The Record of War franchise’s first true mobile game, Record of Grancrest War: Quartet Conflict, will be coming to Android devices worldwide some time this fall. The game has been a smash hit in Japan since its launch back in June, and this international English translation will retain the same scope, scale, feel and gameplay as the original Japanese version. Based on the anime Record of Grancrest War, this game sees players building teams of four out of 25 possible in-universe heroes, then taking them out on the battlefield for some action-strategy combat in hopes of defeating enemy forces and unifying the kingdom.
The game will roughly follow the story of its parent anime series, in which a war to thwart a demon invasion in the continent of Atlatan turned into battles between nobles over special crests that were used against the demons and the powers they held. Players will find themselves immersed in a nuanced storyline taking place on the front lines of those battles. The combat is simple on the surface, but there’s a lot to manage. It can best be described as a real-time strategy RPG. Tap on a character icon to make them attack, and hold a character’s icon to make them use a skill. Movement is handled automatically. Players will have to manage units and items intelligently in order to survive, on top of keeping track of units on the field and figuring out when best to use heroes’ talents to eliminate all of the enemies on the field.
This game is a bit of a landmark; it is the first game built from the ground up that’s based on Ryo Mizuno’s Record of War franchise. There have been ports of two Record of Agarest War games by Hyperdevbox, but those were not built with mobile in mind, and are instead straight mobile ports of console games. The franchise itself began with Record of Lodoss War, sprung off from a fantasy tabletop game universe and rule set that Mizuno created to play with friends. Record of Lodoss War went on to spawn multiple spinoffs and sequels as its popularity spiraled out of control, and the series ended up spawning a few more similar series in the form of light novels, which were eventually adapted into anime, video games and other mediums. Record of Grancrest War is the latest of these, and thus far has only an anime, a tabletop game and this mobile game to its name, though a console game has been announced.
