A look back at: Growlanser II: The Sense of Justice

This is a game which really wants you to like its characters.

And this is also a game that falls under tactical RPG yet follows quite a bit of real-time strategy and traditional RPG values. The whole concept of ring weapons is alright, getting three gem slots actually makes things quite interesting. Having up to eight characters with multiple possible paths makes things quite interesting, and we also have different battle conditions. I actually strived for Mission Complete so much I didn't play through the game properly unless I actually did them all that way. The movements of characters tends to make some escort missions difficult, coupled with ranged attackers, and the management of the overall team could be quite overwhelming.

The one thing that bothered me about Growlanser is that I couldn't really play its first game due to lack of translation. So I settled with 2, which unfortunately spoiled quite a bit of the first game and even gets three characters, including the main one from the previous game, as party members. Though in fairness, all characters are done pretty well. Wein, this game's protagonist, is not only the only main character in the series to NOT be a silent protagonist, but is one that can be tweaked rather well and the one that makes the decisions. Sadly, he's also the one character that cannot fall or the mission fails, no matter which mission it really is. The other character do have nice personalities overall, Hans has the cheerfulness, Xenos always caring for his sister, and Arieta in general. Even Wolfgang, who's actually a villain, wants something pretty agreeable, an actual democracy in a land of kingdoms. Max is also an interesting character, almost entirely because of what he'd end up being devoted to and an apparent impostor of him that is, well, not on his side anyways, but it makes the player think it's the real Max. And other minor characters certainly make themselves rather well-known. I've certainly enjoyed what this game offered, and the potential character development options that resided in them. Although the thing with the mulitple character endings having to go through the game multiple times meant I really wasn't gonna figure out each and every ending, the curiosity in me certainly will spark next time I decide to have fun with this.