An unexpectedly satisfying mobile free-to-grind title based on a 90s Japanese cult classic.

Having always been fairly skeptical of mobile games that attempt to cash in on beloved classic franchises, Langrisser Mobile came as a pleasant surprise. I’ve always been of the opinion that when compared to mainline titles, mobile titles tend to have shallow gameplay and a shallower story. Even when done well (e.g. Fire Emblem Heroes), there’s always a niggling feeling that the time and money spent on a mobile game would have been better spent developing a non-mobile title in said franchise. Thankfully, Langrisser Mobile managed to overcome my petty cynicism and deliver a fairly robust strategy RPG experience in spite of its mobile nature.

The original Langrisser was a Japanese strategy RPG released on the Sega Genesis in 1991. It later came to be released on a variety of other platforms, including Sega Saturn, Playstation and even PC. It was also eventually released in North America under a completely different title, Warsong. Since then Langrisser has had a rocky past in the west, with only one more game being translated, albeit unofficially so. Langrisser II (or Der Langrisser) was translated into English three times on two consoles, and subsequently developed a small cult following in the west. Outside of the west the series was quite a bit more popular. Many of the sequels made their way to China and Korea thanks to a combination of official and unofficial localisations, and the series developed a large fanbase in said countries. This makes it less surprising that Langrisser Mobile is actually developed by a Chinese mobile game studio, rather than a Japanese one.

Story

Originality is obviously not Langrisser Mobile’s strong point. The plot begins with a village being attacked by an evil empire, and three plucky teens fighting the empire off and escaping. From there you can generally guess the rest of the plot: they learn about an evil plot involving the emperor’s advisor and join up with a resistance group. It’s an obvious throwback to the plot of Der Langrisser (and pretty much every old-school JRPG), but the bland main characters do little to carry the predictable plot past this reference. Even after making it all the way to chapter 30, I didn’t really feel any connection to the characters or to the plot. It’s certainly superior to the plot of say, Fire Emblem Heroes, but that’s not really saying much.

One thing that Langrisser Mobile is good at however, is giving the player a rundown of the plots of the original series. This is done via the ‘Time Rifts’, which are maps ripped straight out of the classic games, complete with story cutscenes and remixes of the original music. It’s a very nice touch, especially since the only Langrisser game I had played was Der Langrisser on the SNES, and that was so long ago that I could barely remember the plot. I genuinely enjoyed playing through the time rift much more than playing through the main story, partly because it reminded me of the fact that in you could join the evil empire in Der Langrisser and ruthlessly murder your former comrades, all the while assuring them that you just want world peace. Good times.

The translation can be very hit-or-miss. It’s pretty decent in the time-rift and story, but for some of the events and the character bond missions it seems like the developer used google translate and just couldn’t be bothered editing the results. The game has made bank since releasing in the west, so hopefully they will hire a better translation team going forward.

Combat

Strategy in Langrisser Mobile is fairly straightforward. Each character has several different classes and their own unit of soldiers. As you progress and level these characters, you unlock more classes, skills and unit variations. Similarly to Fire Emblem, each unit type has their own strengths and weaknesses. Infantry beat lancers, lancers beat cavalry, cavalry beat infantry. Archers are strong against flying units, but will quickly get demolished by anything that gets into melee range. Demons are weak to holy units, and mages and holy units don’t have any weakness, but are even more fragile than archers when attacked in melee.

Langrisser Mobile offers a variety of ways to grind up the stats of your various characters and units, and judging by the difficulty of the later maps. To progress through the game you will need to level you characters using EXP potions, outfit all of your characters with items, upgrade said items, upgrade and different unit types, give your characters items to increase their affection, which in turn allows you to further increase their stats. Neglecting any one of these grinds will eventually make the later missions frustratingly hard.

While the first few battles are a cakewalk, the game does little to prepare you for the steep difficulty curve that comes into effect by the time you hit level 30. At that point, the enemy troops will generally have stats equal or higher to yours, and will pretty much always outnumber the 5 characters that you can deploy. There are pros and cons to this difficulty spike, and I’ll start with the pros. This advantage that the enemy has forces you to really put some thought into your moves, requiring you to use all the tricks and tactics available to you. Use of terrain, chokepoints, unit type advantages and characters skills is paramount to clearing the later maps. Building your characters and teams effectively is equally important, as you need a variety of unit types to adapt to different enemy unit compositions. Cavalry to take down infantry, fliers to rush mages, lancers to take hits for your less durable units and so on. The combat system is simple and robust enough that it’s usually easy to think of clever ways to complete objectives.

While I like having to put some thought into my actions, the amount of effort it can take to clear maps that are roughly your level can be fairly taxing. Like most mobile games, Langrisser Mobile expects you to do certain missions on a daily basis to obtain various upgrade materials, and offers daily bonuses for these doing these missions accordingly. Having to concentrate so much for all these daily missions can be pretty taxing, and it’s easy to burn out from the daily grind. A recent update added a buff that takes effect after you’ve cleared a daily mission once, making the daily grind a bit more bearable. That said, it still takes me a little over half an hour to finish the daily missions. Compared to most of the other mobile games I’ve played, this seems like a lot.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer features are fairly comprehensive. There’s a PvP mode wherein you pit five of your characters against five of another player’s favourites and duke it out to see who can increase their rank in the arena, another PvP mode where you can play again a computer controlled team that another player has selected, and a daily cooperative PvE mission that can be played with up to two other players. In addition to this, all daily missions can be played cooperatively as well.

The Gacha

While the game gives you quite a few decent free units early on, Langrisser Mobile is still a gacha game at heart, and one way or another, you’re going to ending rolling for rarer characters through the free in-game currency, or through micro-transactions. There’s a fairly strong guaranteed SSR character available for free shortly after starting the game, and every 10-roll guarantees an SR character, most of which are fairly strong and capable of carrying you through the vast majority of content. Beyond this though, it’s all down to luck.

Visuals and Sound

Despite the original character designer, Satoshi Urushihara, not being involved in the project, the art is still fantastic and manages to really nail that 90s anime aesthetic. The shoulder pads are enormous, the armor is impractical, and half of the characters have bangs larger than their heads. Even if you’re not a fan of the original Langrisser games, the aesthetic should evoke fond memories of early 90s anime/JRPG franchises like Slayers, Record of Lodoss War or Phantasy Star. The background art, in-battle SD art, and effects are less impressive though. They’re nothing special to look at, but they do their job.

The music is full of remixes from the original Langrisser games, most of which sound pretty damn good and will definitely tickle the ol’ nostalgia if you’re familiar with the originals. It would be nice if there was an option to play the original non-remixed music, but that’s definitely a luxury.

Langrisser Mobile is dubbed in both Japanese and English, with Japanese being the default option. I mostly used the Japanese option but briefly switched over to English just to see how it was. For the budget they would have been working with, it’s very impressive. It’s also pretty hit-or-miss, with VAs sometimes hamming it up way more than is necessary or sounding like they just woke up. If you watched a lot of awkwardly dubbed anime from the 90s and early 2000, this might just complete the nostalgia trip for you. Personally though, I found the Japanese dub to be a bit more palatable.

Verdict

Shoddy translation and by-the-numbers story aside, Langrisser Mobile is an excellent example of how a mobile RPG can be challenging without resorting to simply barring player progress with a cheap grindwall. Clever use of tactics rewards players by allowing them punch well above their level and reap the rewards for it. Fans of classic strategy RPGs should definitely give this a try.

Langrisser Mobile is available for free on iOS and Android appstores. There is also a standalone PC client available for download on the Zlongame website for those who find mobile gaming icky.