"A fun and innovative hybrid"

Warsong is a fantasy game with both role-playing and strategy elements in it. Originally, it was called Langrisser, but was changed to Warsong when it was translated into English. There have been four sequels to it, but none have been released in the US.

Story: 6.5/10
''Prince, you will become a great king.''
You are Garett, a prince whose father's kingdom was invaded. The empire who attacked you was looking for a legendary sword, said to give its possessor magical power. As Garett tries to enlist allies and recover the sword, he and the player will learn more about the sword and its long history.

The story is told through a combination of paragraph-long introductions at the beginning of each scenario, and dialogue between various characters. Warsong's story is solid, but not very interesting - almost all gamers have seen the evil, oppressive empire in one form or another. The enemy generals you run into are also rather cliche - powerful, arrogant fools who you would love to stick a sword into. There are a couple of interesting plot twists in there, but other than that the story is pretty dry. Garett does most of the talking, and he rarely says anything interesting. The other characters generally don't speak after they have joined your party, leaving you stuck with Garett barking out orders and very little else.

Audio: 8/10
''Where is that voice coming from?''
The music alternates between your turn and the enemy's. It is pretty good, fast-paced enough to add to the battle action but not so loud or strong that it distracts you from it. Of the other tunes, the most notable is the ending theme - it conveys the sense of a bittersweet victory extremely well, and is one of the best things I have heard on the Genesis.

There isn't a very great variety of sounds - all attacks make the same sound when they miss, a short metallic click as the projectile bounces off the intended target. Characters make the same moans whenever they get hit (or screams, if it's a female character). Most of the spells also get the same sound effect.

Graphics: 7/10
''Fire, the city is on fire!''
The units are small and not very detailed, but what else do you expect from a game made in 1991? Character portraits are surprisingly well drawn, and the spell effects look pretty cool. This game has the whole range, including fireball, blizzard, tornado, and earthquake - all for your viewing pleasure (well maybe not earthquake, all that shows is the screen vibrating). Character attacks consist of energy bolts, fireballs, or lance heads... they look okay, but like the characters themselves they're too small and dull to be anything more than that.

Gameplay: 9.5/10
''You are all just puppets on a string!''
This is what sets this game apart. In each scenario, you must fight against a group enemy forces. Objectives vary from killing everything, to defeating the enemy leader, to escaping off a certain edge of the map. Things don't always unfold as planned, and there are plenty of surprises in store for you as you hack your way through the world.

In any scenario, you can have up to eight characters. Each character gets different types of troops, and all troops and character classes have their own strengths and weaknesses. You have to choose carefully, based on what the enemy has. Additionally, you have to take into account terrain - do you want to attack an enemy that is sitting on a mountain, where it will have a large combat bonus? Should you charge forward to kill the opposing army quickly, or let it come to you so you can trap it in a narrow pass? Warsong gives you plenty of tactical decisions to make.

Of course, the game still retains the central role of characters found in an RPG. Only characters can cast spells, and all troops have to be within a certain range of their character leader in order to fight effectively. As if this wasn't already enough reason to value those characters, there is no 'revive' option in Warsong. Troops can be replaced, but a slain character is gone forever.

Experience is gained by defeating enemy units. At every tenth level, a character changes into a more powerful class. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, and experimenting with different classes is one of the most fun parts of the game. For example, a fighter can choose between a knight (high attack, low defense) or a lord medium attack and defense). Once a knight levels, it can become a knight master and gain a new spell, or a grand knight, sacrificing the magic but gaining arguably the best stats a hero can have in the game.

There are only two complaints I have about the gameplay. One is that, towards the end, the enemies stop using ordinary troops. This means that everything becomes a question of brute force, not which types of units you are using. Oftentimes, you're better off going in with heroes only, no troops - this takes away from the whole strategic aspect of the game, and makes things very tedious.

The second is that the AI is extremely predictable, and not very smart either. It will get hung up on the smallest obstacles, and refuses to send leaders into combat even if they could wreck the opposition. In fact, the AI pays no heed to the opposition at all - it just goes berserk regardless of its chances of winning.

Replay: 7
''Not you again!''
Because of all the different character classes, you can play this game several times over and still discover something new. Unfortunately, a few of the characters get very limited class changing options - four of your leaders receive a grand total of one choice throughout the entire game.

There are also several different ways to attack each scenario. Terrain, unit choices, and maneuvering are all things you can play around with to your advantage. But you'll do the same scenarios every time - Warsong is very linear, with no side-questing or backtracking to previous areas for lost experience.

Challenge: 8
''You don't deserve to be my enemy!''
The AI is very predictable, so any challenge this game presents comes from how strong the enemies are. Fighting against some of the tougher bosses can be quite interesting, because they are are stronger than any one of your characters will ever be, requiring you to use teamwork and finesse. For enemies where this is not the case, things can get extremely boring as you watch each enemy unit line up to get killed - compared to individual strength, numbers mean little. Thankfully, you can usually bypass this by gunning for enemy leaders and skipping ahead to the harder scenarios.

Paradoxically, being unable to bring back defeated characters sometimes makes things easier. Focusing on a small number of characters to feed experience and powerful items to is often more effective than having a large, well rounded party. But going through with only Garett would not be much fun, so those who wish to protect everyone will be in for another challenge that (hopefully) adds to their enjoyment of the game.

Overall: 8
''My mission is now complete...''
Although it has some flaws, Warsong is a very fun game. It tries to be innovative and succeeds, blurring genre lines and adding some other cool aspects not seen outside its series. Anyone who enjoyed playing it should try to get their hands on one of the sequels as well.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/27/01, Updated 11/27/01