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I'd definitely be up for a music comparison. L2 had some excellent music but for whatever reason the sound produced by the emulators is not "authentic" as it were and seems to skip beats or something.

The music used for Sonya, for example, has a much better L2 counterpart, but the version you get in the emulators doesn't sound right.


Speaking of L2 comparisons, here's the second of the very sporadically-updated Langrisser 2 to Der Langrisser comparison mini-updates!

Scenario 4



At the troop hiring screen, we see one thing that L2 has over DL - it's possible for individual commanders to hire multiple different unit types, unlike in DL. I believe in later Langrisser games, they make this an ability, so certain commander types can hire multiple units while others can't. It actually makes the game more strategic, since you have more options to consider. Of course, in DL the game is perfectly happy to allow enemy commanders to have multiple troop types, such as Kramer's two ballistas from the recent scenario.



This scenario is equivalent to scenario 3 in DL where Morgan and Zorum invade the holy shrine. However, there are some marked differences in the L2 version. First of all, Zorum is not present, having already been beaten twice, so only Morgan attacks. This means we miss out on the entertaining banter between the two of them. Secondly, Fighter and co haven't actually made it to the shrine yet in the L2 version. So they arrive right as Morgan is attacking, and have to take out his rearguard in order to reach Morgan and his assassins. By contrast, in DL you start inside the shrine and can use it for cover.

Rohga is also not present, and won't ever be in L2. He's a new character that was introduced solely for DL.



Morgan is still a creep and a pervert in this game, but not quite like he was in L2.



Loves a good evil laugh, though! Also while his stats are marginally better than in DL, he's a mage class so his attack is that fucking terrible floating orb thing that Hein has. His archers are a pain, though.



Liana is still not a playable character yet, and frustratingly she's level 5 of her first class. She's a real pain to get up levels in L2, but more on that later.



Rather than the Gladiators in DL, here we have Thiefs attacking the shrine, who are comical caricatures of evil murderers.



Hahahaha.



Rather than casting out threats of rape, in L2 it seems Morgan gets his joy from turning people into zombies. He goes on and on about it, dude is fucking obsessed.



Again, rather than a standard fighter unit in DL, here the rearguard is lead by some kind of jungle shaman or something. Seriously, look at this guy. Morgan's little group of freaks would go well at a circus.



Since we do not start in the shrine, and the entrance is relatively wide, it's almost impossible to keep the two priests alive, though the high priest completely outclasses the thieves.



Yes, Morgan. Thank you, Morgan.



Much like in DL, Morgan does the whole "possessing Liana" gimmick here too.



Morgan recites some kind of incantation...



...but Liana just kind of stares back. She doesn't really show any personality normally, so it's hard to know if anything has even happened.



Morgan even acts as though it hasn't worked, but it actually has. Liana's guardsmen will now blindly charge your units, though they're so pathetically weak that they can't even make a scratch. Liana herself will just kind of sit there because the game's AI knows how useless she is in a battle.



We continue working through the rearguard while the thieves have a jolly old time.



I take the opportunity to feed as much XP to Fighter and Scott as possible, since the next scenario will be dedicated to getting Liana some XP. I turn Fighter into a Lord, which looks very similar to the Lord class in DL.



Much like last scenario, Cherie the Mystery Knight appears again.





Of course, she doesn't actually help you out, but rather goes up to help the priests, which is fair enough I suppose. They probably need the help more than we do.





Morgan doesn't seem particularly bothered by Cherie's appearance.



Cherie goes up and starts taunting the thieves.



Meanwhile down below, things are starting to look a bit bare. All of Scott and Fighter's troops have been killed, though only Morgan and one of the jungle shaman guys are left. Liana has also come up to fight us.



Seriously, just look at this guy. What the hell.



Cherie eventually takes this guy out, and gets her class change. I decide to keep her as a flyer.



She eventually takes out the other thief too.



She even makes it to level 2!



Finally, we finish off Morgan, who somehow escapes.





WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP HIM?!





Apparently Morgan is pissing off to a village somewhere. I don't think that happened in DL, he just tried to retreat and got run down instead.





Here comes the dramatic reveal!



Biggest anticlimax ever. No music, no sound effect, not even a pause in the dialogue. Her portrait just changes, she announces her name, and continues on talking. Nobody reacts at all. Scott comments that he's heard of her before, but they let it go. She also tells them to go to "Kalzath" castle. I guess they decided to change the 'z' to an 'x' in the DL translation.





Liana goes full emo and won't stop moaning about how she almost killed everyone and how horrible she was to them. Newsflash Liana: you fucking suck and didn't even once try to attack us yourself because you knew that you would have died if you did.



Having struck the final blow on Morgan, Scott gets his class change. I turn him into a knight.



Scenario 5



Much like scenario 2, scenario 5 has no analogue in Der Langrisser. It's pretty forgettable, so I guess they just chose to leave it out. The basic premise is that Morgan is shitty about getting his ass whipped and losing his army, so he's decided to raze a village and turn everyone into zombies to form his new army.



Here's the layout, with Morgan at the top. He'll flee up north at full speed, and although it is possible to run him down with flyers, it's actually beneficial not to. There's a 22 turn limit on this scenario (the idea being if you don't kill everyone and move on by then, Morgan will have already reached the village and wiped it out) but Morgan himself will escape after 12 turns.



Morgan's portrait here makes him look like he's looking fearfully over his shoulder for Fighter and co, which I kind of like





Upon Fighter's arrival, Morgan unleashes a couple of werewolf units, but they're pretty terrible.



This scenario is mostly played as comedy relief. After sitting around for a turn and doing nothing, one of Morgan's subordinates gets concerned and decides to prompt him to move.



Morgan then starts shifting along.



A turn later, Morgan hatches a new plan, and decides to use his subordinates as cannon fodder instead.











Hahahahaha. The lowest ranked group of subordinates sticks behind, but the one commenting here just flat-out ignores Morgan's orders and continues retreating.



I take the opportunity to feed Liana some experience and get her the werewolf kills. I also bunch all of the injured units in one place and let her heal them all. At level 6, her heal spell spans a radius of two squares, so she can heal 13 units at once. Look at her XP bar there...



...and then after casting the spell. Nearly a full level in one go! I think in the later Langrisser games they actually put a cap on how much XP you can get from healing per scenario because you can really exploit it by preventing injured troops from standing near their commander and just having your healer go to work. When you also consider that you regain MP by using the health command, it's possible to reduce an enemy to low health, keep him alive and injuring you, and just gain XP indefinitely, though it would take ages to do so.



After we wipe out the werewolves and one of Morgan's subordinate troops, Morgan gets all shitty about it.







Morgan summons up two more troops of werewolves.





Again, Morgan is more of a psychopath than a pedophile in L2.



After we make quick work of the second set of werewolves, Morgan is even more upset at us.



So Morgan summons... another two units of werewolves. This is why it's best not to simply wipe Morgan out, as there is experience and money aplenty on offer in this scenario.





Hahaha, even Hein calls Morgan out on his bullshit.



It takes a considerable amount of effort, but I get Liana up to a new class, and I choose to make her a Healer. One of the reasons it's so hard to get her up levels (short of abusing the healing trick) is that she only gets guardsmen in her initial class, as opposed to DL where she can control monks right off the bat. Thankfully, she can hire monks from now on. Also, in DL she has a nifty little wall of fire attack which allowed her to hit all enemies first, whereas in L2 she throws little crosses at her enemies, only getting two or three off before the soldiers fall onto her and slice her to pieces. Overall she's absolutely terrible at combat in L2, and she won't get getting an overpowered summon any time soon either.







Morgan makes it to the top, and vanishes, but not before taunting his subordinates.



Fighter and co are not happy about the prospect of losing Morgan.





Eventually the second guy also takes off. I probably could have killed him but never mind.





After we wipe out the last werewolves, the scenario finally ends. That will do for today, other than I will mention that scenario 4 of DL is the seige of Kalxath mission. Here we're about to start scenario 6 of L2 and it's obviously going to be some village mission with Morgan, which gives you an idea how much they cut for DL. I guess since they had four alternative paths, it made sense to cut the fat to allow for all the different paths.


Anyway, back to the real stuff! Over to you, MonotoneMorgan.