Catalogue No. - GS-9183

Video Link

 This game is beautiful. The whole thing oozes quality from the moment you switch it on. The full screen CG intro is wonderful. The whole game takes place in what I believe is called a "Steam Punk" fantasy environment. Wachenroder (pronounced Vakkenroda) was one of the later Saturn releases which is quite surprising when you consider the amount of detail gone in to this game. The actual game worlds are all polygon generated and look quite nice. Easily as good if not better than those used in Grandia or Shining Force 3. The battle scenes are your typical turn based affair played out on a grid. I normally hate this style but with Wachenroder I didn't mind that much due to the wonderful atmosphere that the game portrays. The battles are played out on the main world area except for when you do a magic or hard attack. Then the presentation becomes full 3D much in the same way as Shining Force. Only this time the characters seem to have a cell shaded look to them. While playing the normal game (none battle scenes) the characters are 2D sprites just like in Grandia or Shining Force 3. This is all fine and well until the screen zooms in. For some reason the programmers of Wachenroder thought it would be a great idea to zoom the screen in whist people are having a conversation. I really wish that they hadn't because it gives the game an awful blocky look at times. Still, it's not enough to spoil the great game that Wachenroder is.

Wachenroder comes with a beautiful art book which features CG, model and sketches from the game.