Langrisser I & II (Nintendo Switch) Preview

Let me get it out of the way - I never played Langrisser I or II growing up. I never had a SNES, so sitting down to play the remake when we visited NIS America's offices earlier this month was the first time I had a chance to try the series at all. I've played plenty of tactical RPGs before, but I just never got around to playing Langrisser until now. That being the case, it's more or less impossible for me to say how stuff like the gameplay stack up to the original.

As for stuff that I can talk about - since the game features the option to switch between the original and remastered artwork, sprites, and music - is that I think the remastered settings are the way to go. While the original soundtrack is still fantastic from what I got to hear, the new arrangements sound amazing, and the new artwork gives the maps a ton more details than before. It's also more consistent - as while you can change the spritework for the environment, the character sprites are actually locked to the new artstyle. Overall, the presentation doesn't look that far off from Fire Emblem Heroes - clearly an easy comparison to make, considering that the game's character sprites share the same style as the popular mobile game.

Gameplay, which again I can't really speak to how it compares to the originals, feels good. There's obviously many more characters on screen in this game compared to its contemporaries, the older Fire Emblem titles, and the extra tactics that come from choosing which mercenaries to bring with on a mission are welcome, too (even if I elected to go with the recommended spread of mercenaries without picking and choosing them for myself). Quality of life features are solid, such as the option to skip attack animations, and the Japanese voice acting seemed solid as well, if not over the top at times.

We had the opportunity to capture our footage from when I played the game, so if you want to see someone play the game (poorly), we've got the video embedded below. We'll have a full review for the game closer to the title's March 10th launch, when it releases on PlayStation 4, PC, and Nintendo Switch.