The Wayfarer's Time Has Come: Growlanser IV Released! (Vita compatible!)

cj iwakura · January 2012

After many years of effort, the waiting is finally over.

Thanks, Atlus USA. Let's see if we can't make the miracle worth your time.

This is supposed to be a ridiculously immense RPG, and I could not be more excited.

If you didn't play the earlier games, well, now's the time to get educated!

AspectVoid · January 2012

This was probably the best news I got yesterday. I stumbled across Growlanser Generations somewhere ages ago. I said to myself "Two SRPGs in one package? Never heard of Growlanser, but score!" And, in the end, Growlanser 2 became one of my all time favorite games. Now, hearing that we're getting Growlanser IV, I couldn't be happier.

Madpanda · January 2012

Good to see more stuff getting localized, just wish it wasn't psp. I can play DS for hours, psp my hands start hurting after 30 minutes.

cj iwakura · January 2012

If you have any interest in RPGs, owning a PSP is not even optional.

Gilder · January 2012

Even though I know it's impossible because of how shitty the coding is, I'd still like the first game. That won't ever happen though. I'm really looking forward to this though. Maybe I'll try to finish up all my Growlanser 2 endings and then move on to 3 before this comes out. I think my PS2 can still read blue discs....

The Anonymous · January 2012

Gilder wrote:

Even though I know it's impossible because of how shitty the coding is, I'd still like the first game. That won't ever happen though. I'm really looking forward to this though. Maybe I'll try to finish up all my Growlanser 2 endings and then move on to 3 before this comes out. I think my PS2 can still read blue discs....

There's always hope for a fan translation, but yeah, it's no wonder nobody's succeeded yet.

Actually, I think there was a guy who made some early progress on the game a while back, but has fallen off the radar since.

cj iwakura · January 2012

My group's expressed interest in taking on Growlanser, if no one beats us to it.

Gilder · January 2012

What exactly is the problem with the coding again? I've forgotten. Is it just so sloppy that modifying it at all causes the game to crash, and it's just too much work to translate it and change the code?

cj iwakura · January 2012

Who knows. The bottom line is they decided it was not worth the effort.

But I promise you it can be done.

Gaming-Freak · January 2012

I'll admit I played a little bit of Growlanser: Heritage of War, but at the time it wasn't my cup of tea. If I ever get a PS2 again, however, I want to give it another shot, or at least Generations, for both 2 and 3.

vagrant_winds · January 2012

cj iwakura wrote:

Who knows. The bottom line is they decided it was not worth the effort.

But I promise you it can be done.

Anything can be done, but yeah, coding can be a "not worth it" barrier.
At least this generation we see more companies coding in consideration for other languages.

Maddoc · January 2012

Gaming-Freak wrote:

I'll admit I played a little bit of Growlanser: Heritage of War, but at the time it wasn't my cup of tea. If I ever get a PS2 again, however, I want to give it another shot, or at least Generations, for both 2 and 3.

For what it's worth, Heritage of War is by a ridiculous margin the worst title in the series

cj holds steady on his opinion that it is still not a bad game, if I remember correctly, but I thought it was pretty repellent

Growlanser 2 and 3 are both so good though

AspectVoid · January 2012

Maddoc wrote:

Gaming-Freak wrote:

I'll admit I played a little bit of Growlanser: Heritage of War, but at the time it wasn't my cup of tea. If I ever get a PS2 again, however, I want to give it another shot, or at least Generations, for both 2 and 3.

For what it's worth, Heritage of War is by a ridiculous margin the worst title in the series

cj holds steady on his opinion that it is still not a bad game, if I remember correctly, but I thought it was pretty repellent

Growlanser 2 and 3 are both so good though

I made fun of Heritage in the Atlus thread, but the truth is I don't think it was the worst game ever, just that it was a very...meh. I don't think there was really anything bad about it, but there was nothing good or great about it either.

Personally, I think Growlanser 2 is great and Growlanser 3 is good. You should definitely buy Generations and play through them. You should be able to find it used for $25 or so, which is a good deal for two good RPGs.

Maddoc · January 2012

It's not the worst game ever

But it is in my opinion a bad game, and definitely the worst Growlanser game

cj iwakura · January 2012

Yeah, no one would argue against V being the worst.

It has its charms, though. Namely Sherris and Randall.

Maou · January 2012

Played and beated this game years ago on PS2.
Personally i find it the best in the series system and storywise.

Jurg · January 2012

Throw me in the "Heritage was meh" camp. That game was just all over the place. The worst part of it all, though, is that in the opening chapters Screapers are legitimately frightening because they are very powerful. Then, the main character's ability turns them into wimps. Way to ruin the sense of tension!

Maddoc · January 2012

This news kind of makes me want to go back and play 2 and 3 again to get in the groove.

I still haven't done Wolfgang mode in 2 yet, so I guess I could do that.

The main factor stopping me, aside from having roughly a billion unfinished games to play, is that I don't have an SDTV on hand and PS2 games kind of look like ass on an HDTV even with composite cables.

cj iwakura · January 2012

I tried to get it and failed. It's pretty difficult, but not as tough as dating Charlone.

EspantaPajaro · January 2012

I really enjoyed 2 and 3 . 2 more then 3 but I dont have a psp =/ Guess im digging out generations and playing them again

Edit- I really enjoyed twos pseudo tactical rpg gameplay , never played a game that did that again and I always wondered why. I thought it was a great system.

Frozenzen · January 2012

Growlanser 2 remains one of my favorite srpgs, even though I for some reason spent more time on 3. Lacking a PSP seems to be a big mistake these days with all the cool titles it's getting.

Is the PSP region locked, and are most of these fancy quirky RPG games hard to get hold off these days?

cj iwakura · January 2012

It's region free, and not really.

Gilder · January 2012

cj iwakura wrote:

I tried to get it and failed. It's pretty difficult, but not as tough as dating Charlone.

Dating Charlone was just stupid bullshit, because some runs it was literally impossible to get her. If you answered the starting questions in certain ways you couldn't get her. I remember that after I got her and was going for someone else I tried raising her friendship at the same time just for fun, and that bar started in the black and did not want to move. I think I was able to raise both of them without negatively affecting the other very much, and by the time I got the girl I actually wanted Charlone had moved up like 3 notches out of the black.

AspectVoid · January 2012

Gilder wrote:

cj iwakura wrote:

I tried to get it and failed. It's pretty difficult, but not as tough as dating Charlone.

Dating Charlone was just stupid bullshit, because some runs it was literally impossible to get her. If you answered the starting questions in certain ways you couldn't get her. I remember that after I got her and was going for someone else I tried raising her friendship at the same time just for fun, and that bar started in the black and did not want to move. I think I was able to raise both of them without negatively affecting the other very much, and by the time I got the girl I actually wanted Charlone had moved up like 3 notches out of the black.

You know, I did not know that. I thought the only requirement for Charlone's ending was making sure that she became a Unicorn Knight. That wasn't too difficult to do, you simply needed to constantly press on and head straight for the capital with minimum detours (I think you have enough time for three additional moves beyond the number it takes to reach the capital) after she learns of the Unicorn Tryouts.

I did not know that the starting questions could effect it. Huh, guess I just tend to have answers that she liked.

Gilder · January 2012

AspectVoid wrote:

Gilder wrote:

cj iwakura wrote:

I tried to get it and failed. It's pretty difficult, but not as tough as dating Charlone.

Dating Charlone was just stupid bullshit, because some runs it was literally impossible to get her. If you answered the starting questions in certain ways you couldn't get her. I remember that after I got her and was going for someone else I tried raising her friendship at the same time just for fun, and that bar started in the black and did not want to move. I think I was able to raise both of them without negatively affecting the other very much, and by the time I got the girl I actually wanted Charlone had moved up like 3 notches out of the black.

You know, I did not know that. I thought the only requirement for Charlone's ending was making sure that she became a Unicorn Knight. That wasn't too difficult to do, you simply needed to constantly press on and head straight for the capital with minimum detours (I think you have enough time for three additional moves beyond the number it takes to reach the capital) after she learns of the Unicorn Tryouts.

I did not know that the starting questions could effect it. Huh, guess I just tend to have answers that she liked.

Looking at a guide I can't see any combination of questions that lowers friendship so I might be wrong on that. I already knew how to play the game and what do for Charlone though, so it was so strange that her friendship wouldn't increase. Maybe something else determined it, like a question I purposefully answered differently but I can't remember what it was. I just know it got to a point of impossibility for me. Maybe I got a glitch.

Gilder · January 2012

So I started playing Growlanser 2 again for the other endings because I picked up a new slim to replace my fat (I got it from the gamestop price drop on new slims) so I felt like testing its ability to read CDs, and for the first time I'm doing Wolfgang's path. My save from '07 that I started from was working on that so I picked up the slack. I love how Hans just doesn't give a fuck with that path.

"Hans I know he tried to kill us and I'm looking stupid as hell for joining him, but what are you going to do?"

"Whatever dude I don't give a shit."

I have one question that I'd like confirmation on though, even if I know the answer. There's no way to cheat the endings is there? I really can't remember if there is, but I don't think there is one. I think it saves endings to your file and not the system data or whatever that it loads on boot-up.

cj iwakura · January 2012

Right, it's to each file. You have to do NG+ from the clear data.

Gilder · January 2012

Ugggggh, I knew it. Plus the Wolfgang path unlocks the sound test and I have to do the Max path for his ending as well. I already got the 3 girls, but that means I still have around 7 runs left. Fuuuuuck. I probably don't need to get Brett or the dog though.

cj iwakura · January 2012

You can breeze through the game pretty quick with the NG+ gems, especially if you skip plot plot plot.

Gilder · January 2012

You can, but only if you don't care about being evenly levelled, which is bad because your defense will suck. If you don't care though you can just have Hans beat the entire game for you. Infinite range, cycle up, attack up, you win. That's probably the way I should go for the other characters honestly.

AspectVoid · January 2012

Gilder wrote:

You can, but only if you don't care about being evenly levelled, which is bad because your defense will suck. If you don't care though you can just have Hans beat the entire game for you. Infinite range, cycle up, attack up, you win. That's probably the way I should go for the other characters honestly.

Actually, if you want to make it even easier, there's a cheat that will give you all rings, gems, and max money. Then everyone can slaughter everything without you having to try hard. I can't recall what it is, though. It was more complicated than the Konami Code, so I didn't memorize it.

Gilder · January 2012

That's too cheaty though. I like to cheat based on my own actions from prior runs. Also

fucking Neural Transmitter, I forgot about it so now I have Sereb on the Wolfgang path. I'm still not even sure how you go back and get it on this path because I think after the announcement they close off the road to the Academy until you go back to the castle. Isn't it too late to trigger the path at that point? I would've preferred having Arieta, but whatever. There's no character endings on the Wolfgang path anyway. I just suspect that Sereb has less dialogue than Arieta would have. Maybe I'm wrong though.

Really the guides are written so badly in terms of how to trigger the Wolfgang path that I took the earliest opportunity I could to get on it. Guides don't even really mention that you're screwed if you don't finish your investigation before the announcement, which is how I messed up the first time and had to load an earlier save. So yeah I have Sereb, but better safe than sorry in my eyes.

Edit: Realized this is actually a little bit of a spoiler and some people might play these games now in preparation for 4 (like I am), so I tagged it. I will also say nobody spoil 3 for me. I'm getting to it at some point I swear. Just 6 more characters or whatever to go.

cj iwakura · January 2012

I'm replaying 3 as well, but it just doesn't grab me like 2 did. Does have some great music though.

Maddoc · January 2012

3 is better in a lot of ways, but I really love the cast of 2

cj iwakura · February 2012

Interesting info from Victor Ireland for those of you who didn't play II or III and want it on PSN:

Victor Ireland wrote:

Still trying. Sony is not the problem. We can't get the okay on the re-license for PSN from Atlus Japan. But we haven't given up yet.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=35338719&postcount=201

Sucks, but let's hope Index lighten up a bit.

Bursar · February 2012

Ahaha.

Mostlyjoe13 · February 2012

Hope this works on the Vita day 1, but cause you know...can't have to many RPGs and I have 32 gigs to fill up, eventually.

cj iwakura · February 2012

Bursar wrote:

Ahaha.

How should I take this? That Victor's insane? That Atlus are?

...that everyone is?

Bursar · February 2012

cj iwakura wrote:

Bursar wrote:

Ahaha.

How should I take this? That Victor's insane? That Atlus are?

...that everyone is?

I've only heard this stuff second-to-thirdhand, so I'm not going to repeat it. Let's just throw it in Column C.

cj iwakura · April 2012

Since Atlus USA is thankfully marketing the game somewhat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSk037mvnk8

I highly doubt it, but I'll ask point blank: will it be subbed in game? You've got time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qTXvDpkpk0

I like that one more, musically, but both songs are great.

cj iwakura · June 2012

Well, I took up the mantle(thanks to help from cckerberos).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RryGL-S_4TY

I imagine if the game version does get subs, it'll make us look like amateurs. Ah well.

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