Growlanser, Career Soft's real-time tactical revolution
Developer: Career Software
Publisher: Atlus
Director: Shinkiro Takada (Sorcerer's Kingdom, Langrisser 1-5)
Scenario: Yoh Haduki (Langrisser 2-5)
Soundtrack: Noriyuki Iwadare (Langrisser 1-5, Lunar 1-2, Grandia)
Character Designer: Satoshi Urushihara (Langrisser 1-5, Cybernator, Gleylancer)
Subgenre: Real-time Tactical JRPG
Progression: Story quests are linear, but their outcome influences the amount of time you can spend with your party during vacations which, alongside optional quests and events, is pivotal to recruit a number of characters and to get different endings.
Platform: PS1, then ported to PC and remade with additional scenarios and endings on PSP in 2009
Release Date: 25\11\1999 (PS1, Japan)
Status: played in late 2009 when Julian's ending was finally translated by borgor's script, then replayed in February 2012 while I was marathoning the series while waiting for Wayfarer of Time's localization.
Even back in the age of videogame magazines, a striking art direction could help a Japanese franchise get some coverage despite it having a poor, or straight up non-existant, localization record. Such was the case of Langrisser, Masaya’s Team Career’s unique tactical JRPG series featuring mook units, large maps and branching storylines: while its first entry got an English localization in North America with an heavily edited version of its Mega Drive original, renamed as Warsong, the series still managed to have some small degree of relevance due to its character design by Satoshi Urushihara, an artist popularized by his more racey works even in my corner of Europe, where his Legend of Lemnear managed to get a localized VHS release. I still remember, for instance, how some of my country’s videogame magazines featured an ad by a local retailer using Langrisser artworks just because of how great they looked, with some import copies of the late Saturn entries even finding their way here.
As someone who even back then loved tactical JRPGs and liked Urushihara’s art, it’s no wonder I was immediately interested in Growlanser, the series Career Soft, formed by the staffers of Masaya’s old Team Career, developed after they started working for Atlus. Thankfully, while Langrisser still suffers from a poor localization record, vastly improved thanks to Der Langrisser and Langrisser 4’s translation, Growlanser had a different fate, with most of its entries being localized over the years, sometimes even in their best version like with Wayfarer of Time, and Growlanser VI also getting an extremely welcome fan translation some years ago.
Unfortunately, the first Growlanser wasn’t as lucky. According to some ancient rumors, Victor Ireland’s Working Designs apparently thought about bringing it to the United States back in the days but, being too late in PS1's life cycle and unable to make a multi-format collection release due to SCEA’s policies (unlike those of Sony Japan, considering how a trilogy pack including the first three Growlanser games on PS1 and PS2 was actually published by Atlus in Japan), it was forced to focus on translating Growlanser II and III, which was kinda unfortunate considering those two were, respectively, a direct sequel and a distant prequel to Growlanser. Even then, SCEA prevented Working Design from releasing II and III separately, forcing them to be published as the Growlanser Generations collection package which ended up being the last release by that publisher.
In 2009, when Career Soft made an updated port of Growlanser on PSP and it looked like the game finally had another chance, Atlus USA, which was by far the best candidate to bring the game west due to Career Soft being owned by Atlus, was in the middle of its unfortunate post-Demon’s Souls phase, when it was desperately trying to stay relevant in the mainstream space by trying to catch lightning in a bottle again by publishing random Western games, and seemed to have suddenly lost interest in localizing many niche Japanese series it had pursued until then, especially in the handheld space. Of course, in Growlanser's case, this attitude also had to do with Growlanser 5’s localized version, Heritage of War, selling quite badly on PS2, despite being the first game in the series to get an European version. Happily, this stance was reversed some years later when Atlus offered its old fanbase an olive branch and localized both Gungnir and Growlanser Wayfarer of Time but, by then, PSP’s life cycle was over, as it was any chance to see Growlanser’s port localized. Ironically, Growlanser’s protagonist ended up debuting in the western markets not within his own game, but rather in Growlanser II and Chaos Wars, an obscure PS2 crossover tactical JRPG made by Idea Factory, mostly known for its so-bad-it’s-good English dub.
All is not lost, however: while Growlanser hasn't enjoyed a fan-translation patch so far (something that hopefully could change in the next few years, since a project started some years ago seems to be progressing steadily), thanks to borgor its PS1 original version does have a complete and well-made fan translated English script that covers all its main scenario and most optional contents (of course, this means the PSP updated port isn’t ideal for non-Japanese speakers, since its additional events and optional paths are left untranslated), not to mention the game’s own menus make a liberal use of English words and Katakana and most of its dialogues are voiced, which can be a boon to those who have even just a faint understanding of Japanese.
While those aren't exactly ideal conditions to enjoy a JRPG, especially a story-heavy one that can take north of 60 hours to complete, I think Growlanser is definitely worth the effort, and I absolutely enjoyed my time with it despite those hurdles.
Growlanser is set in a world where the two main races, humans and Featherians, arrived a long time ago due to their original world’s declining conditions (Growlanser III’s plot, being written as a distant prequel to Growlanser’s events, actually expanded that backstory a lot). While in the old world magic was widely available, in mankind’s new home its use is mostly limited to Growsians, people born during eclipses or affected by special conditions which are able to briefly link themselves to the old world’s energy, called Grow. While Featherian, a secluded winged people unable to use magic but proficient in the use of technology, went on to build their own small nation on a flying fortress near the continent’s western coast, humans tried to replicate their old kingdoms and split the landmass where they first arrived in three nations: Rolandia, Burnstein and Ranzack, with the powerful Magic Academy also having its own small jurisdiction and political influence due to a number of international treaties that granted it the exclusive perusal of magical crystal mines and the right to prevent any new discovery that could endanger the continent's peace and status quo, possibly a nod of sorts to Faerun’s Harpers.
The young Carmaine (or at least that’s how he’s called in Working Designs’ Growlanser 2 localization, even if his actual name is likely the Italian Carmine, as correctly assessed in the localization of Chaos Wars), adoptive son of Rolandia’s court magician Sandra and brother to Louise, a young Growsian, is Growlanser’s mute protagonist but, unlike many heroes following that template, there’s quite a lot for the player to shape: following a Career Soft tradition dating back to their Langrisser days as Masaya's Team Career, Carmaine’s actions during the prologue will define his growth and stats, not to mention there are quite a lot of choices during the game’s main events. Said choices impact a lot of the game's sub systems, since Growlanser includes both an affinity mechanic, a bit akin to Star Ocean’s Private Actions, which is linked to the party’s vacations, granted by the Rolandian court after completing a story mission.
The way you complete each main quest battle directly influence how many vacation days you will get before the next chapter starts, which in turn influences how many characters you will be able to befriend with the abovementioned affinity system. This ends up being very important, as some missable characters require you to activate their events at the right time in order to be able to recruit them. Unsurprisingly, some of those events can also have romantic implications for Carmaine, and lead him to different endings, some of which have bizarre additional requirements, like the number of kicks your favorite fairy gave you during the dialogues, with said kicks actually being farmable in some instances, or your Coliseum rank.
The game also features an interesting town-building subgame, in line with titles like Breath of Fire 2 or Suikoden, and optional questlines that have a lasting impact on your playable cast’s recruitability and survival till the end game, with up to four characters being missable depending on Carmaine’s actions. While the original Growlanser doesn’t have the staggering amount of different paths and alternate scenarios featured in Growlanser IV’s PSP remake, it’s still a game where paying attention to the story and trying to fully pursue every clue definitely has an impact on your overall experience.
As you have probably guessed by now, Growlanser is quite story heavy, with a scenario mixing war, politics, intrigues and a huge helping of twists related to the setting's magical system (which admittedly can get a bit convoluted later on, a bit like in Tales of the Abyss or some EXA Pico games, a trait I personally appreciate when the lore ends up being coherent and consistent), all penned by Career Soft’s lead storyteller Yoh Haduki, whose talent was later made even more obvious by his work on Radiant Historia and Devil Survivor. Luckily, Growlanser is also fairly modern and pleasant in the way said story is conveyed, and it's rather obvious how Career Soft decided to use quite a bit of the game's budget to push the story's presentation. For instance, there’s an astounding amount of voiced dialogues for a PS1 game, which possibly explains the game being on two CDs, not to mention the visual novel-style large character portraits by Satoshi Urushihara (a renowned illustrator usually associated with fanservicey designs whose work on Langrisser and Growlanser betrays a far more varied and interesting range) featured during dialogues, quite a bit of CG stills to convey some key story events, a double opening video and a wonderful soundtrack by Noriyuki Iwadare, which most JRPG lovers will likely know because of his work on the soundtracks of Game Arts' Lunar series.
As much as Growlanser is built as a story driven experience, its explorations and systems are still extremely rewarding and make this game, at least in my eyes, one of the most enjoyable JRPGs I’ve had the pleasure to experienc in PS1’s rich library. Similar to the Ys and Legend of Heroes Gagharv and Trails series or to the Super Famicom version of Star Ocean, Growlanser doesn’t have an overworld map and, instead, has the player travel through an intricate web of roads and connective areas that link cities and dungeons, an exploration style I personally love due to the way it’s able to immediately convey a world’s geography while also gradually showing the changes in landscapes and nature while travelling to different regions. The game also has a lot of locations presented in a clean, pleasant style, and, while there is a good amount of backtracking, thankfully mitigated by Louise’s Teleport spell, which you can learn quite early in the adventure, by the ending credits you will be familiar with every nook and cranny of the three kingdoms.
Still, Growlanser’s main defining trait is surely its unique battle system, a bit akin to the Western RPG Real Time with Pause (RTWP) brand of combat seen in some Advanced D&D-based Infinity Engine classics like Baldur’s Gate 1-2, Icewind Dale 1-2, Planescape Torment or, more recently, Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2. Similarly, in Growlanser battles start when the party meets an enemy and they are fought in the same areas you were exploring before, without the use of instanced arenas. Actions are based on an ATB counter, with a huge emphasis on positioning, on factoring the time needed for a unit to reach an enemy or key point and on the delay based on the kind of actions you perform. Also, while regular battles play out fairly simply, story missions are far more interesting, both for the more complex maps they are set upon and for the different strategies you can try, sometimes with optional requirements that will benefit you (like protecting citizens that will actually disappear as NPCs later if you let them die, for instance), a feature series fans should be familiar with since it was expanded a lot in the following entries.
Character customization, while serviceable, is also less unique compared to the following entries in the series, since the first Growlanser doesn’t sport the franchise’s signature Ring System, introduced in Growlanser 2 and 3, nor Growlanser 4 and 5’s complex skill systems, and, instead, relies on having your characters gaining new abilities and powers by allocating points obtained at level up, including a nice amount of passive upgrades that can significantly impact your performance and open up new tactical possibilities. That said, Growlanser is yet another game where magic ends up being fairly overpowered once you get further into the game, especially in scenarios featuring narrow passages, or when melee fighters have to walk a bit before being able to reach their targets, all the while being at the mercy of the enemies' own long-range attacks.
Regardless of those small issues, one can’t escape the feeling that Growlanser deserved a much better fate, and that it could have easily become a cult hit for the western PS1 JRPG fanbase if it was localized in a timely manner. The fact that the series never managed to break from its niche status, including in Japan, also meant that the peculiar mechanics championed by Growlanser, its real-time tactical combat mixed with complex story battles with optional objectives, never had a chance to deeply influence the JRPG space and ended up not having imitators or spiritual successors trying to expand on their formula, which is a shame given the incredible potential of those systems.
Of course, Lancarse’s DioField Chronicle tried to tackle the same key gameplay traits, albeit in a more simplistic way and with far less interesting results. At least, the adjacent design space championed in the Super Famicom age by Ogre Battle, the one we could define as real time strategy battles with automated squad combat, ended up having some traction and, even if Matsuno’s Ogre Saga itself ended up abandoning it after Ogre Battle 64 and Zenobia no Ouji, instead focusing on Tactics Ogre’s GBA prequel and, later, its remakes, it was kept alive by some extremely good titles like NIS’ Soul Nomad and, more recently, Vanillaware’s Unicorn Overlord.
* A previous version of this article was posted by yours truly on the r/JRPG subreddit on 7\10\2018.