Sengoku Rance
PC game | Adventure | Alice Soft | English | 2 GB
Sengoku Rance is the 7th game in Rance series, along with several spin-offs and sidestories, which makes it one of the longest running H-game series ever. Released in 2006, it quickly became one of the best selling games of that year, and it's easy to see why.
Story
Sengoku era takes place in JAPAN, a parody of the real-life Japan in the Sengoku Era. In the aftermath of the Youkai War and the loss of their old leader, the Oda house has lost most of it's territories due to constant in-fighting. Rance and his faithful companion, Shil, arrive to help the Oda House settle it's problems, and the current leader, Oda Nobunaga, decides to step down, offering his position and his sister in political marriage to Rance, setting the unification of JAPAN into motion. Meanwhile, an ancient evil force begins to awaken and conspires to ruin JAPAN and it's people.
While the main plot isn't exactly that original (evil bad guy awakens and wants to kill everyone/destroy everything, Hero stops him), the execution is fantastic and it's ending certainly isn't the happily ever after you'd expect. I personally preferred it to the pretentious plotlines of certain RPGs. Also, each of the non-generic Captains, mostly based off historical people such as Shingen Takeda or Mori Motonari, has his/her own side-stories or events, dealing with themes such as friendship, love or death and most of them are well-written and enjoyable to watch.
Gameplay
This is where the game really shines! Sengoku Rance has a unique gameplay that's hard to classify, the closest would be a Strategy RPG. Each turn, you're given several "war-fans", which is the number of actions you can take. Actions such as fortifying your locations, recruiting new Captains, exploring a dungeon or going to war with another House. Captains have specific stat values such as Construction or Negotiation that contribute points to complete these tasks. The more difficult the task, the more points needed to complete them.
What would be a strategy game without battles? Probably Settlers of Catan, but this is a game about War! Once you go to War, it's a 6 on 6 battle with the enemy, each Captain has his own class which has different special abilities. For example, the Footsoldier class has the ability to jump in and defend other members along with increased defense, whereas the Yin-Yang users can unleash a powerful attack that damages all enemies, but requires a while to charge up and can be interrupted by attacks. Careful usage and combinations of abilities of each class will provide a powerful effect and help you achieve victory over the enemy.
There is a turn limit on battles, with the winner being the one who killed everyone on the opposing side or filled the advantage bar the most. The bar fills to your advantage everytime you attack an enemy, but certain skills can also affect it directly. Therefore, you can plan your strategy on filling the bar, or killing all the enemies, or maybe a little bit of both. While it appears simple, the War battle system has a surprising amount of depth to it, and being able to read into the future and plan accordingly are very useful skills to have while playing.
There is also a different kind of battle, the duel, in which your Captains fight with the enemy without the support of their troops. The strength of your Captains in duel battles are mainly based on their levels and stats, and to raise the levels of your Captains, you have to complete dungeons, which is really more of a series of duel battles than actual dungeon-crawling. While less prominent than the War battles, there are several important and tough duel battles in the game, so you can't neglect your Captains even if they have the biggest army ever.
Finally, the RPG character building aspect of the game, the game uses the "relationship" system. Every time you fight with your Captains, use special items or talk to them, you raise their relationship level and once it reaches a certain point, you get to upgrade them with a new skill and maybe even watch a special cutscene related to them. Each Captain has a support skill, a primary attack, a secondary attack and a passive skill, and even among the same class, a Captain may have different combination of skills, giving you a lot of flexibility to upgrade and customize your army in the way you like.
Be warned though! This is not an easy game, the learning curve is quite steep although the system seems simplistic. Be prepared to lose a lot or even restart the game before you get the hang of it. Thankfully, while it may be hard for beginners, the game doesn't feel particularly cheap in it's attempts to increase the difficulty like most SRPG games and even the hardest of situations can be simple once you're familiar with the game.
Graphics/Sound
The CG art of the game is hard to describe, but if I could use a word, it would be... "stylish", they're high quality, pleasing to the eyes and the character designs are very attractive. The sprites are okay, but unfortunately they aren't animated much or very well. Those wanting drool-worthy 3D graphics should look somewhere else, but for those who can still appreciate 2D art, the artstyle of this game won't disappoint.
The music has a problem with lacking variety. There are only around 30 tracks in the game, and certain themes such as the Battle music will eventually get old in a while, but thankfully the music is great, with certain tracks such as "Rebirth the Edge" being very impressive sounding.
Sound effects are usable, but not anything to write home about. Now, some bad news. NONE of the characters in this game are voiced, for a 2006 H-game, this is almost unthinkable. But considering the sheer number of events and characters in the game, such an endeavour would probably bankrupt the company, and the money that would be spent was definitely used to create more CG art and gameplay content, which is the most important part of a game anyway.
Play Time/Replayability
While one playthrough of Sengoku Rance is relatively short, clocking at around 20 to 30 hours, the replayability of this game is enormous. After completing the game once, you have an option to start the game with bonuses using points you've earned in previous playthroughs, such as new Captains and items.
Additionally, THREE additional routes become unlocked, each with their own unique gameplay quirks which throw a little curveball in normal gameplay and alternate storylines. For example, Uesugi Kenshin's route requires her to win the Emperor Race, dueling Captains and winning battles in order to be the first to reach enough points to become the Emperor of JAPAN.
Even without these new routes, the events of the game are randomly generated, and you may end up seeing new events that you never seen in your previous games, or perhaps recruit a new Captain that you've never used before, or find new items or fight a secret uber-boss. You can play this for quite a while before exhausting everything the game has to offer you.
Final Recommendation
Buy it. Especially if you're fluent in Japanese, although it's still enjoyable without said ability. Also recommended for anyone who's a fan of the Sengoku Era, although this game doesn't quite portray history accurately. Most people think that H-games are all visual novels with little to no gameplay or pointless porn, but this game combines the best elements of story and gameplay to create one of the greatest H-games, nay, import games ever made.
Download:
Code:
http://hotfile.com/list/261749/916b7dbEnglish Patch:
Code:
http://yandere.gray7.com/Sengoku_Rance_English_v1.0_%5BYandere_Translations%5D.exe