Gaia no Monshou

Gaia no Monshou (ガイアの紋章) is a turn-based strategy game developed in Japan by NCS (Nippon Computer Systems), and published on several popular home computers as well as the PC Engine home console. It was the first PC Engine game developed by Masaya, the label used by the NCS (Nippon Computer Systems) corporation, and it’s also the direct predecessor to the Langrisser series (occasionally known as Warsong), which had as extensive a hand in defining the console SRPG genre as Nectaris and Fire Emblem.

The player controls the army of the Land of Light, and has to repel the evil overlord Böser and his monsters. The player must build their army by spending points/cash earned in the previous battle to acquire new units before the next. In order to maximize the player's chances of victory, they have to defeat as many enemy units as possible without letting them escape while securing their own units' safety to have the most spending money for the following conflict. Points are awarded based on the strength of the defeated enemy, but points are lost if members of your army are defeated. Turns do not necessarily alternate between the player and the computer. Rather, the side which begins a new round is determined by a coin toss.

It was originally released in 1987 for the NEC PC-8801 computer. The game also has a Construction Mode that allows the player to create their own scenarios with units not found in the main game. These range from sci-fi units to members of Masaya's development team. The PC Engine port is a simplified version of the original, with battles taking place on a single-screen map instead of a scrolling landscape. This game was never released outside of Japan. However, an English fan translation patch has been developed for the PC Engine version, and is available here.