It sucks that the only game in the Growlanser series to make it to PAL territories was the fifth game but at least the story of Heritage Of War appears to be completely standalone, requiring no knowledge of the previous games in the series, so I was able to dive straight in. Now I have seen gameplay of previous entries before and it seems somewhat different from what Heritage Of War has to offer, however I am unable to judge which has the better combat system, all I will say is that Growlanser Heritage Of War is best described as being an enjoyable mess. The game has a lot of great moments for sure but there are numerous problems that can make the game somewhat aggravating at times. I will say though that most of them are minor issues that don’t really ruin the experience for me, though I can see them being quite bothersome for some.
I think the best thing to cover first would be the game’s combat because it truly is a double edged sword in so many ways. Unlike previous entries where you had to input commands for every character, you can now freely move your main character in real time, giving the illusion that you are playing something along the lines of Final Fantasy XII, however your other party members will either act on their own or require commands to be input by the player and the result of this can be a mixed bag. Sometimes characters will be unable to move when told to because there is an enemy in the way that interrupts the move command, forcing them to auto attack, other times they will be staggered, which means you are unable to give them commands at all, including having them move, this can not only make them completely unusable for the rest of the fight if the staggers stack but it can also mean that they are unable to move away from danger, leading to them getting killed very quickly. In situations like these it is often better to revive them just so they can start with an empty stagger gauge which sounds counter intuitive but in these situations it really is better to let them die than waste heals on them. Sure you could move your main character to attack the enemies that are hurting them but that isn’t always possible in certain missions. Ultimately though, I didn’t really find this to be too much of a nuisance personally as I was able to find ways to circumvent these issues.
Other things that can be considered a bit of a nuisance at times is being blocked by certain enemies… or allies, though on the plus side, you can use this to your advantage to block enemies too. The whole combat system is rather unintuitive in how you are expected to utilize its mechanics but if you can get over this, there’s a lot of fun to be had in regards to coming up with interesting, albeit unusual strategies to complete certain missions. Speaking of which, pretty much all of the major fights are classed as missions and these missions have certain conditions that can lead to varying results. Sometimes you can fail a mission and get off scott free, other times you will be greeted with a game over screen. It’s difficult to know which conditions will lead to a game over and which will simply let you carry on after a failed mission. There are also the mission clear and mission complete conditions. Mission Clear is what you get when you don’t fail a mission, whereas mission complete yields more bonuses to experience, money and character affinity but to get a mission complete you have to satisfy additional conditions on top of merely preventing a failed mission.
This is where things get kind of complicated because there is no indication of what conditions are required to get a mission complete and one mission in particular requires you to prevent an object from being thrown twice which is an absolute ball ache. The thing about this mission that sucks is that the conditions for reaching a mission complete are unknown to just about everyone, even the guide on GameFaq’s doesn’t tell you how to get it. That being said however, if it wasn’t for a guide, I would have no hope getting any of the mission completes because there is no way of knowing how to acquire them. There is a conditions section in the main menu which details the conditions required for victory as well as the defeat conditions but that’s it. For this reason I highly recommend using a guide for this game just to find out what the mission complete conditions are before a fight, that way you can set yourself up for a greater challenge with greater satisfaction upon completing a mission. You don’t have to read the boss strategies if you don’t want to, I mean it’s more fun to come up with your own after all so don’t feel like you’re cheating by using a guide because if you skip past the strategies section then you’re not spoiling the challenge for yourself.
It’s always satisfying to see this show up on screen
The missions themselves are a mixed bag, some are laughably easy, some are really challenging and satisfying to overcome, while others are cheap, frustrating ordeals which can be quite bothersome, especially for those not following a guide, particularly the mission where you have to prevent the object from being thrown twice, fuck that mission. There were many times where I had to follow a guide just to figure out how to complete a mission after failing it previously and found out that it was actually a lot easier than I originally thought. For example, the very first mission requires you to save all of the allied soldiers on the map, at first it sounds like the hardest mission ever since the number of enemies on the field are so overwhelming that by rescuing one of them, another will likely die. Upon reading the guide, I found out that you can simply walk up to them and grab the item on their corpse which apparently counts as “saving” them. It felt like a slap in the face after I had spent hours trying to come up with an effective strategy to rescue them all whilst preventing a mission failure. There are many other missions later on in the game that have this problem and it can be extremely aggravating to deal with.
That being said however, some of the missions are actually quite fun to do. There’s a great variety of missions available to you throughout the game, some of which are made considerably easier if your characters have certain skills available to them but can be quite difficult if they don’t. There’s quite a bit of freedom to come up with your own strategies to deal with situations and this is where the main appeal of the game’s combat comes into play. I found the huge scale battles to be the most fun missions personally as you felt like you were completely overwhelmed, these missions can take seemingly ages and can often feel like a battle of attrition at times but this makes it all the more satisfying to see a mission complete appear on the screen after a long struggle. The ability to move around freely with your character while your allies obey your commands makes for a more dynamic experience than your average strategy game and this does wonders for the game’s pacing as regular battles on the field go by so quickly you’ll barely get to hear the battle music play out. This carries over to the missions as well as while they do emphasize strategy, they don’t feel like a slog to get through like your typical tactical RPG since every character moves and acts quickly. If you’re looking for a fast paced strategy RPG then Growlanser Heritage Of War might be the game you are looking for but if the issues are too bothersome, it may be better to play a synchronized time strategy game like Valkyrie Profile 2 or Resonance Of Fate. Of course Growlanser doesn’t suffer from the same issues real time strategy games suffer from as there are only 4 characters to manage as well as the fact that you are able to pause the game whenever you want, so you can take your time to plan things out. Overall, while the system works well enough, you kinda have to accept the messiness of it to be able to enjoy it.
I hope you like character management, because there’s plenty of it to do here.
Now another thing that may seem daunting at first is the plates system. Now I absolutely adore this system since it allows for so much freedom in how I can customize my characters abilities, the downside is that it can be rather tricky to get used to and can feel quite overwhelming at times. Characters will learn skills so rapidly that it can feel like a chore changing your plates every 5 minutes. Thankfully any knack points received after killing enemies will not be wasted if you forget to change your flow from a maximized plate path and they will carry over when you change flow to another plate path, filling in all of the plates that aren’t maximized in that path. So there’s no pressure to constantly fiddle around with the plates. Later on you can buy items which allow you to swap and replace plates as well as the ability to change the direction of the plate’s path, so if you make a mistake, you can always correct it later. It should be noted though that it’s important to stack multiple plates in order to maximize the potential of a skill, though it’s important to be aware that there is a level cap for each skill, so be sure not to waste too much space by placing too many of the same plates. Any plate that is currently in the flow receives a buff, which can make the moves located in that plate considerably more powerful than others and this can make certain missions a breeze if you exploit them, that being said however, once you change flow to another set of plates, these buffs will disappear and will make the skill considerably less useful, so it’s important to change the flow to reflect the strategy you wish to utilize in a fight. With all this in consideration, I think that the plate system shouldn’t prove to be too troublesome for people who are well versed in the deeper JRPG character management systems out there but newcomers may be turned away by the complexity of this system, though I would argue that it’s nowhere near as complicated as Valkyrie Profile 2’s rune system and so long as you don’t focus too much on figuring it out, I don’t think it’s a huge deal, especially since the difficulty of the game outside of a few missions is surprisingly easy.
Visually the game looks like an early 2000’s Playstation game which may be off putting to some but i honestly didn’t mind this personally. Now sure, I get that many people prefer to have character sprites over these dated looking character models but as someone who grew up with Playstation games in the 2000’s, it doesn’t really bother me. Some of the locations can feel a bit grimy but I suppose it fits in with the gritty nature of the game’s narrative. While the visuals may be dull for the most part, the anime artwork more than makes up for it as it has that 90’s anime vibe that is so incredibly striking, you forget about all of the bland landscapes and dated character models. Honestly though, I wouldn’t say that the visuals are terrible as a whole, though outside of the anime artwork, there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about them.
The music is one of those cases where it gets the job done but doesn’t particularly excel in any way. There are some catchy tracks to listen to throughout the game which is nice and all but some of the music is kinda bland, particularly in dungeons, my god, those dungeons have such boring music. Thankfully the towns have some much nicer tracks. The field area music in particular has an insanely catchy song, probably the catchiest song in the game, which is good because you’ll be hearing it a lot. Much like the visuals, I can’t exactly say the soundtrack as a whole is terrible but it doesn’t particularly stand out as being something special.
What surprises me the most about Growlanser Heritage Of War is how the game handles its story. It’s always great when a game’s story is told from multiple perspectives and Growlanser Heritage Of War manages to do this so damn well that I honestly found it to be the most engrossing aspect of the game. Not only does this allow for so much world building, but it also allows players to become attached to all the major characters prior to the events of the main role to make the experience of the main story so much more impactful. There’s so much nuance to these characters in how their values shape their actions, as well as the emotional responses they present in each situation. It really makes the characters feel human, in the sense that they are both morally ambiguous and flawed. Even the villains, as despicable as they may be can be somewhat sympathetic with their ideals, despite their horrible actions. I really like how the game doesn’t shy away from letting the player make their own judgments as opposed to pushing for a biased stance on things, especially since it all ties into one of the most thought provoking plot twists I’ve ever seen which may or may not cause you to rethink your judgment. On top of all this, the story never drags for too long and is broken up evenly with gameplay sections. There are also a lot of choices you can make in the game that can affect your affinity levels for each character and this ultimately affects which endings become available to you.
There’s some choice words in the translation, which are always nice to see.
I should also note that there are numerous side quests, some of which are completely missable which is yet another reason why I recommend using a guide because I found myself having to reload saves due to being unable to get certain character’s ultimate weapons due to missing a certain event or item. Early on this can mean a lot of backtracking is required but later on there is a fast travel option that comes in handy. The side content is definitely worth doing as you can get some great rewards for doing it, plus some of them involve side stories that can be interesting to see too.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing Growlanser Heritage Of War despite having a few minor frustrations with it at times. It’s definitely a game you need patience for in order to fully appreciate what it brings to the table. I think you kinda need to go into this game expecting something a little different, if you’re looking for a more conventional JRPG experience, I don’t think this is the ideal game for you as it clearly caters to people who want something fresh. Then again, if you are looking for something fresh and aren’t bothered by the game’s messy design, it may be worth a shot.
They just had to throw that in there didn’t they…
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