Senior Staff Writer Chris "Pwyff" Tom flew to Taiwan to attend the Gamania Game Show, where he got to experience the best of what's to come from Gamania. Today he focuses on Dream Drops and Langrisser Schwarz!

Langrisser Schwarz

To some fans in the east, the Langrisser series is a well-known tactical RPG developed for the PC, SNES, and, eventually, the Sega Saturn. Unfortunately, Langrisser and all of its eventual sequels never made it to North America, so when I heard that Langrisser Schwarz was an MMORPG remake, I'll admit that I needed to look up, precisely, what sort of precedent Langrisser Schwarz would be building on.

At the core of its premise, Langrisser Schwarz is about warring factions and their constant struggle for supremacy. As we entered the booth, we were given a series of choices by the Goddess Lushiris, with our last decision ultimately landing us in one of three factions: Light, Empire, and Dark. In the original Langrisser series, there were only two factions (Light and Dark), but the development team rightly felt that adding a third faction would allow for greater story diversification. While we were unable to see exactly how each faction would advance along its story path, the team noted that story and PvP would be two very important factors with Langrisser Schwarz.

The most intriguing aspect of Langrisser Schwarz' is definitely its extensive class system, as players will be able to choose from one of six classes (warrior, ranger, guardian, archer, mage, priest) while also being able to class promote to one of two advance classes a total of three times. In other words, with diverging class promotion options at every tier, there will be a total of ten classes and two secret classes for every class option. That's 72 total classes for the math challenged. Finally, players can also go through "rebirth" upon reaching the level cap to start over in another class with their previously learned skills, meaning one character can literally master all of the classes in the game.

This extensive class diversification also ties in extremely well with Langrisser Schwarz' gorgeous artistic direction. Cel-shaded graphics and finely detailed armor sets will definitely be one of Langrisser Schwarz' premiere features, and with each class upgrade looking to be stylistically unique from its previous incarnations, expect to be constantly delighted with just how stylish your character will look.

Langrisser Schwarz is primarily an action MMORPG, but it relies more heavily on tactical decisions you make, as opposed to running the combo counter as high as you possibly can. Before each fight, players will need to decide what creature cards and mercenaries they will bring into the fight. Creature cards act as mini-summons that seem to deal an impressive amount of damage with a set number of casts, and mercenaries accompany your character during combat, assisting in any way they can. While we didn't get to experiment too much with the mercenaries, when the developers noted that some classes will be able to bring up to six mercenaries while others will not be able to bring any, my curiosity was definitely piqued.

If Langrisser Schwarz ever makes its way to the North American markets (Gamania is still uncertain which of the four revealed MMORPGs they will plan to localize and release in North America), I'm certainly looking forward to revelling in its deep class customization system and its nicely stylized graphics. I'm also hoping that Langrisser Schwarz will be able to maintain a strong depth of quality content when it launches, as shallow content is a near constant problem that faces many action MMORPGs these days.

And that concludes day one of the Gamania Game Show! Tomorrow I'll wrap up the festivities while also exploring the next two titles being developed by Gamania, Tiara Concerto and Core Blaze!  (UPDATE: The Day 2 article is live!)

Christopher "Pwyff" Tom, Senior Staff Writer