A look back at: Growlanser III: The Dual Darkness

They say this is a strategy game, but is it really?

Honestly, this game has a lot of typical JRPG qualities on its own merit, the dungeons, character interactions, and general moving around. Not to mention somehow being a prequel to the entire series despite being the third Growlanser game. Its battle system isn't really any different than it was in II, just halving the characters in the party and providing more notable random encounters. Of course, given the victory and defeat conditions as well as multiple endings and relationships, I guess there is some value in it being a strategy game.

So yes, nothing much to say on gameplay, it's pretty much the same but with less actual fighters this time around. Though character archetypes do have me confused. You expect Viktor, the big science guy, to be the sturdiest, but it is instead Annette, who actually can tank encounters with heavy armor. Plus Viktor and Yayoi will easily fall out of favor for Monika as far as long range characters go, since she joins earlier and is much faster. Many of the fights here can be somewhat annoying, again I strive for mission complete but due to some special circumstances, some of the battles will not allow this unless you're on a New Game +. The randomized dungeons are kinda neat though.

Now I liked Growlanser II's overall scheme with its main character. He's one who actually speaks, and one who has ambitions. Slayn Wilder in this game I'm in two places on. For one, he's a silent protagonist (Wein was the only non-silent one), but he also has this split personality in Gray Gilbert, who's actually chatty but really is notable only for some past interaction as a mercenary or something. The whole deal with Slayn being a spirit messenger can be difficult to come by, and I guess Raimy is helpful* in some missions. The whole civil war aspect is quite interesting to say the least, where at least two enemy generals can be quick to join sides, and there's also Michelle, who's dilemma makes her the most interesting character at all.

This game does have its shortcomings and pulls back into the cliches the rest of the series actually portrays, but manages to stay nice overall.

* oh yeah, and Growlanser II didn't have the fairy sidekick thing. Apparently that was in other games. Also Carmaine, a playable character in II, was the main protagonist in the first game but was silent and apparently had a fairy companion for god-knows-what reason as well.

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.