I have a special love for the fantasy genre. The magical spells, the range of mythical creatures, the plots of world saving proportion, the works. Naturally this extends to fantasy games like Final Fantasy or the Tales series, but I found their later games to fall out of my interest. That’s probably why I look for niche titles, because for better or worse, they branch out of general norms that might make unique and interesting titles.

One such niche title is from a relatively obscure, and sadly now dead, game series Growlanser. On top of classical fantasy throwbacks, it also involved some political conflict normally seen in Suikoden or Tales. Out of the six games, the first and sixth were the only ones that didn’t get localized. This week, I’ll look into the fifth title known as “Heritage of War”. Or Generations, if going by the original Japanese name, but Growlanser Generations was used to refer to bundle for the second and third Growlansers.

Before the game is over, he’ll be the next legendary hero.

Growlanser: Heritage of War plays in chapters starring a different character over the years of a war outbreak between three countries, as well as seemingly unstoppable monsters known as Screapers. The prologue chapters start with three characters forming their own military unit called the Peace Maintenance Brigade to put a stop to the civil outbreaks. What originally started as a quest for Seldous to find peaceful means became submitting to peer pressure in making a coercing weapon of mass destruction. The following chapters show the after-effects years later of what the PMB’s first shot has done, and before long the game allows you to play as the main, silent protagonist. After you do a series of actions to determine your personality, title, and stat growths, you start the game proper as a new PMB follower.

All Growlanser games are tactical RPGs, where you can see the enemies on the map of the world you travel around, and may or may not get an advantage of jumping them from behind or casting your highest level magic on them (at least in regular encounters). Everything in battle is real time, with characters and monster having wait time to determine their next action. Attacking is fast and simple, and can make your enemies stagger for a few seconds depending on how many people gang up on them. Magic on the other hand costs time to cast, especially at higher levels, so it adds another level of complexity to the gameplay aside from running and slashing. The usual objective is to kill your enemies, but you may find yourself in a special mission like protecting certain targets (which healing is always an option) or killing certain enemies before they flee the stage. Each stage tests your actions, adaptability, and fits well enough in the context of the storyline.

“EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!”

Aside from battles, there’s a special side quest with the fairy companion Korin where she can participate in Fairy Contests; essentially talent shows for the best fairy. You only have one shot in winning the four contests that open the grand championship, and it requires time and money to train her skills. These skills can help Korin support the party with bargaining prices or reminding players of what needs to be done next in the main story. Its usually best to do these contests late in the game when you have enough time to learn all the skills needed for her victory, and it leads to the satisfaction of a lot of money, along with some other bonuses.

Korin is definitely a fairy. Fanille is definitely NOT a devil.

The Growlanser series is one of my favorites since I first discovered it. The amazing artwork by Satoshi Urushihara is absolutely gorgeous. The only complaint is how weird and out of place some of the clothing choices are; Krious looks like a pirate, Fanille like a little devil, and Melvina has long wings on her hat that almost look like they’re alive, just to name a few. Yet no one comments the oddity of the attire, and are more focused on politics and Screapers, depending on the situation. Still, the characters are interesting to look at, and sort of adds an appeal to try and obtain one of the multiple endings specific for them.

I wish there would be more games like Growlanser, that blend magical fantasy like fairies and monsters to political and philosophical conflicts of war and government. It’s weird to see it done well in this fashion, and the only other game that I believe does this (Suikoden) focuses more on the war aspect between the enemy country and the allies the hero brings together. Closest we got to that now is most of the team from the now dead Career Soft working on the Devil Survivor subseries with Atlus. Oh well; even though Urushihara isn’t working with them in its artwork,  Suzuhito Yasuda’s art is great too (if you don’t believe me, look up Durarara!! or Yozakura Quartet sometime).