Langrisser II

"Very good game. A big improvement over the original"

For a rather unsophisticated machine, the Sega Genesis/Megadrive, the creators and programmers of Langrisser II managed to make a very solid game. This game is a vast improvement over its predecessor and features a lot of new troops and classes as well as running a whole lot faster.

It was a very bad decision on Masaya's part to decide to not release this game into the North America market. Like Final Fantasy V and other games it would have done VERY well here (even better if they didn't hire Treco, the company that butchered Langrisser 1 in their translation).

Compared to its predecessor, Langrisser, the graphics have been vastly improved. The character and troop graphics are far larger than they were and are drawn in japanese anime style. The map terrain looks a lot better than it did in Langrisser I (terrain no longer has very few colors and you don't see mountains that look like the programmer was high when he made them). Enemies and Characters have portraits that look very good for the system.

The game is still somewhat slow (like its predecessor) but this time you can speed it up somewhat enough that you wont be bored stiff waiting for your guys to move. If you go into the config menu you can make the game faster by disabling the anime, giving troop movement a speed boost and making the menus faster.

The music in this game is THE best music I have heard for any 16-bit system out there, some music themes are so good that you will find yourself not clicking dialogue away so Eggbert doesn't teleport himself away and take his really cool musical theme with him. The sounds are really cool as well. The sounds the soldiers make in battles are a whole lot more realistic this time around.

The makers of Langrisser 2 have managed to make this game exceeding hard, still. A few levels in the game are almost frustratingly hard. The very last couple of levels are very hard and you will be restarting them over and over trying to not lose.

The story is very good as well. There is a huge cast, ranging from the Hero Elwin to his very distant cousin Sherry to the misguided Leon who becomes obsessed about defeating Elwin. With a total of 27 (+3 secret and one super secret) this game takes a long time to pass for a 16-bit game and even though it has a linear story you will find yourself replaying it over and over playing the game in different ways.

All in all Langrisser 2 is one of the best Sega Genesis games out there and its better than a lot of Playstation and Playstation 2 games out there. It might not be very high-tech but it has very high quality. Its only real problem is that it never came to North America.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/12/01, Updated 08/12/01