Grow-what? You're probably saying. I know, Japanese RPGs are easy to lose track of unless they're pinned to a name like SquareEnix or Namco, but that's why we're here. The Growlanser series originated on the PSOne, and that first game never saw release here in the US. The next two games came out for the PS2, and with a little negotiation and a lot of legwork, Working Designs has brought these two together in one nifty package called Growlanser Generations.

Growlanser shares some traits with other RPGs, but together it's a very unique experience. First, take a lot of what you know from traditional Japanese RPGs, like leveling up, skills, magic, etc. Add in a tiny bit of real-time strategy, and cap it all off with a helping of turn-based strategy. With a glance at the screenshots, one might think that the game looks and plays just like Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics. While that's true to some degree, you do take turns moving and attacking on a battlefield, there is no grid. And more importantly, there's a very active, almost real-time, aspect to the game. After you give your initial orders to the troops, everyone starts moving around at the same time.

For those of you who are huge fans of console strategy RPGs, like myself, don't fret. The battle system has a lot more strategy to it than the constant movement let's on. You get to choose new orders every time one is completed, and you can stop orders midstream to give new ones. Instead of getting a pool of action points to plan your turns from, you can try to move as far as you want and use any skill/spell that you want. Of course there is a catch. If you choose to move a long distance as your action, the character will take the time to walk to the destination. This means other people will be using other action during your trip. The other issues are with waiting and chanting. After actions, such as attacking, there's a meter that will partially fill up, signifying how long you have to wait until your next action. With magic, you start chanting/singing the spell, and this is shown in the meter as well. When the meter empties, the spell goes off.

On the subject of magic, it works in an interesting way in Growlanser. On top of having to wait for your spell meter to count down, there are a couple of other nuances. Spells can gain levels, and higher levels are not only more powerful but give you more options as well. Say you've decided to use a heal spell on your teammate. The heal spell is max level three, but you think you only need the first level of that spell. So after choosing heal and level one, that character starts to wait for the spell meter to empty. Meanwhile, two more of your teammates got hurt from enemy attacks. When your spell meter empties, you can pass on the level one spell and continue to charge it to level three. Now, when you make it to level three, you can dole out those three levels in any manner you choose. You can put all three levels on one person for a more effective heal, or in our example, you'd throw one level to each of the three injured teammates.

As well as the story, character progression can make or break an RPG, and thankfully it's great here in Growlanser. On top of the traditional stat growth upon leveling up, there are some other interesting systems to make your character stronger. The characters use what are called "ring weapons." These weapons can't be changed, but the rings that produce the weapon can be upgraded. The rings have slots in them where you can place gems. The slots have ranks like 5-3-3, where you can place a level 5 gem and two level 3 gems into it. The gems give you some cool abilities, like drain hit points with each swing. On top of upgrading your rings and gems, you also get a number of skill points each time you level. These points can be spent to learn new skills, techs, or magic. Usually it takes multiple skill points to earn a new ability, so you have to work on it for a few levels.

Battles are tough without making you want to pull your hair out. It's a blessing when your strategy game rewards good strategy and not just out-leveling the competition. The need for good tactics is compounded by certain stages, which change dynamically and often for the worse. There are also many fights where the goal is not to "defeat all enemies," which is a welcome challenge. Fights can have multiple outcomes, and the level to which you complete a stage has a direct impact to the rest of the game. It dictates who you meet, how the story unfolds, and ultimately which ending you receive.

Growlanser II and III share a lot of similarities, but there are some differences. The world map for GII is just like Final Fantasy Tactics, where you move from town to town through a series of checkpoints. Shops and conversations all happen by way of menu choices at said checkpoints. In GIII, you actually enter the towns and walk around talking to NPCs and entering shops. There is a subtle difference in area-of-effect type magic between the two, and GIII also allows the use of items in battle, where they are unavailable in GII.

Hopefully the recently successful Nippon Ichi games (Disgaea, La Pucelle, and Phantom Brave), and more to the point their graphical style, will have softened the blow for Growlanser. There's nothing here attempting to push the PS2's technical limits, but goodness knows you can make a great looking game without having to. Growlanser's sprawling backgrounds and gorgeous, full screen, hand-drawn character portraits help set the mood for the series. Sure a little more resolution and animation wouldn't hurt the in-game characters, but certainly doesn't deter from the overall endearing quality of the graphics. Be sure to check out the last couple of screen shots to get a good idea of what the mission battle maps look like.

The story is propelled along by healthy portion of spoken dialog. I've been told Working Designs had to go out of town, and out of their usual circle of talent, to find enough actors to fill up the hours of voice acting that takes place across both games. The written and spoken dialog is wonderful as always. The extra time and attention that was put into bring these characters to life really shows.

Working Designs has given us a couple of options this time with the regular set of games going for $50 and their big collector's package (watch, soundtrack, etc.) going for $90. This is quite possibly my favorite RPG(s) this generation. If you are not a fan of RPGs or strategy games, then there's nothing here that will break that trend. But, if you are remotely interested in the genre, this comes with my highest recommendation.