RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

A continent, sealed off from the rest of the world by powerful barriers, has been plagued by amphibious creatures known as Screapers, causing humans to be pushed inland. This isn’t the end of the troubles though; the land has also begun to decay forcing humans to turn on one another over scraps of land capable of producing crops. Tired of these wars, two orphans by the names of Seldous and Vanette have begun to scour the world, following the legend of a civilization that was able to bring peace and prosperity to the world. Though peace is the ultimate goal, the world is war-torn and full of warriors with their own goals in mind. With the threat of the Screapers and wild monsters as well, the heroes will be going through a lot of battles as they progress towards their goals.

In these battles, commands may be issued to any character in the party, but only the main character can be controlled directly. When controlled directly, he or she can move about the map freely, attacking enemies. Though the battle system is that of a strategy RPG, this is typically sufficient in non-story battles. This leads to the majority of the game’s battles being a bit on the dull side. Fortunately, there are numerous story battles that have much more to offer. In these, objectives and conditions are often more interesting, and they will even sometimes change mid-battle. Some even offer interesting twists, such as using a gate as an offensive tool rather than for its intended purpose. Battles such as these go a long way to make up for bland regular battles, but the balance isn’t anywhere near ideal, especially if the player decides to fight hordes of enemies in order to afford overpriced equipment; there are just too many times where battles become a mindless slaughter that doesn’t test the player in the slightest. At least players can use ordinary battles to mess around with their customizable ability trees. By placing plates that correspond to knacks, spells, and auto-abilities and altering the flow between them, a character’s abilities can change significantly in order to fit the situation. Though there’s rarely a real benefit in investing a lot of effort there except in certain rare situations, it can be fun to mess around with at times. The only real downside is that since ability plates are obtained from equipment, it can become very expensive to keep a good selection on hand.

Despite the flexibility of the skill system and potential for strategy, most of the game isn’t too difficult as long as a decent stock of healing items is kept and other simple precautions are taken. In general, the only real challenges come from story battles with special conditions, such as preventing a certain number of enemies from slipping by or protecting pathetically weak NPCs.

A lot of time, particularly in non-story battles, will be spent with those other than the current main character on auto. The AI settings are quite good, at least as far as magic is concerned. It’s lacking when it comes to knacks, but those are typically best reserved for times when direct control is needed anyway. The rest of the controls and options are pretty standard, nothing especially great or unsatisfactory, except for the useful fast forward ability.

The first thing to note about Growlanser: Heritage of War‘s story is that the player will take the roles of numerous characters from all over the continent before they begin their adventure as the hero. While this will appeal to those who like to get a feel for the perspectives and motives that drive these key players, it does take a lot of time to get the actual story moving. It will be many hours before many characters on box are seen or even born, something that may dissuade players who like to jump right into the action. Once things get moving, the storyline contains several interesting topics, such as bringing peace by threat of force and acceptable sacrifices for the greater good, that many will find interesting. Unfortunately, not all of these good concepts play out as well as they could have. Though many will still find those parts of the story somewhat interesting, these positives are further offset by overused plot devices. For example, the number of times that a vital document or item is stolen, causing the hero’s party to chase them down, becomes ridiculous by the end of the game. There are several noticeable localization errors, especially in optional segments, but it isn’t really that bad given the sheer amount of dialog.

Due to the number of intertwining storylines, Growlanser: Heritage of War is a reasonably long game, though the playtime will vary a lot depending on how the player goes about things. Equipment is so overpriced that players will have to either sell everything they no longer need or spend ages fighting non-story enemies for minimal reward. Even story battles will barely cover the cost of a single piece of equipment by the end of the game. This can really stretch out playtime for completionists or those who like keeping extra equipment around to learn additional skills from as needed. The game itself is fairly lengthy on it’s own, so it will likely take most players between thirty and sixty hours to finish.

As long as the game might be, it does have a variety of music, particularly when it comes to battles. New tracks replace old at one point as well. The music varies in quality, but it’s typically decent enough. There is voice acting as well, though the quality depends on the character.

Switching from sprites to 3D models, Growlanser: Heritage of War brings a new look to the series. Some things, such as the backgrounds, look alright, but there’s a lot that would have probably looked better had sprites been chosen instead, especially since the camera is often zoomed out too far for many details to be made out. Graphical glitches will also occasionally occur during conversations, where characters will often walk through or even stand inside of other characters. On the plus side, the artwork itself is quite good, and there are several anime cutscenes as well, though some will require a bit of extra effort on the player’s part to view.

Growlanser: Heritage of War is definitely not for everyone. The potential of the battle system, along with a number of story battles with dynamic victory and loss conditions, are a plus for those that are tired of games that are overloaded with “Destroy all enemies.” The story also offers a few topics of interest as well, even if it doesn’t do the greatest job of exploring them. That said, both the battle system and story have a number of faults which will become even more pronounced if the aforementioned positives don’t sound especially appealing. As a result, Growlanser: Heritage of War has a narrow target audience who will likely enjoy the game to a degree for what it is, though it’s certainly far from being the best strategy RPG, let alone Growlanser game, but those who aren’t big fans of this sort of game to begin with will likely end up feeling somewhat alienated.