Warsong / Langrisser

Platform	Sega Genesis / TurboGrafx-16 / PC
Genre	Strategy RPG
Release Year	1991 / 2020
Rating	⭐⭐⭐⭐⚝
Added	2025-Jun-02

Langrisser is the dark-horse of classic strategy RPGs along side Shining Force and Fire Emblem. Its success was limited and localizations were infrequent. Warsong is the version of Langrisser we got; it's a straight translation with a couple of graphical tweaks and few changes besides.

What sets Langrisser apart is its focus on squads. You control commanders with buyable units assigned to them. You can move those units freely, but if they move more than a couple tiles from the commander, they receive stat penalties. Also permanent commander loss encourages guarding your commanders carefully.

Unlike Fire Emblem, you don't get replacements. You can field every commander in most scenarios, so losing one is a permanent power loss. It's brutal; they move away from this system for Langrisser II. Reseting in the face of commander loss isn't too punishing, though. Scenarios are about fifteen minutes, and actually killing a commander takes some doing. It ends up feeling balanced.

The PC remake is an entirely different game with branching paths, different systems, and no permadeath. As an intro to the series it's much nicer than Warsong.

I love them both.