Warsong

The Good
If you like Fire Emblem for GBA, you'll likely love this game, especially if you love a challenge. The battlefields are larger (just look at the second level!), the battles more intense, and there's not that annoying "help" in the beginning stages. The character designs are not as generic (supplied, I believe, by Satoshi Urushihara of Plastic Little fame, among other anime) as FE's.

The Bad
Battles, obviously, are longer than in FE, and that is sometimes a good thing. But sometimes it feels more like just a mad dash across three, four, or five screens just to get to a town. Then, it just seems to leap from battle to battle--only a short text and a brief bit of dialogue (text again, with a static image of the character speaking) and you're underway (again, the second level is a good example of this). And just who is that supposed to be on the cover? He's too old to be the prince.

The Bottom Line
It's easy to see why Langrisser was so popular in Japan, and why the series is still influencing strategy role-playing games like Fire Emblem to this day.

The Good
This turn-based RPG had 20 missions; all of which had different criteria to meet for victory. The delicate balance of how to attack an enemy (terrain advantages) and with which character always made things challenging and suspenseful. Plus, when your guys would level up to a new class, you'd receive a host of new spells and abilities. A wide variety of enemies and locales kept things interesting.
Extremely catchy music, and awesome sound effects (ie. death screams). I just loved it when your lord would launch a rolling fireball at an enemy boss, and watch his HP tick down to 0 in like a second; powerful! The characters, although somewhat underdeveloped, were still awesome. If you lost one of them in a battle, you'd NEVER get them back for the rest of the game, so you became quite attached to them and their performance throughout the missions. You could also save your game halfway through a mission, which was a plus.

The Bad
The fact that the sequels didn't come out in the US (although I have played ported ROMs of Langrisser II, which is just as awesome)! The music, though good, could be repetitive at times. The sprites are tiny compared to other games of the time like Shining Force, although this was probably a good thing since they looked more realistic and not like cartoon characters (of course the character pics are total anime).

The Bottom Line
This game was relatively unheard of in the Genesis community, which is a real shame. I've played Shining Force, and although I enjoyed it, it didn't hold a candle to Warsong. I know that virtually all games today are in real-time, but there was something about turn-based games that I enjoyed more. Probably since I had time to pause and strategise, I could take what was going on all in, rather than just hack and slash like a first person shooter drone. Definitely pick this game up; you won't be disappointed!