You know, it’s sometimes hard for reviewers to keep their bias at the door, so to speak. Let’s be honest, reviewers are often slanted when they write their reviews, coming in with impressions or assumptions on what or how a game is. This happens on both ends of the spectrum too, both positive and negative reviews, and it is something that game journalists need to reconcile at times for the good of their audience.

So right off I bat, I want to get this out of the way. I am not a fan of the Growlanser series. Perhaps it’s my own bias of experiencing Growlanswer: Heritage of War for the first time several years ago and loathing the experience. Perhaps it was the hackneyed story arc, the sluggish controls for a real-time tactical RPG, or maybe just me being overly critical of the translation and overall look of the game. Since then I have played a few hours of Growlanser: Generations, and not cared for the series since.

Therefore, going into Wayfarer of Time, the PSP remake of the fourth installment of the Growlanser series, I did not have high expectations. It is a series I just never could reconcile for myself because of my own bias. But despite all of this, I can say that, while Wayfarer of Time is not a perfect game by any means, it is perhaps the most positive experience with the series I have played to date.

The Growlanser games are a hybrid-styled RPG that feels like an amalgam of Final Fantasy and Tactics Ogre, where movement on the battlefield is open and non-linear, while retaining cool-downs for attacks and other moves. On paper this sounds like a novel concept, and to be fair to developer Career Soft, they do a good job at making the concept viable through the combat. Story battles, for instance, tend to have primary goals behind them that go outside of the realm of combat, from rescuing prisoners to delaying enemies for a period of time, instead of being a “destroy all enemies” goal every round. The game even rewards you with extra experience and gold for completing major objectives quickly, a large timer in the corner ticking down as you fight in real-time against your foes.

As I said earlier, Growlanser is a sort of hybrid RPG, movement is real time and based on your characters MOV statistic, while using attacks, abilities, and spells are typically governed by a cool down meter. Attacking an enemy triggers your cool down, meaning you are open for another attack in the meantime unless if you move/guard from enemies. The non-linearity of the tactical combat puts the likes of fan-favorite RPG’s Baldurs Gate to shame for the amount of freedom and options you get in combat situations. Of course, there are some drawbacks. The biggest of which is micromanagement of your party to accent both strengths and weaknesses of each character. You only can bring four characters out on the field at once, so balancing the party with basic attackers, casters, ranged attackers, and defenders is usually a deciding factor if you will coast through story missions easily.

Moving around in battle is done with waypoints, giving you more freedom to experiment if you have the time to in story-missions.

Another gripe is the obtuseness of the problem-solving aspect of story missions. One example is an attack on a military base, where the characters had to delay enemy forces from breeching a barricade to a laboratory. However, the only way to delay them was to create obstacles in the base’s courtyard by flipping switches on the wall. This type of outside-thinking is good in some respects, but overall causes frustration if you just so happen to never notice the red dots that represent switches the first time around. Wayfarer of Time also doesn’t make these devices obvious, most of the time hidden switches or obstacles that are almost necessary to achieve victory are just a part of the background you need to stumble on, which does eliminate a lot of the strategy for some story missions when you have only one right answer, and patience when you those said missions over and over again to find them.

Combat is fairly streamlined in some ways. You can never change a character’s weapons, as they are always going to carry the same type of weapon for their “class” and you only have two inventory slots, one for armor which gives you a growing armor bonus, and the other goes to your “Ring weapon”, a ring slot that you can imbue over 100 gems into to not only learn magic or abilities, but to increase the power of your character. Each slot is color-coded and has a power level of 0-9, so part of the strategy is deciding if you can fit a high level spell in by upgrading or switching around rings, color-coded gems, and changing abilities to enhance your combat prowess, from simple defense increases to special attacks like stunning characters or casting magical spells.

So combat is good in Growlanser if you can stomach the tedium of what you need to do, but story-wise it has never been a high point for the series. At least, in the other games. Instead of falling back on too many clichés to tell a standard story of good vs. evil, Wayfarer of Time adds a strong dose of political intrigue and emotional pathos to generate a more believable impact between characters, including some light “dating sim” mechanics that actually build up believable relationships, instead of being all about the pandering.

Granted, the plot in the end revolves around the epic destiny of the player character as he slowly discovers he is a “ruin child”, a person from a civilization that is over 2,000 years old that was wiped out by Angels, who of course, return to the world in the games prologue and plan to burn it to the ground. I can deal with it though, because the story is told well. As I have always said, a good story, even if its cliché-ridden or overly pretentious, can still be engaging depending on how it is told. And considering the game follows the “silent protagonist” trope but has dialogue trees for your major character, and boasts over 40 different endings depending on the choices made, it is a story that can be told several times with a different outcome in the games conclusion.

Guess which one is the familiar. Here is a hint, shes wearing a crazy outfit.

Although there is one aspect of the gameplay I still can’t reconcile, and that is the use of your familiar. Basically a little pixie you hatch from an egg, this familiar acts as an exposition magnet for the story by conveniently giving you access to cut-scenes of the supporting cast plotting and scheming about things that pertain to you, and to spout exposition and story goals every so often to keep you on track. She acts like a version of Navi that you can level up and find costumes for, but her presence in-game is rather unnecessary for the most part beyond serving as a plot MacGuffin at times.

Sadly, the game is graphically in the same boat as other remakes like Persona 2: Innocent Sin. Most of the enhancements we see come from the changes in the character portraits and some menu designs, which are cleaner and more visible this time around. The character portraits are fantastically detailed, and manga artist Satoshi Urushihara, who has done the character art for every Growlanser game to date, delivers an eclectic mix of design ideas that actually work in the games context. Due to the sort of “industrial revolution” theme in a medieval setting we see ornate honor guards fighting against generals with suits on, a very nice contrast to opposing styles and opposing factions. If I had any complaints, it would be Urushihara’s obsession with giving characters capes all the time was rather strange, and that some of the characters border that already eroded line of pandering and substance a tad too closely.

Graphically though, the game looks weak. Since it is from an isometric point of view, detail is not a strong point, and having it magnified makes the sprites look fairly pixelated all the time. The music and sound effects are also generic, but at least authentic to the original release of Wayfarer of Time, as far as I know. They did add new in-game cut-scenes like Final Fantasy Tactics, and while they are well animated the voice-over cast is fairly weak for the most part, giving out boring but acceptable performances.

Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time is a good game. I won’t mince words when I say that coming into it I did not have high expectations for the title. I expected another lugubrious experience from Growlanser, one that would have me recall that sour aftertaste I had years ago when I first played Heritage of War. But, I am pleased to say I was wrong. While Wayfarer of Time is far from perfect, as both a remake and a PSP title, it is at least a solid RPG that fans and newcomers should look into, especially while the PSP is still alive and kicking.

The game was played on the Playstation Portable for over 30 hours. A copy of the game was supplied by the publisher for review.

Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time Review

By Robert G.

While Wayfarer of Time is far from perfect, as both a remake and a PSP title, it is at least a solid RPG that fans and newcomers should look into, especially while the PSP is still alive and kicking.