In-depth Growlanser impressions

[01.26.00] » Everything you always wanted to know about Growlanser but were afraid to ask.

   Atlus recently pulled the wraps off of Rhapsody, its forthcoming musical RPG for U.S. release. But what of Growlanser, another anime-styled RPG published by Atlus in Japan? While no U.S. release has been announced, we decided to give it a ridiculously thorough once-over anyway. Thanks to Andy Church for these comprehensive impressions.

   "One of the first things you'll notice about Growlanser is its anime flavor. Whenever a main character talks (roughly a dozen so far) there's a full-screen head-and-shoulders shot that could be straight out of your favorite anime series. It also has a little fairy as the hero's sidekick, who goes so far as to announce out loud what every menu option does as you use the menu.

   "However, if you can stand the cuteness--and don't worry, you can turn the menu voice off--Growlanser is a remarkably well-done game. The story centers around (you guessed it) a teenage boy with an unknown past in a medieval-like world, whose fate has been foretold to be either to save the world or to destroy it. But behind the classic-sounding plot, Growlanser holds a surprisingly well-defined and believable setting and a nice blend of traditional gameplay and strategy that keeps your interest while keeping you on your toes.

   "Despite the hackneyed idea, the story isn't just 'find companions, battle big evil monsters, save the world'; the characters have a good deal of depth, and the story includes scenes with impact to match nearly any other RPG (Final Fantasy included). Moreover, in a radical departure from traditional RPGs, everything does not necessarily end up happy; good people die, and you face old friends on the battlefield. The game also features a huge amount of voice acting--the first disc alone has over 30 minutes of recorded voices for main characters, NPCs, and even random townspeople--which give additional depth to the characters and make the story scenes significantly more effective. Some may shrink away in terror upon hearing the words "voice acting," but the voice acting in Growlanser is quite well done. The limited number of voice actors does make you go "hey, I've heard that voice before" on occasion, but the duplicated voices are all for minor characters, so it's not too bad.

   "I mentioned the fairy earlier; she follows you around wherever you go, and acts as your "voice" in many situations--the game doesn't put words in your mouth (except when you have to answer a question). She has a remarkable tendency to show absolutely no compassion for anyone, making her one of the few "good" characters I love to hate--which in itself is an interesting, and occasionally amusing, deviation from the classic Good vs. Evil plot.

   "An interesting feature of Growlanser is the "Vacation" system, similar to the "Private Action" system in Star Ocean 2. After you've progressed to a certain point in the story, you become a government officer (royal officer?) and are assigned various jobs. When you complete a job, you return and report to the king, who grants you a certain number of days of vacation depending on the level of the job and how well you carried it out. You spend each day at one of a number of locations (you choose which one); your party splits up, so you can talk to party members as well as other main characters. Doing so supposedly has an effect on the characters' actions later in the game, though I have yet to see any direct evidence. In any case, it does provide some additional scenes which give more depth to the characters. Unfortunately, you can't choose not to take vacation, which can at times be frustrating when you want to get on with the story.

   "Overall, Growlanser's gameplay is very satisfying. The map screen feels remarkably like Chrono Trigger; 2-D characters walk around on 2-D fields, and approaching an enemy on the field brings you into battle (which takes place on that same field). Movement is smooth and fast, and you don't get any of the ugly pixellation that can happen with 3-D graphics. The "now loading" screen that appears when you move between sections of the world map or enter and exit dungeons is mildly annoying, but when you stop to think about it, that's what other RPGs are doing when they fade the screen--Growlanser just comes out and admits it up front.

   "The menu system is also well set up, simple enough that you don't have to spend time clicking through option after option but with a good number of settable features, such as item sorting, voices on/off, and text speed. The icing on the cake are the menus' nifty little animations. Speaking of text, Growlanser allows you to jump through messages near-instantly, a must-have for anyone who's played Xenogears.

   "But the battle system is where Growlanser truly shines; not only is it a full-fledged strategy system to rival any strategy RPG, but the intricate "scenario battles" in particular provide a new, stimulating challenge I have not had in a long time, without making "ordinary" battles overly cumbersome.

   "As mentioned earlier, battles take place on the field map; approaching an enemy begins a battle with all enemies on the screen. (This can at times be annoying when there are enemies in opposite corners of the screen, but magic helps in these situations.) The battle system is quasi-real time; while you can spend as long as you want on the menu screen, each character and enemy has their own "wait" timer. The wait timer is itself more realistic than other RPGs' "agility" timer; it only activates when you attack or use an item, and the length depends on the weapon or item. Characters' agility instead affects their rate of movement on the field; you can't attack an enemy (or in some cases cast a spell on them) unless you're close enough.

   "All characters arrive ready to accept commands, and what a selection there is--in addition to the standard attack, defend, magic, and item commands, you can direct a character to move to any position on the field, or direct them to guard another character, causing them to attack any enemy that comes near that character. Choosing to attack, incidentally, causes the character to approach the selected target and attack repeatedly until he/she/it dies, so you don't have to keep choosing "attack" over and over. Furthermore, with the exception of the hero (you), you can tell characters to battle automatically. The auto-battle AI system isn't so horrible as to be unusable, making it a great help in ordinary battles. You can even set various attributes of the AI for each character, such as whether to attack enemies with low HP or high strength, or to favor curative/effect magic over attack magic.

   "The battle system incorporates several other amazingly useful features. You can interrupt the battle at any point in time and change any character's active command--if you have a character chasing after an enemy, for example, and another character kills the enemy first, you can turn the first character around immediately without having to wait for him to reach his target. Another feature is that you can change the target of a magic spell when it's about to be cast--this is especially nice for range or straight-line effect spells, since enemies can move around between the time you start casting and the time the spell is ready to go. Finally, magic spell and item effect graphics can be sped up or cancelled by pressing the appropriate controller button--an immense time saver.

   But even with all this, the best is yet to come. In parallel to "boss battles" in other RPGs, Growlanser has "scenario battles," where you have to fulfill a certain goal in addition to (or instead of) defeating all the enemies. Often the goal will be "protect such-and-such a person" or "prevent the enemies from leaving the screen"; if the person in question dies or an enemy leaves the screen, oops--you lose. This in itself presents a nice challenge, but things get even more interesting when bystanders get involved. For example, early in the game a group of bandits attacks a village, and your goal is to defeat all the bandits without incurring any villager casualties. The villagers, of course, are all 20-HP weaklings, and to make things worse, bandits come in from all sides of the village in the middle of the battle. In another situation, you have to get through enemies and cut a bridge down before a hostage is taken away, and then take out another bridge on the other side of the field to keep enemy reinforcements from coming in to wipe you out. The simple "attack, magic, repeat" formula won't work here; this game will make you think. But the freedom provided by the system (no squares!) keeps things from getting too frustrating--there are plenty of options for winning the battle.

   "Additionally, leveling up allows you to "customize" your characters. For every level you gain, you get a certain number of "skill points," which you can assign to various skills as you like; when you fulfill the number of points required for a skill, the skill becomes usable. Skills run the gamut from spells, attack skills, and effect skills to skills reducing the time needed for casting spells or using items.

   "Growlanser isn't perfect, of course. Its biggest problem is that it will often not let you save for long periods. This occurs particularly often between finishing a scenario battle and starting your next quest--and depending on the situation can mean over an hour between saves. If you have lots of time on hand, that's not such a problem, but it's frustrating if you have to leave the game and lose an hour or two of progress.

   "Another bothersome 'feature' is, unfortunately, in the battle system. If you tell a character to move to a certain position on the field, and along the way they run into an enemy, they will mercilessly pound away until the enemy dies (or you tell them to do something else). In some circumstances this isn't a problem, but if you're trying to maneuver to get at a boss or other powerful enemy, and a weak little guy gets in the way, the character will attack--and then have to wait for the recovery time from the attack, during which period the boss may fry your party. You can usually get around this by carefully maneuvering the character a little bit at a time, but it's a pain, and even with the most careful planning, a single-pixel misjudgement will cause a massive loss of time. An option to move without attacking would have been greatly appreciated.

   "Also, the music isn't exactly on the great side. It's not so bad you mute the television just to avoid it, but there aren't too many good tracks. "Mediocre" is a good word to describe it; I won't be getting the soundtrack.

   "Overall, Growlanser has impressed me beyond my initial expectations, and I am finding it very enjoyable. Between the well-written story and the complex battle system, Growlanser has something for everyone. I should note, however, that due to the large amount of text, particularly the frequency with which questions come up, this game may not be suitable for importing if you don't understand Japanese or don't have a walkthrough handy. I haven't tried it, but making wrong answers to questions may put you at a considerable disadvantage later in the game."