NISA Senior Associate Producer Alan Costa on Langrisser I & II!

We recently had the opportunity to speak with Alan Costa, Senior Associate Producer at NISA, about the upcoming NISA titles releasing in 2020. You can read the first of these, in which he talks about Langrisser I & II, below:

Both games in this remastered collection feature beautiful new art styles, Japanese voice acting, and new soundtrack recordings among other additions. Are there any changes or quality of life improvements that will surprise or impress fans of the original? 

Absolutely! Though that said, at this point I don’t know how many fans of the original exist in the West because only one game was released here and it was a long, long time ago. But there definitely are quality of life improvements; for example, at certain points in the game there are actually a lot of different story routes that you can take. Now you will be able to jump to another once you have already completed one so that you can see a different route, which is pretty big. Also, the combat and the movement has been optimised, so there isn’t as much traversal through menus. But honestly speaking, the games are pretty simple at their core, so it’s just refinement to make it look and play a lot smoother than what we now consider had been a clunky way in the past. 

With the difficulty of SRPGs being a really big draw for hardcore players, has the game balance remained in line with the original or moved towards more user-friendly elements?

The balance has been slightly adjusted, which is because some of the battles in the originals were really difficult to the point of the computer cheating. Don’t get me wrong,there is still a challenge to be had, but it’s more of a strategic one, rather than a “Haha, I got you!” one. 

Can we expect some localisation changes that will affect the overall tone of the game or is it pretty much the same script?

It’s been completely re-localised, so players can look forward to a fresh, new localisation.

Long-standing fans love to experience the original intended pace of battles in RPGs. Often, even if there’s a fast forward option, they still prefer not to use them. Is there a variety of speed options, for example a fast forward mode, in Langrisser I & II?

There are animations at points in the game, which you can either watch or skip. But honestly speaking, it didn’t really need to be adjusted from the speed perspective because it’s already a pretty snappy game.

Voice acting makes a deep impression on fans, and can change how they perceive characters in a game. How do you feel the voices enhanced the game? Are there options for text only gameplay?

Yes, you can turn off the voice acting if you like. But it was a pretty acclaimed cast of talent they secured in Japan for the voice acting, so I think people who appreciate the japanese language or just simply like to have a little more personality expressed through their characters will find a lot to love here.

Can we expect any extras outside of anything we’ve talked about?

One thing I really would like to mention is that you can choose between the new art style by Ryo Nagi and the old one by famous manga artist Satoshi Urushihara. Beyond that, there will be a DLC that offers more soundtrack options. This game actually had quite a few different releases in Japan over the years, from the original Mega Drive to the Super Nintendo release. So there are a lot of different arrangements which exist for the soundtrack, and players are going to be able to enjoy choosing the music from any era they like. Beyond that, the games feature multiple pathways, so there is a lot of replayability value. Finally, there’s a new character created specially for this title called Betty, who has her own little story that players can enjoy for the first time.