Ever since 2006 I’ve heard about this game. I heard it was damn good. Reading about it was damn funny. But It’s always good to set your expectations low. So I did, and was promptly blown away with a great game.

Opening thought

First off the game is by Alicesoft, and there is one thing that always sticks in my mind when Alicesoft is mentioned…..and that is (ERO+ERO+ERO+ERO+ERO)^9.
And whilst that is true. They are much more known for the fact that most of their games have actual gameplay.

Sengoku Rance is a strategy RPG and Im not sure which game series it could be compared to. I told a friend “It’s like Fire-Emblem…..only simplified….and faster…..and crazier”, but haven’t payed much Fire-Emblem, so that analogy can be thrown out the window.

Story

Considering it’s an Alicesoft game. Nothing really needs to be said about the story. I mean, there is a story, but you don’t really need to care about the serious-ness of it.
This is the seventh Rance game, but this game stands on it’s own

In JAPAN (yes spelled like that) in a period resembling the Sengoku Period (who’d a thought?) Oda Nobunaga decides to hire the crazy women obsessed foreigner known as Rance to defend his Owari province.

But because Rance is……..well Rance. He decides to go many steps ahead and conquer all of JAPAN so he can have as many as he wants. Isn’t he charming?

Rance is a great character, mostly because I can’t help but see him as a parody of every single goddamn shounen/harem hero.

You should probably just pay attention to the humor. The humor is filled lots of Japanese randomness, blunt talking, sexual jokes, and MOE (srs bzns).

Characters

Whilst the game isn’t voiced. It sure features a lot of characters.
For every nearly every country you conquer there is a girl to be found and then some, and to my surprise there are some male characters that are also pretty cool.

I’ll just go through whom I remember best.

From Yamato.
Suzume is best described as usual cat-like character. She meets Rance as she tries to assassinate him. But like many women before her, she ends up taking a liking to him.

The Mouri family.
Motonari (the father) is the usual “loves war” kinda guy, and his daughters (all wearing maid uniforms) follow suit. Teru (Soldier commander/cleaner), Kiku (ninja/cook), and Chinu (medicine specialist/poisoner). All very funny.

For some reason I ended really liking them a lot. So much that I opted to do some more battles to make sure I could get Motonari on my side.

Kasuga family.
Ryouma, Gon, Yuzuru, and Mine.
I can’t be sure if they were meant to be parodies of Japanese punk society….But this is particularly why I found them great:
Ryouma: Hey there’s some foreigner who declared war on us….
Yuzuru: Thats pretty cool.
Gon: Yeah…
Ryouma:LETS GO GET HIS AUTOGRAPH!
Yuzuru: AND THEN KILL HM!
Ryouma: YEAH!

Nuff said.

Uesugi Kenshin and Naoe Ai.

Kenshin has actually won over Saber as most loved heroine…..I think that says something. I’m actually not going to talk about her too much, except to say that I found her interactions with Rance to be some of the funniest parts of the game.

Likewise Ai is a like able character, she gets some funny moments due to Kenshin’s semi-naive personality

And then of course dozens of others that I don’t have time to mention

Gameplay

See that map above? Your goal is conquer all of it, and damn is it fun.

You can have up to thirty commanders (essentially units), which include some that are mandatory (Rance and Suzume for example). You use them to fight battles and gain territory (phenomenal idea right?). Your commander’s troops are essentially their HP in these battles. The more troops you have the more damage you do.

One territory is composed of 3 to 5 areas that can be conquered in battle. Before battle you can perform actions to put the odds in your favor such as using a covert operation to hurt enemy troops or boosting battlefield effect.

Battlefield effect allows you to conquer an area without needing to destroy all units in battle (essentially a blue bar at the top of the screen that rises depending how the way the battle turns out)

There are also “solo battles” in which the commanders are given actual HP (not troops) and fight alone against other lone units. These battles are kind of annoying because the enemy has unlimited time to attack and thus you need to be sure to manage what commanders you are using.

In addition to battle. Another goal is giving your commanders “affection points” so that they can level up or gain abilities. For the female commanders, this obviously leads to some erotic content.

Overall

The game is pretty challenging especially after you start going up against units with troop numbers in the thousands.

I’ve actually cheated to get through a few tough situations faster. But the game is so damn fun that it didn’t mind having to replay battles 20 times or so.

I’ve been having alot of fun with the game. I didn’t expect to like the story aspect as much, but the comedy has been pretty solid. So both gameplay-wise and story-wise the game has been fun.

My progress:

JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE!!!!!!!!!