Preview
Platform:
PlayStation 2Developer:
Career SoftPublisher:
Working DesignsPreviewed by
Richard Brownell on 2003-12-17
Working Designs, the company known for such Role Playing gems as the
Lunar series,
Magic Knight Rayearth, and
Alundra has been hard at work. Perhaps you have noticed the lack of a WD release this year. This was not originally the plan. WD intended to release
Growlanser II: A Sense of Justice in time for the holiday season this year, but Sony, in their infinite wisdom, had other plans. While anybody can guess why Sony thought
Growlanser II and
III must be combined into a single release, the full story behind that decision will likely remain shrouded in mystery. However, the key here is what we will see. I've had a chance to sit down with the
Growlanser II portion of
Growlanser Generations and play it through to completion. If you like strategy RPGs or are a bit curious, read on! This is a game no strategy fanatic can miss.
It has long been debated how RPGs should be judged. Some say that graphics are not a determining factor in their quality and some take that argument even further to say that 2D RPGs are better than newer 3D RPGs. The real reason for these arguments is that these hardcore RPG fans are trying to emphasize other things, such as character design, story, scenarios, and gameplay. It is these aspects of RPGs that Career Soft chose to focus. Made up of employees who produced the
Langrissar series, Career Soft has built quite a reputation for itself in Japan with the
Growlanser games. They are well loved and with good reason. The gameplay presents a unique battle system which seems complex at first, but the learning curve is miniscule.
Growlanser II begins with Wein Cruz, a student at a military academy in the kingdom of Burstein, readying himself for an exam. Wein aspires to be an Imperial Knight, a denouement only a handful of people ever achieve. His teammate for the test, Maximillian Schneider, hopes to learn more about the military's inner workings. He is a pacifist and wants to use his skills and knowledge to be a politician in an attempt to prevent war.
In this training academy, the player is already making the decisions that will shape the story for the rest of the game. Believe it or not, the main character himself can be molded to your desires. After taking a written and applied (battle) test, Wein's battle abilities are determined through the answers to the questions and the tactics used in battle. If the stats resulting are undesirable, simply restart the game and replay until that point.
The battle system is quite unique. It is clear that Career Soft intended the battles to play as in a typical turn-based menu system, but also be bound by the rules of real-time gameplay. At the start of each battle, the player picks actions for each character (including movement alone as an option). The actions/movement then commence, but the game doesn't do each action in turn and then let everybody select the next action once each character is done. Instead, each character has a WAIT bar, which is filled a certain amount depending on the action. Attacks have a varying degrees of WAIT added, but magic tends to be so miniscule that it isn't even noticable. This leads to strategies such as casting a spell and doing a physical attack immediately after it, one of many "tricks" worth learning to beat the game. The drawback on magic is that it does include casting time, which can be quite large for the more advanced spells.
Players will want to be sure to learn all those "tricks" because
Growlanser is a hard game. I may be bad at gaming in general, but my playthrough of
Growlanser II was particularly hard. Many battles may take a few replays to get just right. There are four messages that can occur when a battle is over: "Game Over" usually meaning Wein died, "Mission Failed" meaning the game will continue, but the mission was not successful, "Mission Clear" meaning the mission is a success but perhaps not completely, and "Mission Complete" meaning the mission is a success, all party members are alive, and all conditions are fulfilled. To get the perfect ending, you must get a Mission Complete in every single battle. That is where the difficulty will truly drive you mad and where completists will drool with pleasure.
Leveling up in
Growlanser is a process that won't stand out from other strategy RPGs. Characters receive experience for all attacks and for casting spells. Each major battle usually gives enough experience at the end of each battle to allow all characters to level up. The game seems to be designed so that the party will be just powerful enough to defeat the next major battle. However, Random battles are included and they can be quite useful to level up characters if a battle seems impossible. Simply equip a gem that forces more random battles and walk around on the world map.
Each character has four important sections: stats, skills, magic, and techniques. The stats are the familiar ones such as Attack Power and resistance to certain types of magic. The other three are what makes Growlanser's character system unique. Skills are active at all times on a character. These can be things as simple as increased attack power to a poison attack. Magic uses magic points, much like most RPGs. Magic can do many things from stat changes, attacks on individual monsters, area of effect attacks, and straight line attacks. The key to using magic attacks effectively is the level system. Spells can be cast with power ranging from level one through nine (depending on the character and their level). Spells can be cast at any point in the casting or you can wait for them to fully charge. Techniques are different from both skills and magic. A character has only a small amount of each technique -- usually between one and three. The techniques vary from enhancing an attack to make an automatic critical hit to a "dash" increasing movement to enhancing a spell to make it double the power but cost twice as much. Each character has a different combination of all of these available, but sometimes they can get acquire them through use of special gems.
The major special system of
Growlanser Generations is the ring and gem system. Each character has five things they can equip: one armor, one ring, and three gems. The armor is pretty straight forward. As the game progresses, better armor is available and it costs more money. The ring and gems are what is unique. A ring alters the characters stats to varying degrees and also has three slots for gems. These slots have a number associated with them, which determines the level of gem that can be inserted, from one to nine. Gems are much like the skills mentioned above. They can sometimes prevent status changes, add to certain stats, grant new spells, or a myriad of other things.
Besides battles, players will also be on the world map or viewing story sequences. On the world map, different locations are available depending on the current assignment from the king and if battles are preventing travel to certain areas. At each area, there could be just a description or a list of options. The options usually include gathering information, a shop, and an inn. Non-cities don't have such options and also have the chance of random monster encounters. The story sequences are animated using the battle sprites, but each character has an anime-style character portrait (complete with moving mouth) for when they talk.
After a few of these story sequences, you may wonder if the characters will ever stop talking. The answer is no. Working Designs has included over 7000 voice clips in
Growlanser II alone. The flavor of the voices will appeal to those who are fans of WD's work on past games, as the similar directing is apparent. More voice acting means WD's tradition of outtakes will be larger as well -- so large as to be 22 minutes long. They aren't even censored, so you might find the s-word, the a-word, or even "fuck." Also, expect to hear some of your favorite WD voice actors, including John Truitt.
Working Designs has also taken the time to improve the gameplay a bit. They added button shortcuts with all battle commands and made the game so that it can be played with one hand. The benefits may not be clear at first, but have you ever tried to eat pizza and buffalo wings while playing a game? Of course not; that would ruin the controller. Just keep in mind that playing this one-handed would not be for the same reasons Tecmo included for playing
Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball one-handed.
When an RPG is over, it's over, right? Wrong. In past years, it has been a trend to have some way to transfer something from a completed game to a new game. This sometimes has been levels earned, but in
Growlanser's case, all rings, gems, and armor are transferred. Considering the use of rings and gems is the key to defeating the game effortlessly, this is quite a gift. It makes playing through the game a lot easier and playing through the game is essential to see all the plot lines and to unlock all the extras. In fact, you must play through the game eight times to see everything. The extras even include the above-mentioned 22 minutes of outtakes, character art, and much more.
Following the story detailed above, Wein becomes a knight and begins his duties immediately. He gets two new recruits: Hans and Charlone. These are the first of many that fight along his side in his quest to become an Imperial Knight. Depending on the choices made and the battles won and lost, he may or may not achieve that goal. With a mix of quality translation, pop culture humour, 80's rock song lyrics, a new English and re-edited opening animation, voice acting galore, and a lot of extras,
Growlanser II: A Sense of Justice is sure to impress. Don't forget the best part:
Growlanser II is only one of the games in
Growlanser Generations and GAF will have its preview of
Growlanser III: The Dual Darkness in 2004.
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If you have any questions or comments about
Growlanser Generations, don't hesitate to
email me.
