is a 1998 Japanese simulation role playing game. It was developed by TNS Co., Ltd. and published by Sega for the

Sega Saturn The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it was the successor to the succ ...

. It was never released outside of Japan.

Gameplay

''Wachenröder'' is a simulation role playing game. Most of the game is presented in an

isometric perspective Isometric video game graphics are graphics employed in video games and pixel art that use a parallel projection, but which angle the viewpoint to reveal facets of the environment that would otherwise not be visible from a top-down perspective ...

, similar to the genrelike games

Shining Force is a 1992 turn-based tactical role-playing game for the Mega Drive/Genesis console. While primarily a traditional fantasy-themed game, it contains some science fiction elements. The game has been repeatedly re-released: in Sega Smash Pack Vol ...

Vandal Hearts Vandal Hearts, known in Japan as is a turn-based tactical role-playing video game developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo for the PlayStation and later ported to the Sega Saturn by Konami Computer Entertainment Nagoya. The PlayStation ...

Front Mission is a collection of video games and related media produced by Square (video game company), Square, now Square Enix. The series was created by Toshiro Tsuchida and developed by G-Craft, a studio that was later absorbed by Square and existed withi ...

Final Fantasy Tactics is a 1997 tactical role-playing game developed and published by Square (video game company), Square for the PlayStation (console), PlayStation video game console. Released in Japan in June 1997 and in the United States in January 1998 by Sony ...

, and consists of several turn-based fights separated by cutscenes. Some cutscenes are preceded by the playable character ''Bellebete'' narrating the story. The stages consist of 3D maps, which can be turned in all directions, as well as zoomed in to get a closer look at the gameplay. Combat in the game consists of

turn based In video and other games, the passage of time must be handled in a way that players find fair and easy to understand. This is usually done in one of the two ways: real-time and turn-based. Real-time Real-time games have game time progress cont ...

battles. The story advances through use of pre-rendered computer generated movies.

Plot

Many tactical role playing games were set in medieval settings, while Wachenröder is instead set in the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

. The setting has been described as "

steampunk Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or ...

". The story takes place in a dark future on the island Edward, which is ruled by the noble and magnanimous King Wizar (who is imprisoned by the evil prime minister Vlad at the time which the game begins). In this

alternate history Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, altern ...

steam power A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

is very sophisticated and the people hold it dear: vehicles, gadgetry or weapons are driven by

vapor In physics, a vapor (American English) or vapour (British English and Canadian English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is a substance in the gas phase at a temperature lower than its critic ...

in place of

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

. This links ''Wachenröder'', based on its contents and its overall design, to the

genre. Since the building of several

wastewater treatment plants Wastewater treatment is a process used to remove contaminants from wastewater and convert it into an effluent that can be returned to the water cycle. Once returned to the water cycle, the effluent creates an acceptable impact on the environmen ...

for the rich upper class, the citizens of Edoalds suffer more and more from diseases caused by

hazardous waste Hazardous waste is waste that has substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment. Hazardous waste is a type of dangerous goods. They usually have one or more of the following hazardous traits: ignitability, reactivity, co ...

and contaminated drinking water. The gamer assumes the role of Lucian Taylor, who is in search of Imperator Duran, to avenge the illness-caused death of his younger sister, which he holds him responsible for.

Development

Many of the game's artists were recruited from the anime industry. Anime and manga artist

Range Murata is a Japanese artist and designer (W artist), known for his unique style combining dieselpunk and Japanese anime elements. He is best known for his conceptual design work on anime series ''Last Exile'' and '' Blue Submarine No. 6''. He began ...

was an artist for the game. Artist Takeyuki Takeya worked on '' Iria: Zeiram The Animation''.

Katsumi Yokota is a Japanese video game designer and amateur musician who has contributed to the visual design and music of the ''Lumines'' series of games. He served as the art director of the original PSP game and as the director of ''Lumines Supernova'' for th ...

worked on character designs for the game. He also worked on ''

Panzer Dragoon Saga ''Panzer Dragoon Saga'', known in Japan as is a 1998 role-playing video game developed by Team Andromeda and published by Sega for the Sega Saturn. The third in the ''Panzer Dragoon'' series, it replaced the games' rail shooter gameplay with ...

'', and ''

Front Mission Alternative is a real-time tactics video game developed and published by Square, and was released in Japan on December 18, 1997. ''Front Mission Alternative'' is the second spin-off entry and the fourth entry overall in the ''Front Mission'' series. Unlike o ...

.'' The game was previewed at the 1998

Tokyo Game Show , commonly known as TGS, is a video game expo / convention held annually in September in the Makuhari Messe, in Chiba, Japan. It is presented by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) and Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. The ...

. The game was developed at a time when there was growing interest in the simulation RPG genre for four years in Japan. Musician Ian McDonald (a member of Foreigner and

King Crimson King Crimson are a progressive rock band formed in 1968 in London, England. The band draws inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, industrial, electronic, experime ...

), contributed two tracks to the game's musical score. This is part of a larger trend in the late 1990s, where established musicians compose music for video games. Other examples

Stewart Copeland Stewart Armstrong Copeland (born July 16, 1952) is a Scottish-American musician and composer. He is best known for his work as the drummer of the English rock band the Police from 1977 to 1986, and again from 2007 to 2008. Before playing with th ...

composing the music for the ''

Spyro the Dragon ''Spyro the Dragon'' is a platform game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation on September 9, 1998. The first game in the ''Spyro'' series, it stars the title character, a young purple dr ...

'' games, and

Ronnie Montrose Ronald Douglas Montrose (November 29, 1947 – March 3, 2012) was an American guitarist who founded and led the rock bands Montrose and Gamma. He also performed and did session work with a variety of musicians, including Van Morrison, Herbie H ...

composing the music for ''

Mr. Bones ''Mister'', usually written in its contracted form ''Mr.'' or ''Mr'', is a commonly used English honorific for men without a higher honorific, or professional title, or any of various designations of office. The title 'Mr' derived from earlier ...

''. The

Wiener Werkstätte The Wiener Werkstätte (engl.: ''Vienna Workshop''), established in 1903 by the graphic designer and painter Koloman Moser, the architect Josef Hoffmann and the patron Fritz Waerndorfer, was a productive association in Vienna, Austria that bro ...

logo is printed on the game's cover, the

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

, and used in the actual game itself.

Release

The game was released in Japan on August 6, 1998 for the Sega Saturn, and published by Sega. The game received a television commercial featuring the character

Segata Sanshiro is a character created by Sega to advertise the Sega Saturn in Japan between 1997 and 1998. He is a parody of Sugata Sanshirō, a legendary judo fighter from Akira Kurosawa's 1943 film ''Sanshiro Sugata''. In television and radio advertisements ...

. The little

artbook Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects. Overview Artists' books have employed a ...

that comes packed with the game, begins with a longer

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

text that tells the background story in

lyric poetry Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...

. The game's soundtrack, ''Wachenröder Original Game Soundtrack'', was published by

Marvelous Entertainment (MMV) was a multinational corporation that produced animation, music, video games and television series. MMV is known for its involvement in the ''Story of Seasons'' series. They merged with AQ Interactive in 2011 and became Marvelous AQL; the ...

. The game received previews in various magazines in Europe and North America, however it was never released outside of Japan.

Reception

Weekly Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese Video game journalism, video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both we ...

'' gave the game a score of 29 out of 40. Reviewers compared the presentation and graphics to ''

''. The German magazine ''Video Games'' praised the quality of the use of the German that exists in the game. Three reviewers for the Japanese ''Sega Saturn Magazine'' gave the game scores of 7, 6, and 8 respectively. ''Gamers' Republic'' gave the game a B−, while praising the artwork and music, but were highly critical of the gameplay and graphics. The reviewer instead recommended '' Shining Force III: Scenario 2'' as a better import title to play. In a separate review for the game's soundtrack, ''Gamers' Republic'' gave the score a B and recommended the music for fans of rpg music. In 2001, ''

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

'' writer David Smith listed the game as the second most wished game he would like to see ported to the

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

. He praised the artwork of the game saying "the character design and world art have a wonderfully grim, clammy, sepia-toned neo-Victorian sort of quality to them."

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wachenröder 1998 in video gaming Tactical role-playing video games Japan-exclusive video games Sega Saturn games Sega Saturn-only games Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Satoshi Miyashita Video games scored by Takayuki Negishi Single-player video games