For those interested in the genealogy of SRPG, Fire Emblem (1990) owes a lot to three games: Elthlead (1987, this game's direct predecessor), Fantasy Knight (1987) and Master of Monsters (1988). Master of Monsters will get its own PC Engine port eventually (1991) so I will let the dedicated video explain its innovation. SystemSoft's Fantasy Knight is especially notable for being their own fantasy adaptation of Daisenryaku, which itself was the big inspiration for Famicom Wars.
Hi, do you remember a mech themed tactics RPG - very punishing difficulty - decades old. I think you had some customization of your mechs, you moved them around a grid like Gaia/Fire Emblem etc. I remember it having permadeath or at least no good way to grind for continues Similar graphic style to gaia/other older games.
Sorry, do you know which hardware? Might be Vixen 357 or The Hybrid Front on the Mega Drive? Customization in Vixen 357 was very light, but it is a Masaya game and runs on Langrisser's engine. The Hybrid Front had a bit deeper mech customization, but nothing as fancy as Front Mission for instance.
1:46 Thing is, Gaia no Monshou is actually a retelling of Elthlead in a stage-by-stage format rather than the Koei-inspired "fiefs" setup. So anyone that ended up missing out on Elthlead would still get caught up on the story if they played Gaia no Monshou.
@@RndStranger That would be GaiFlame. All the sources I could find say that Elthlead and Gaia no Monshou have the exact same premise. NCS even confirmed it themselves... kind of. They released an X68000 game titled History of Elthlead that was basically a remake of both Elthlead and Gaia no Monshou.
Koei's various early strategy games too. Seems like that was just 'the' way to handle hexes on Japanese 8-bit systems. Probably easier to work with on tile-based graphic setups, I'd guess.
@@endymallorn Daisenryaku was the ancestor of all of these Japanese stage-based strategy games (and indirectly of strategy RPGs via Fire Emblem), and the Famicom version used square hexes. That's likely the origin.
I never realized that Crest of Gaia was a series, let alone directly connected to the Langrisser series, one of my favorite series of the 1990's, of course only in retrospect, since only the first game ever got directly translated from the beginning. I finally got to play games like Langrisser II, Der Langrisser, and Langrisser IV only in the last few years.
I usually do not say this to anybody and I know you tend to not care about your numbers, but congrats on 10k subs. You have easily become one of my favorite channels on UA-cam and are probably the best gaming channel imo. I probably would have not known as much about famicom if it weren't for you. I have always wanted a famicom collection for awhile now and you are the reason I started to import famicom stuff and satisfy my itch for famicom content. As for the PC Engine, I didn't know jack about that library at all but seeing these videos and researching, I am starting to really appreciate that library as well. Thank you for being one of the best content creators on this site.
Browsing through early issues of Gekkan PC Engine and PC Engine Fan (at least the ones where they have results from reader surveys on favorite games), I basically don't see this game mentioned at all. In fact, I kind of don't really see much early anything about it. I know it's an earlier game in the console's life, but even R-Type I is showing up on top consistently in late 89. I mostly find this interesting when comparing it to publications like Beep! Mega Drive and Mega Drive Fan, where Langrisser is considered a top tier game. Though funny enough, from what I've seen of Japanese fans of the PC Engine and the Mega Drive (at least, what you could infer from their respective readerships of those specialist publications), most of the top PC Engine games are arcade-style action games, whereas on the Mega Drive, it's a lot of strategy games, which is probably going to seem weird to western Mega Drive/Genesis fans that associate the console with fast-paced action games.
did not know langrisser had a predecessor! suppose the formula was not quite there yet, though. never got super into langrisser though I have always been kinda curious.
With a new and allegedly better system, I would have thought the PC-Engine could handle showing hexes on screen instead of squares in strategy war games like the ones they were seemingly based on. Would make planning your attacks a bit easier to figure out, but that's just me throwing ideas out there.
The PC Engine could definitely do hexagons; we'll see it with Hudson's Nectaris. But this game is adapting an early Japanese computer game and those struggled with displaying diagonal lines.
Squares in strategy games is something that will hang around along side hexes into the Playstation era. For example you have it in Farland Story: Yottsu no Fuuin where you have squares and your unit's feet occupy one square and the rest the square above but it is not counted as occupied by the unit.
I had a Japanese Mega Drive Mini with Langrisser II included and a few years later got a Sega Saturn copy of V as my birthday present. ...I have still yet to try either of them, especially for V's case. But I sure as hell played alot with Assault Suits Valken and that is undoubtedly my favorite SFC/SNES game out of that system's library!
@chazmaru9583 Personally, I rather turn my Switch into a machine for arcade ports but sure, I've been meaning to try out Langrisser II at some point and time, you know, a side of interest. Does the Switch version had a physical cartridge release? I assume it might have...
@chazmaru9583 Alright good, I knew it! I'm noting the Langrisser remake to my brain as the game I will pick up for my Switch at this rate! I'd much prefer picking up Switch games physically anyway.
The Elthlead series crawled so that Langrisser could fly. The addition of scenarios with anachronistic real-world units sounds nice, though. Also, the idea of a Langrisser or Fire Emblem game in a modern or futuristic setting really appeals to me for whatever reason. It actually sounds like a feasible direction for Langrisser, what with the stuff that apparently happens in the last couple games: clones/cyborgs, the villains being aliens, the Ga mechs making a surprise comeback, etc. Also, didn't the 3DS game have units on motorbikes or something?
@@chazmaru9583 well, yeah, more or less, but what I meant was a game like that in the actual Langrisser continuity. Also, weren't there scrapped plans or at least a proposition for a FE game in a modern setting at some point?
not my type of game, but the more powerful PC Engine is the place for this kinda game. I wonder if we'll see any big expensive games coming to the system later on...
@@anactualmotherbear The first big expensive game that truly comes to mind is Tengai Makyou/Far East of Eden 2: Manji Maru, which when released was apparently the most expensive game ever created at that point. Some consider it the first AAA game. Well I'm sure the other games in that series along with the Ys games and Emerald Dragon and various other CD games we're also fairly big budget. A lot of the games(both HuCard & CD) had major manga and anime artists involved, and were tied into major anime/manga series. Plus a lot, if not all the CD games had popular Japanese voice actors. But Tengai Makyou 2 is the only one I'm aware of where they specifically talked about the budget.
@@ParanoiaDragon I am talking about consumer price, ha ha. Around this time on Famicom the expensive games were things for adults that would be too boring for kids or strategy games like Koei's.
@@anactualmotherbear Ah, that I don't know. Anytime I've seen prices for what pce games were back in the day, it seems like they were kind of all over the place compared to kind of a standard price we at least had in North America. With the exception of games like strider for the genesis, of which I remember some places selling for as much as $80 or $90. And I think Phantasy Star 4 was expensive, and I remember picking up several SNES games that were 70 or more. But like I said that's just North American prices that I recall as a kid that were tough to deal with when trying to buy a game with my allowance
For those who would like to play it in english, there is a fan translation patch that re-titles it as Crest of Gaia
Very helpful, thank you
The person who went with Crest of Gaia missed the opportunity for the joke. 😁
For those interested in the genealogy of SRPG, Fire Emblem (1990) owes a lot to three games: Elthlead (1987, this game's direct predecessor), Fantasy Knight (1987) and Master of Monsters (1988). Master of Monsters will get its own PC Engine port eventually (1991) so I will let the dedicated video explain its innovation. SystemSoft's Fantasy Knight is especially notable for being their own fantasy adaptation of Daisenryaku, which itself was the big inspiration for Famicom Wars.
Thank you, always enjoy knowing more about the origin of SRPGs
I remember reading and watching some gameplay videos on Eltlead, really interesting to see where it started.
I thought Master Of Monsters was only a Genesis exclusive with a Japanese exclusive Saturn sequel.
Hi, do you remember a mech themed tactics RPG - very punishing difficulty - decades old. I think you had some customization of your mechs, you moved them around a grid like Gaia/Fire Emblem etc. I remember it having permadeath or at least no good way to grind for continues Similar graphic style to gaia/other older games.
Sorry, do you know which hardware? Might be Vixen 357 or The Hybrid Front on the Mega Drive? Customization in Vixen 357 was very light, but it is a Masaya game and runs on Langrisser's engine. The Hybrid Front had a bit deeper mech customization, but nothing as fancy as Front Mission for instance.
1:46 Thing is, Gaia no Monshou is actually a retelling of Elthlead in a stage-by-stage format rather than the Koei-inspired "fiefs" setup. So anyone that ended up missing out on Elthlead would still get caught up on the story if they played Gaia no Monshou.
Ah. The information I found in the Japanese walkthrough was that this was the same world as Elthlead a few generations later.
@@RndStrangeryea as this game leads in to langrisser as in the king of the light kingdom is the mcs dad
@@RndStranger That would be GaiFlame.
All the sources I could find say that Elthlead and Gaia no Monshou have the exact same premise.
NCS even confirmed it themselves... kind of. They released an X68000 game titled History of Elthlead that was basically a remake of both Elthlead and Gaia no Monshou.
Those square hexes immediately made me think of Intelligent Systems’ early Wars games. And obviously Fire Emblem.
Koei's various early strategy games too. Seems like that was just 'the' way to handle hexes on Japanese 8-bit systems. Probably easier to work with on tile-based graphic setups, I'd guess.
@@endymallorn Daisenryaku was the ancestor of all of these Japanese stage-based strategy games (and indirectly of strategy RPGs via Fire Emblem), and the Famicom version used square hexes. That's likely the origin.
Woah, proto Fire Emblem, Super Robot Taisen and Shining Force 😮
You could say this is like a prototype of Langrisser, lol
I never realized that Crest of Gaia was a series, let alone directly connected to the Langrisser series, one of my favorite series of the 1990's, of course only in retrospect, since only the first game ever got directly translated from the beginning.
I finally got to play games like Langrisser II, Der Langrisser, and Langrisser IV only in the last few years.
I usually do not say this to anybody and I know you tend to not care about your numbers, but congrats on 10k subs. You have easily become one of my favorite channels on UA-cam and are probably the best gaming channel imo. I probably would have not known as much about famicom if it weren't for you. I have always wanted a famicom collection for awhile now and you are the reason I started to import famicom stuff and satisfy my itch for famicom content. As for the PC Engine, I didn't know jack about that library at all but seeing these videos and researching, I am starting to really appreciate that library as well. Thank you for being one of the best content creators on this site.
Oh boy, my brother got hooked by Langrisser’s mobile game for a long while. I personally never got into it, but he sure had fun with it.
A stepping stone for sure, but not one to return to other than having something to play on the PC Engine.
What a gorgeous-looking game!
When I think Masaya, I think of that slam-dunk SNES Prince of Persia port.
Browsing through early issues of Gekkan PC Engine and PC Engine Fan (at least the ones where they have results from reader surveys on favorite games), I basically don't see this game mentioned at all. In fact, I kind of don't really see much early anything about it. I know it's an earlier game in the console's life, but even R-Type I is showing up on top consistently in late 89. I mostly find this interesting when comparing it to publications like Beep! Mega Drive and Mega Drive Fan, where Langrisser is considered a top tier game. Though funny enough, from what I've seen of Japanese fans of the PC Engine and the Mega Drive (at least, what you could infer from their respective readerships of those specialist publications), most of the top PC Engine games are arcade-style action games, whereas on the Mega Drive, it's a lot of strategy games, which is probably going to seem weird to western Mega Drive/Genesis fans that associate the console with fast-paced action games.
Solid as usual, Sir. Didn't know this was the predecessor to Langrisser, thank you for sharing
NOT solid...info was half assed research at its worst.
@@barrymaslow8441 Make your own video then.
I don't know anything about this game but I saw a lancer guy riding a dolphin on the title screen, therefore it automaticly must be awesome.
did not know langrisser had a predecessor! suppose the formula was not quite there yet, though. never got super into langrisser though I have always been kinda curious.
Yes the king that dies in the first game is the main character in this
This isn't a criticism but I always get a kick out of the mismatch between the high-energy intro music played over slow gameplay
Yeah, I wanted the intro to be more intense music but deciding to use clips for the intro is weird with some games.
With a new and allegedly better system, I would have thought the PC-Engine could handle showing hexes on screen instead of squares in strategy war games like the ones they were seemingly based on. Would make planning your attacks a bit easier to figure out, but that's just me throwing ideas out there.
There's quite a few hex based strategy games on the PC Engine. There should be one or two coming up fairly soon in these videos
The PC Engine could definitely do hexagons; we'll see it with Hudson's Nectaris. But this game is adapting an early Japanese computer game and those struggled with displaying diagonal lines.
Squares in strategy games is something that will hang around along side hexes into the Playstation era. For example you have it in Farland Story: Yottsu no Fuuin where you have squares and your unit's feet occupy one square and the rest the square above but it is not counted as occupied by the unit.
Upside down pic at 5:58 but, hey, it's YT...LOL
🎵We did the mash! We did the Monshou-mash (the Monshou-mash!) It was a battlefield smash!🎵
I had a Japanese Mega Drive Mini with Langrisser II included and a few years later got a Sega Saturn copy of V as my birthday present.
...I have still yet to try either of them, especially for V's case.
But I sure as hell played alot with Assault Suits Valken and that is undoubtedly my favorite SFC/SNES game out of that system's library!
@@inklingex4433 Langrisser II is an amazing game. Every version is great but I especially recommend the recent Switch/Steam remake.
@chazmaru9583 Personally, I rather turn my Switch into a machine for arcade ports but sure, I've been meaning to try out Langrisser II at some point and time, you know, a side of interest.
Does the Switch version had a physical cartridge release?
I assume it might have...
@ Yes, it did!
@chazmaru9583 Alright good, I knew it!
I'm noting the Langrisser remake to my brain as the game I will pick up for my Switch at this rate!
I'd much prefer picking up Switch games physically anyway.
Reminds me of PS1's "Brigandine"
This doesn't look like a game for me but it's cool to see Masaya debut finally. They'll make some games I like like the first Shockman game.
But where is Aqua Emblem and Gale Emblem?
Well the Fire Nation Attacked...
I'm gonna be honest, Nectaris spoiled me for PC-Engine strategy games.
I will have some things to say about Nectaris once I get there. It will be glowing.
The Elthlead series crawled so that Langrisser could fly. The addition of scenarios with anachronistic real-world units sounds nice, though. Also, the idea of a Langrisser or Fire Emblem game in a modern or futuristic setting really appeals to me for whatever reason. It actually sounds like a feasible direction for Langrisser, what with the stuff that apparently happens in the last couple games: clones/cyborgs, the villains being aliens, the Ga mechs making a surprise comeback, etc. Also, didn't the 3DS game have units on motorbikes or something?
@@apostlenik809 Masaya's own Vixen 357 on the Mega Drive is basically Langrisser with mechs.
@@chazmaru9583 well, yeah, more or less, but what I meant was a game like that in the actual Langrisser continuity. Also, weren't there scrapped plans or at least a proposition for a FE game in a modern setting at some point?
We Gots Langrisser at Home
Im not smart enough to like strategy games but at least the music is nice.
not my type of game, but the more powerful PC Engine is the place for this kinda game. I wonder if we'll see any big expensive games coming to the system later on...
@@anactualmotherbear The first big expensive game that truly comes to mind is Tengai Makyou/Far East of Eden 2: Manji Maru, which when released was apparently the most expensive game ever created at that point. Some consider it the first AAA game. Well I'm sure the other games in that series along with the Ys games and Emerald Dragon and various other CD games we're also fairly big budget.
A lot of the games(both HuCard & CD) had major manga and anime artists involved, and were tied into major anime/manga series. Plus a lot, if not all the CD games had popular Japanese voice actors. But Tengai Makyou 2 is the only one I'm aware of where they specifically talked about the budget.
@@ParanoiaDragon I am talking about consumer price, ha ha. Around this time on Famicom the expensive games were things for adults that would be too boring for kids or strategy games like Koei's.
@@anactualmotherbear Ah, that I don't know. Anytime I've seen prices for what pce games were back in the day, it seems like they were kind of all over the place compared to kind of a standard price we at least had in North America. With the exception of games like strider for the genesis, of which I remember some places selling for as much as $80 or $90. And I think Phantasy Star 4 was expensive, and I remember picking up several SNES games that were 70 or more. But like I said that's just North American prices that I recall as a kid that were tough to deal with when trying to buy a game with my allowance
80s Koei battlefields
Is this a clone of Fire Emblem?
No, this predates the first Fire Emblem.
No technically Fire Emblem copied this franchise
That said I think Fire Emblem even on NES did far more , but this one was the first