys games. The last Langrisser game that has seen release in the US was 15 years ago on the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Langrisser Re is a strategy RPG that has the player playing in 10 on 10 battles consisting of infantry, archers and cavalry avatars that attack each other in a linear fashion. In theory it all sounds good and looked good during previews, but it is executed poorly and an extremely frustrating experience.
The story is about a hero by the name of Ares whose personality is set at the beginning of the game based on the answers that you have chosen out of a series of questions. When the game starts, the hero finds that his village is under attack by an evil empire. When he enters the ruins of a church, he acquires the legendary sword of the Langrisser. The Langrisser is the sword used in all the Langrisser games that holds the powers of Lushiris, the goddess of light. Throughout the game Ares is accompanied by a collection of characters that are each trying to bring about peace in their own way.
In between each battle, the player is given the opportunity to talk to each of the characters to develop a relationship. This was an awkward feature that could either develop a romantic relationship or an icy tolerance between the characters. If you wanted to give 10pt to a hedgehog-like character it would give you some advice. (You read that right.) The advice was always sarcastic and full of sass. The development of a relationship does serve a purpose as it increases the likelihood of that character helping you out in battle. Once you reach a specific scenario, you can confess your feelings. if these feelings are reciprocated, a skill is unlocked for both involved.
The gameplay is turn-based where the player sets the characters in position on a large map. You can use funds to hire mercenaries to help with the fight or purchase upgrades, but funds are extremely limited. The mercenaries are not very tough and do not deal a ton of damage unless they are near the character that they were purchased for. The resulting stat jump is only minimal at best and it limits their movement throughout the map. The strength of the mercenary is not known at the time of purchase as well, which causes you to have to restart the battle if you have made a poor choice. The party size is not that big and will cause you to have to pick and choose which characters to send into battle or just use the default lineup that is given. The battle maps are massive almost to the point of absurdity, creating long bouts of turns where you have to move the character and wait through all the turns until you can move again. This can cause the battles to become extremely tedious and without the option to save, its almost impossible to pick up the game for a quick session. You need a chunk of time to devote to each session.
After dealing with just the set up, the combat comes into play and it is ridiculous how awful it is. The sprites that you have on the map are extremely low resolution and look even uglier when you zoom in on them. The battles consist of little cutscenes between poorly rendered chibi-style character models charging at each other. There is no battle animation between the characters as they stop at an invisible line in the center of the screen, and then something is done resulting in the enemy being dealt damage. The only plus is that there is an option to turn off the horrific animation so that you don’t have to keep watching them through the whole game. The characters level up separately and the opportunity to gain experience is dependent upon the number of stages.
This causes you to prioritize which characters battle Moreno and gain the most experience. Some of the characters will die off in the game as they are not able to keep up with the characters that have more points. Once a character has reached level 10, the character can level up to one or two class choices and that is done 3-4 times throughout the game. Each character has a secret class that can be attained if all of the correct class choices have been made, which adds an element of luck to reach that class. You can start over again in the game with the use of a rune which is obtained during gameplay, but I was not able to find one. I wouldn’t have done it anyway, as I did not want to start all over again.
The game’s AI is absolutely terrible, there is no other way to say it. If you kill the commander of a group of enemies, all of their soldiers will die causing you to lose out on all of the experience of defeating that soldier. It does not help that the commanders have a death wish and are usually the first to attack. In order to gain that experience, you will have to move around the commanders risking damage to attack the enemy soldiers. Another strategy is to use magic to lower the hp below 8 pt so they are forced to heal instead of attacking you, so you can go after the soldiers. It adds another layer of irritation and tedium to an already irritating game.
The storyline is barely there and often times borders on the absurd. An example of which is when you are buying your mercenaries and getting your relationship advice from a hedgehog-like character. The gameplay is flawed causing battles to be a grind fest. The battle cutscenes are the only action and they look terrible. The maps are so big that you literally have to travel almost 5-6 turns worth of gameplay to get to where you need to go. There is no save feature during battles either.
It’s not all bad though. The music adds to the game quite nicely and adds an epic feel to the battles. The voice acting is not bad, even though they only speak the very first part of every text box. During a confession scene, the character is given full dialogue except for Ares, who only speaks the first phrase. The voice actors are able to give the characters personality even with the limited dialogue. There is some replay value with the possibility of multiple endings. I did not pursue them though. Once was enough for me. You can also start over from a finished game, allowing you to carry over all the characters’ levels and items. In conclusion, I did not enjoy this game at all. I tried to find a redeeming quality and only found it in the music and the 3D capability.
Candice ‘GamerGirl’ Wendt
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Developer: Masaya Games
Publisher: Aksys Games
ESRB: T (Teen)
Price: $39.99
Langrisser Re: Incarnation Tensei Official Website: http://aksysgames.com/langrisser/
| Review Score | |
|---|---|
| Graphics |   |
| The sprites on the map are extremely low resolution and the battles consist of little cutscenes between poorly rendered chibi-style character models charging at each other. | |
| Sound | |
| The music adds to the game quite nicely and adds an epic feel to the battles. | |
| Gameplay | |
| The game's AI is absolutely terrible. | |
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| In conclusion, I did not enjoy this game at all. | |
