Game 27 - Langrisser II (Stages 22-27)

Finished! I found the late stages were not all that difficult; having an entire team of 4th-class characters with some 5th-class was sufficient.

Stage 22

I found this was the last tricky stage. The beginning is tough because of the meteor users at the center. I was able to take out one with ballistae when he decided to come through the wall at me, but the other one I had to take the long way around.

Bernhardt can either be killed or approached with Jessica; I just took him out again. Now we have Riana and Lana back -- I was going to make one an Agent and one a Summoner, but I only got the Agent.


Stage 23

In this stage you have to find the Holy Rod in one of the rooms and then carry it out (or beat all enemies). If you leave the rod the enemies will try to get it sometimes rather than fighting you, which wastes their turns. Hein has finally gotten Zone, which removes the enemy stat bonuses -- this was a very common and useful spell in L1 PCE but I think they realized how good it was and made it much rarer and harder to get.

Stage 24

I tried to have Lana and Riana use monks in this stage to raise their levels; it's a bit difficult because it leaves them so exposed to the enemies and the monks are pretty weak, but I did manage to get Lana to class 5. Lester sat in the water to distract the other enemies while I went across the bridge.

Stage 25

This is a wide open space with a lot of horsemen. I intended to do a lot of levelling with Phalanxes, but it turned out that I wasn't careful enough about protecting my commanders and many of them died. Rather than restarting I decided just to finish the stage with the remaining units, assuming I was strong enough now to win the game without everyone being at class 5.

Stage 26

On the first turn, I used Hein and Lester's ballistae to eliminate all six of the meteor users hiding in the walls. Once they're all gone the rest of the forces aren't too bad -- Egbert is somewhat powerful and he only took a while because I was trying to use Lana and Riana a lot.





Stage 27 

Final stage. At first I tried to use only the commanders and make a rush for Bernhardt but that obviously didn't work. Next time I played normally and it was pretty easy -- I destroyed Bernhardt's throne with a meteor, then used Magic Arrow and Lightning to get him down to 3 HP. Elwin finished him off.

The final sequence has different endings for each character -- there's a good and best ending based on their kills, and then a bad twist if they died during the game. I don't know the complete formulas but I know this is in Der Langrisser as well.

Wrap-up to follow.

Game 27 - Langrisser II (Stages 15-21)

Stage 15

Ugh, I hate these stages where you have to cross rivers because so many of the units and commanders are bad at it. The main difficulty of the stage, besides that, is that dark priestess Lana comes in with reinforcements. I failed the first time I tried it because I was being too aggressive. There are ballistae on the other bank to frustrate you as well.

On my winning run, I kept everyone back except for Lester and the flying units, who cautiously took out the initial water guys. The reinforcements arrive then, and I dealt with them before moving south. Lana was really hard on this run for some reason and I had to use a lot of effort (and help from Scott and his angels) to take her down.

Once she was gone I crossed on the right side, took out the ballistae, and then dealt with Imelda. I never bothered with the enemies on the left.


Stage 16

This is Leon's last stand. The enemies will generally rush you, and if you try to cross the bridge the wizards in the castle Meteo you. I used Hein's ballistae to take them out, while the rest of my units dealt with the people coming across the bridge. Once everyone is beaten but Lana and Leon, Leon will come down to deal with you himself. I just beat him by ganging up on him with spells and other things, but that means I didn't beat Lana or get the hidden item.


Stage 17 

Emperor Bernhardt. I started out by using spells and ballistae to take out the magicians near the start, and then proceeded slowly forward. Once those initial enemies were gone the rest of the stage was not that hard since the other magic users don't have horrible spells, and Bernhardt and Bozel didn't seem to do much. I finally got Elwin to his 4th class so now I have Scott, Elwin, and Hein at the 4th level. One thing that bothers me about Langrisser is how hard it is to catch up commanders that are behind, because of how ineffective their units and bonuses are.

Bernhardt himself was easy; you can destroy his throne with a Meteo which gets rid of his 40% bonus. I got the items here; the Masaya Sword gives 2x EXP. I gave it to Jessica because I really want her to get to the 4th class but the stat minuses are going to make it hard.

Stage 18

I had the villagers stay put. I left Arlong behind with pikemen to deal with the reinforcements, but he and Keith together were not able to deal with them so I had to eventually use ballistae as well. Other than that this map wasn't too bad. I didn't defeat Lana.

Stage 19

Time to steal a boat. Despite the Meteo casters on the boat itself I didn't find this stage to be overly difficult. I left Jessica and archers back to try to deal with the reinforcements but even so she didn't quite make it to the 4th class.

Stage 20

Finally 4th class for Jessica. This ship-to-ship battle is a bit annoying because of space limitations but the monsters themselves are not that hard. I have heal spells now that can deal with Meteor; that and ballistae can usually remove the threat of the Liches while I deal with the other monsters.

Stage 21 

Ooh this is an annoying stage. I hate any stage where you have to move through water because so many units are slow. I switched the Masayan Sword to Arlong since he's the last person not at their 4th class. This is pretty much the same enemies we've been dealing with; the Golems are new but the strong units of Elwin and other 4th class people are powerful enough to take them down.

6 more stages left.

Game 27 - Langrisser II (Stages 8-14)

Stage 8

This stage is on a big bridge. You have a turn limit, but it's really lenient. Bowmen help with all the flyers, and having my own flying squad helped with the crowded bridge at the left. There are reinforcements that come in. I was able to beat Zolm but Vargas was too difficult so I just let him be. One of his minions killed Elwin and I decided I didn't have the right personnel on that side of the bridge and I didn't feel like restarting or trying to maneuver people all over there.


Stage 9

You have to defend the people in the castle of this stage as a goal but I'm not sure they can actually lose; there are only two squads against them and with the castle people standing on the walls they have really high defense.



Stage 10

Another slime/monster stage. Unfortunately Riana is gone for a while so other people had to fill her shoes with the Guardsmen. You start off against Lester, but once the monsters show up he switches to NPC and helps out a lot against the water enemies. The rest of the water guys you can lure onto the land where they're much easier to defeat.


Stage 11

This was the hardest stage so far. There's an area of fire that keeps expanding, and if you try to play it slowly Jessica will jump out ahead and die. I had to reload many times losing commanders, and even on my winning try the majority of my grunt units died. Apparently there's some bonus if you keep people alive; I haven't seen it yet but maybe it's not actually displayed.


Tornado was a huge help in this stage (both from Hein and the griffon guy). I was able to class up a few people now so I have a Dragon Knight (Sherry) and a Serpent Knight (Lester). Scott made it to High Lord but he left along with Riana.

Stage 12

The ostensible goal is to get the Dark Rod but Egbert filches it before we can get there, so it's just beating the enemies. The initial ghouls that come at you can do a lot of damage if you're not careful; I used some spells to weaken them and then finished them off. I would have liked for Jessica to kill most of the slimes but I couldn't really manage that.

There is a secret level but I decided not to do them this time. They have overpowered items.


Stage 13

This stage felt like a breather after the last few. It's in a town again and there's no real time limit, and the monsters don't rush you. The main difficulty is Vargas, but if you have all your spellcasters against him plus other units he will eventually go down.

Stage 14

I wasn't actually able to do a lot on this stage. The goal is to take the Langrisser before Leon can get to it. This is easy with Sherry as a flier, and in the end I decided to just take it and leave most of the enemies alive -- I hate to give up the XP but I didn't feel like I was strong enough to hold off Leon. Now Hein can use Ballistas, which is very useful.

Stage 15 is not easy! I've already restarted twice and I'll have to do it again but I think I can beat it this time. 

Game 27 - Langrisser II (Stages 1-7)

Langrisser II (ラングリッサ―ＩＩ)
Release Date: 8/6/1994
System: Mega Drive
Developer: Masaya
Publisher:Sega

I decided in the end to play the original version of Langrisser II first. There are at least four significant later versions of this game:

• Der Langrisser (1995) for Super Famicom, which made some changes to the system and introduced a branching storyline
• Der Langrisser FX (1996) for the PC Engine FX, a fully voiced remake of Der with different graphics
• Langrisser Dramatic Edition (1998) for Saturn, which added more routes and remade the graphics again (perhaps based on the Playstation version)
• Langrisser I&II (2019) for PS4, switch, etc. This is a complete ground-up remake.

Langrisser II sticks the closest to the original game. A number of the changes made since Langrisser already appeared in the PC Engine remake of the first game (like the hidden final classes, the shop, and the spell system) so this game feels very familiar to me.

Some of the changes from L1 PCE:

• You can equip three items instead of just one
• The class upgrade paths are much meatier and have more choices
• L1 was vague about how your character gets stronger leveling up, but this time you get actual stat increases.

Stage 1

The main development I immediately noticed is the amount of story. There is far more dialogue than Langrisser 1, and possibly more dialogue than any other game I've played so far.

This stage is somewhat like L1's first stage in that you're not meant to kill all the enemies; your main goal is just to stop Baldo from escaping the map. I took out the units near the starting point and then used Elwin plus Hein's magic missile to take down Baldo before he retreated. I actually died once, but you can save any time you want so you don't have to go back very far if you lose.

Stage 2

Scott joins the team. Here, too, you're not expected to kill everything. There are strategies on how to do so but I just followed the story and escorted Riana out of the back entrance. The only wrinkle is that there is a hidden item (speed boots) so first I had to take Elwin down towards the tough enemies to find it. The annoying part was that Rolan's soldiers kept standing on the spot where the item was. I had to reload once because I was running out of time, but eventually I snatched it up and then headed north to complete the scenario.

Stage 3 

We're still escorting Riana. The enemies on this stage are pretty easy so it's good for levelling -- I got Hein up to his second class (I went with Warlock) and Elwin to level 9. Sherry comes in to help with the boss.

Stage 4 

In this stage we have to protect the head priest of the temple. This might seem imposing but for me the enemies never even reached him. Partway through the map Morgan charms Riana and she starts attacking, but she mostly went after Hein's troops which weren't doing much anyway. Sherry comes in after a while which clears out most of the top enemies. Elwin lost all his soldiers and I took him by himself up to recover the hidden Angel Wing -- fortunately Morgan chased him and wasted his turns. I was not able to beat the horse knights with my forces so I just took out Morgan. Sherry classed up to Shaman and Elwin to Knight. I plan to make most units get their secret classes, but I think I'm going to make Sherry a Dragon Lord.

Stage 5

In this stage several squads run away to the north; I wasn't able to chase them down. The main enemies here are werewolves but they aren't too bad. The horsemen I now have with Elwin help against the soldiers and such.

Stage 6

I split my guys into two on this stage. I had Hein with his bowmen go after the fliers, and later the Assassin reinforcement with help from Keith (who shows up as an NPC). The rest of my force went after the others. Once I had the battle under control I sent up Ledin by himself to get the Runestone hidden at the top left. All this does is let you reclass by sending you back to your default class; given how long it takes to level this seems counterproductive but I guess if you keep your spells and stats it might work?  

The bowmen in general are quite useful -- I don't remember them being able to attack from a distance in L1 but I may just have forgotten in the year or so since I played the game.



Stage 7

Finally the guardsmen are useful! This stage has a bunch of slimes and zombies. I took the chance to level Riana as much as I could, and she was able to change to a Healer. Now she has monks but there aren't any undead in the next stage so I don't know how effective they're going to be. There's another hidden item here but it's actually in the immediate area. I once again split my team, taking Hein and Scott over to the right to deal with those enemies.

The game has 27 stages so this is about 1/4 of the way through. It's fun so far and not too difficult although I imagine the difficulty will increase later.