"A very interesting gameplay style even after all these years."

As a hardcore rpg fan, I always love to try whatever relates to rpg. When I used to play Der Langrisser on those old good days of mine, it opened the way to discover how much beautiful the world of strategy role playing games to me. One of the most remarkable and unforgettable games to me is Warsong, Der Langrisser's prequel. Although I played DL first, Warsong was actually released 4 years before DL. When I found that a friend's relative has got this game in his collection, I "snatched" it right away from him. Knowing the nature of this kind of games, I wanted to keep it as much as possible with me, so I beaten only one scenario everyday. After I finished the game, I replayed right away. Amazingly enough, I managed to master it fast, as I did DL. Sure thing, this game worth a try. If you can find it on a rom, it's really a nice pick up to reckon with.

Now to go deeper into every single of why Warsong is a good game:

Story: 10/10
Yep. Epic story, awesome by all means. The story of the young prince (Garret/ Ledin) of Baltia kingdom. You start as Garret during a monster attack on Baltia. Alongside his loyal master (Baldarov/ Volkov), the prince escapes the castle to call for reinforcment from their neighbour Sulras kingdom, and it's governer (Carleon/ Hawking). On the way he meets a young priestess (Mina/ Kris) who happens to be on her way to Sulras too, and the rest is… Secret. Through the rest of the game, they together have to defeat the monsters and recover the sacred sword Warsong (LANGRISSER), in order to fight the dark prince (Ganelon/ Bozel) and restore peace to the land. Truly, something neat to watch on TV one of these days.

Characters: 8/10
Warsong has got up to 10 playable characters to aid you through your quest, but only 3 or 4 characters that has a good background story. Others are rip-offs, but the game was able to deliever them into a nice package. Not a total waste huh?

Graphics: 5/10
Nothing special, not bad either. Although the characters sprites and colors are kinda blury, the well detailed scenarios is something else to mention. The characters design is not something to mention as wow, but it's not that bad either.

Music/Sounds: 9/10
Seriously, Warsong music is very well composed and memorable. Sometimes, after you finish your turn, you might like to take sometime before the enemy's turn just to listen to the nice music that is playing. And although that the sounds effects are weird, they totally fits into the game's atmosphere, and leave it's special mark on it.

Gameplay: 9/10
You will really enjoy commanding your characters through the 20 scenarios and organize their troops in every mean necessary to achieve your goal through the 20 playable scenarios. You will also love to find out units weakness towards other units, and the different classes/troops you can assign for each character. SRPGs really worthy.

Replay value: 6/10
Because Warsong has only 20 easy-to-master scenarios, in addition to the fact that the story is always the same on every gameplay, this might lead to boredom fast. But, due to the fact that you can beat your second game with different characters classes, thus giving you something different on your next gameplays. Besides, playing a single character Garret challenge is always worthing it, and will keep you pumped up.

Well, the game is good, none-hard, and, SRPG. I suggest you run for it once at least, even if you are not into this kind of games, the story alone worth it.

Overall rating: 7/10.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/17/08

Game Release: Warsong (US, 04/25/91)