Langrisser Re:Incarnation Tensei takes place in a flooded world and the story's protagonist is a man with the Sacred Sword Langrisser, looking to reunite himself with a childhood friend, while fighting the empire's army. The battle system is the same as known from other Langrisser titles, but with 10-on-10 battles fought by super-deformed 3D characters serving as units. The units consist of Infantry, Cavalry, and Archers.
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This might be one of the worst SRPGs ever made. It's as if somebody at Masaya saw Fire Emblem: Awakening and said "Just make something like that, I don't know." Every aspect of a once well-regarded series has been butchered to be unrecognizable. I know Langrisser wasn't a franchise with much appeal outside of Japan, but it's still unfortunate this was probably some people's first introduction to it. It reeks of desperation to co-opt trends, but fails to actually do anything enjoyable.
Satoshi Urushihara's art has always been a bit goofy, with the barbie doll-like proportions. But here, it has been replaced with generic nu-shonen abominations. Urushihara's art feels like it is from the Italian Renaissance in comparison. There are a ton of disgusting, pedophilic design choices such as putting what appear to be children into hyper-sexualized lingerie (just like Awakening, which I haven't forgotten). Within the first 15 minutes, there were three such cases of these designs. This was not an isolated decision, but rather a reflection of the trend of lowest-common denominator otaku bait.
The disconnect between this game and its predecessors almost makes me feel as if they took Langrisser and its mechanics and pasted it onto a concept they had for an original IP. We have seen when long-standing series need to reinvent themselves to face changing market realities. Awakening and later Three Houses were successful applications of careful market research used to revitalize their dying franchise. Re:incarnation Tensei has none of the nuance such games employ in bridging the old and new. You have a bare approximation of classic Langrisser combat, some of the music, the sword is called the "Langrisser Sword." Yet that is all hampered by the horrid presentation, and the baffling design choices. Listening to As a Knight play for 15 seconds during the results screen for a map had me looking like the wojak pulling at his eyes in despair. The complete disconnect between the music and the game itself is so stark: hearing music composed for a game full of genuine artistry be paraded on the rotting, bloated corpse of the franchise at that point in time.
The art is hideous and the actual battle animations are just as bad. The overworld sprites show just a bit of promise- that is, until you start combat and its two Funko Pops running at eachother with a total of 5 frames of animation between them. Not joking here. They run at eachother and wiggle a bit. That's the ENTIRE combat animation. It is shockingly lazy considering the game this is trying to bite off of. The captain units, which traditionally have a squadron surrounding them, fight alone and it looks jarring during the combat sequence. Your recruits are still depicted as full squadrons- why did they change how the leader units work? It just looks embarrasingly bad; as if some sort of extreme budget cut happened midway through development. I wouldn't be suprised if that is what actually happened, considering how the game runs.
Performance is terrible across the board. The game itself seems to struggle to render even these sparse animations. The maps are so large, the map grid seems to cause the game to hang as well. This might just be a quirk of emulation accuracy, but the game is just so damn slow it reminds me of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. I could only make it through about 3-4 maps before I realized there was no possible way I could ever enjoy playing it.
And last but not least, the insane design choices that drag this game from just a terrible spin-off to something uniquely bad as an SRPG. Gone is the tight gameplay and strategic depth of the original series. There is a Final Fantasy Tactics-styled turn order that does not lend to the large sorties of Langrisser at all. Then there is the issue of the huge maps with no way to speed up or skip enemy movement, leading to inflated and tedious enemy phase times. This is hardly atypical of Langrisser titles, but here's the unique kicker- you cannot save your progress mid-game whatsoever. In a 2015 title with huge maps and long enemy phases, you can't stop playing or you'll be forced to do the entire thing over again.
Langrisser is always going to be a bit of an acquired taste when it comes to both its macro- and micro-strategy, but had this been my first introduction to any of it I would have given up on SRPGs altogether. Avoid this game and continue to pray with me for a world where we don't have to endure lolicon fetishes in our tactical RPGs anymore.
Satoshi Urushihara's art has always been a bit goofy, with the barbie doll-like proportions. But here, it has been replaced with generic nu-shonen abominations. Urushihara's art feels like it is from the Italian Renaissance in comparison. There are a ton of disgusting, pedophilic design choices such as putting what appear to be children into hyper-sexualized lingerie (just like Awakening, which I haven't forgotten). Within the first 15 minutes, there were three such cases of these designs. This was not an isolated decision, but rather a reflection of the trend of lowest-common denominator otaku bait.
The disconnect between this game and its predecessors almost makes me feel as if they took Langrisser and its mechanics and pasted it onto a concept they had for an original IP. We have seen when long-standing series need to reinvent themselves to face changing market realities. Awakening and later Three Houses were successful applications of careful market research used to revitalize their dying franchise. Re:incarnation Tensei has none of the nuance such games employ in bridging the old and new. You have a bare approximation of classic Langrisser combat, some of the music, the sword is called the "Langrisser Sword." Yet that is all hampered by the horrid presentation, and the baffling design choices. Listening to As a Knight play for 15 seconds during the results screen for a map had me looking like the wojak pulling at his eyes in despair. The complete disconnect between the music and the game itself is so stark: hearing music composed for a game full of genuine artistry be paraded on the rotting, bloated corpse of the franchise at that point in time.
The art is hideous and the actual battle animations are just as bad. The overworld sprites show just a bit of promise- that is, until you start combat and its two Funko Pops running at eachother with a total of 5 frames of animation between them. Not joking here. They run at eachother and wiggle a bit. That's the ENTIRE combat animation. It is shockingly lazy considering the game this is trying to bite off of. The captain units, which traditionally have a squadron surrounding them, fight alone and it looks jarring during the combat sequence. Your recruits are still depicted as full squadrons- why did they change how the leader units work? It just looks embarrasingly bad; as if some sort of extreme budget cut happened midway through development. I wouldn't be suprised if that is what actually happened, considering how the game runs.
Performance is terrible across the board. The game itself seems to struggle to render even these sparse animations. The maps are so large, the map grid seems to cause the game to hang as well. This might just be a quirk of emulation accuracy, but the game is just so damn slow it reminds me of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. I could only make it through about 3-4 maps before I realized there was no possible way I could ever enjoy playing it.
And last but not least, the insane design choices that drag this game from just a terrible spin-off to something uniquely bad as an SRPG. Gone is the tight gameplay and strategic depth of the original series. There is a Final Fantasy Tactics-styled turn order that does not lend to the large sorties of Langrisser at all. Then there is the issue of the huge maps with no way to speed up or skip enemy movement, leading to inflated and tedious enemy phase times. This is hardly atypical of Langrisser titles, but here's the unique kicker- you cannot save your progress mid-game whatsoever. In a 2015 title with huge maps and long enemy phases, you can't stop playing or you'll be forced to do the entire thing over again.
Langrisser is always going to be a bit of an acquired taste when it comes to both its macro- and micro-strategy, but had this been my first introduction to any of it I would have given up on SRPGs altogether. Avoid this game and continue to pray with me for a world where we don't have to endure lolicon fetishes in our tactical RPGs anymore.
Malo