GeneWars Reviews

This is a REALLY eccentric and wacky SRPG, which I suppose makes sense -- we Langrisser fans have always been a special type of wingnut. The premise is that you want to succeed in the "Holy War" (no, FE4 fans -- not THAT Holy War) and create life. To this end, you play as the sperm cell, and are accompanied by a few other cells such as a T cell and a prostate. Your quest? To enter the "Holy Body" and fertilize the egg. It's a story like no other. It's so weird and left-field that it's bound to alienate 99% of anyone who sees this game; but then again, anyone playing this game is a diehard Langrisser fan who's so starved for more Langrisser gameplay that they're willing to stomach a premise this downright insane. I must ask Chimaki (the creator of this game): [i]what the hell were you thinking, man?[/i] How on EARTH did you decide to come up with a game this ludicrously absurd? Setting that all aside, GeneWars has some fun gameplay. It's mostly what you'd expect from a Langrisser 1/2 clone, although there are some twists here and there. Leveling up, hiring troops, and "changing DNA" is all handled with a single currency, so if you want to play grindless, it can be challenging to manage your resources intelligently. That said, if you DO want to grind, the game becomes quite easy. You can definitely tell that this game was targeted more at beginners and newcomers to the genre. Everything in the game revolves around rock-paper-scissors, with no troop types falling outside of this spectrum. Compare this to Langrisser 1, where you had units like Guardsmen or Monks who didn't fall into any RPS triangle; or Langrisser 2, where archers, griffons, and aquatic units all had their own unique strengths and weaknesses. Oh yeah -- the game's only 7 battles long (+redoable training missions if you wanna grind), so it really doesn't feel like a full-fledged SRPG. Fittingly, it's really cheap on Steam. It does scratch the Langrisser itch in some ways, but at the end of the day, it left me craving more. To my sensibilities at least, it doesn't hold a candle to Chimaki's previous effort: Conviction. Even so, Langrisser-like games are so few and far between in the modern era that I'm certainly not going to complain that this game exists. So thanks, Chimaki, and keep on making games, you crazy bastard.