Original Release: AliceSoft, 2006, PC
Other Releases: PC (2019)
Sengoku Rance returns to the turn-based strategy style of Kichikuou Rance, this time zooming in to take place in the glorious land of JAPAN
Sengoku Rance (PC, MangaGamer, 2019)
Where to Buy: MangaGamer
Review by: Master-B
I first got into the Rance series by way of my enthusiasm for Suikoden, oddly enough. This happened because I had heard it tooted about on various forums that Sengoku Rance was “like Suikoden, but with porn” essentially. But, it’s also plop in the middle of a very long series. Being the dedicated Gooms Jernalizt that I am, I decided to play at least a couple of the earlier entries to get a sense of the Rance games before diving in to Sengoku. As it happens, I found it interesting enough to play pretty much ALL of the original chronology before getting to this one. Let it never be said I am incapable of delaying gratification.
Anyway, the point of this preamble is that it turns out this isn’t really like Suikoden (save some superficial similarities), but I like it as much anyway. In terms of gameplay it’s essentially a straight follow-up to AliceSoft’s earlier hit Kichikuou Rance, which was more like Romance of the Three Kingdoms with some RPG and visual novel elements blended in. This one is more polished than Kichikuou was, and takes it a little easier with the nasty ambushes and general overall difficulty level.
The setting moves to JAPAN, as Rance continues his quest to bone all of the world’s female leaders. He happens to run into Oda Nobunaga, who in this game is more like Broda Brobunaga, he’s a chill slacker duder who really just wants to run a tea house. But his apathy had led to the deterioration of his clan, left clinging to just one territory. Broda knows he must expand or die in this Sengoku world, but he lacks the ambition and attitude for it, so he hires Rance to be his shadow military commander for an expansion campaign. Of course, in usual Rance style, there will eventually be complications and demons and etc. in the mix.
As with Kichikuou Rance, the flow of the game is in discrete turns in each of which you have to choose from a very limited amount of possible actions. Attacking and conquering neighboring provinces is the central goal, but there are also all sorts of secondary things to do that increase your strength or are necessary to curb budding crises that pop up: exploring dungeons to find treasure and level up commanders (which increases the number of troops their units can field), conversations and events with your commanders that increase their loyalty (and eventually power them up), increasing the “National Power” of your territories so that you can afford to field more commanders, collecting tax money that ne’er-do-wells are refusing to pay, and Rance doing his usual Rancing of all eligible females within reach (which tallies “Satisfaction” points that can actually be cashed in for some of the best bonuses in the game).
And as with Kichikuou, the “visual novel” aspect is that you’re under almost-constant pressure to deal with various events that force you to manage time carefully. Early in the game, your invasion of a neighboring province may get bogged down in a slog against an unexpectedly strong force; then one, or maybe even two, other nations decide to attack you. With the ability to field only thirty total commanders (up to six per battle, and against tougher foes you’ll likely need all six) who can only fight once per turn, you have to carefully time your campaigns of aggression to not deplete your pool of defenses too much. Later in the game, as has tended to happen in the series since Kichikuou, you’re suddenly up against a large and strong demon army that can scatter your current plans and crush you if you aren’t able to adapt.
Sengoku isn’t as unfair as Kichikuou was, but it explains very little in-game and requires you to learn a lot of the fine details via experimentation. Fortunately, setbacks due to mistakes (or particularly unfair ambushes) are often erased by reloading to the beginning of the turn. The breadth of options in the game also often give you some creative wiggle room to get out of a temporary jam: maybe you can run a sabotage campaign in enemy territory that stops them from attacking that turn? Or maybe you’ve got an item you picked up that gives just enough of a boost to get through a tough battle?
The game was also intentionally designed to be replayed many times, arguably its single biggest strength. Your very first game gives you limited options (but also a few potent one-time perks), and is meant to be at least a bit of a mess. The first run gives you a sense of how the game’s events play out and how the enemy forces will act, allowing you to play a more sophisticated campaign in future runs.
But satisfaction at running a better military campaign is far from the only reason to replay. The first playthrough sticks you on the “true route,” but once completed future games open up a variety of “If…” routes (tracked by a handy screen that is added to the menu on subsequent playthroughs) that take the game’s story in completely different directions. You also open up the free-for-all “National Mode” that allows you to pick any country and play an open-ended game of pure conquest. Points that you earn in each playthrough can also be cashed in at the start of these New Game+ playthroughs to give you a broad assortment of starting advantages.
Another layer of enjoyment is in the strategic considerations of each battle. There are about a dozen unit types that each have their strengths and weaknesses against each other, and some commanders have their own unique special abilities on top. If you have a ninja or similarly sneaky unit to spare for that turn, you can “scout” and see exactly what you’re fighting; if you don’t, you’ll have to go in guessing based on previous encounters with that particular nation. The stakes are always high because, as with Kichikuou, there is a random chance that nearly every playable unit in the game (including Rance himself) can have the commander perma-killed when the unit is wiped out. This forces you to take even weaker enemy squads seriously, as they might be packing one good unit that can manage to kill one of your vulnerable commanders before they are routed. However, you can also kill (and capture) quite a few of the enemy commanders; snatching up the right one at the right time sometimes leads to new avenues of strategy in tackling a particularly tough opponent. Defensive battles are also a valid strategy against tough opponents sometimes, as you’ll gradually chip down their massive troop counts and kill/capture their better commanders as you enjoy the boosts granted when defending your own territory.
What complaints I have about the game, aside from it just sometimes being a little player-hostile, are basically just minor nitpicks. A couple of battle abilities are broken nonsense (Assassinate, Ally Avenger) and shouldn’t be in the game, but they don’t come into play nearly often enough to ruin anything permanently. There’s a “text skip” feature, but can only be used on scenes you’ve already seen (including the sex scenes) and you’re still subjected to quite a load of repeated text on multiple playthroughs. Dungeon diving, which is the only real crumb of RPG gameplay, gets extremely repetitive very quickly yet is necessary on nearly any playthrough to beef up commanders.
The “H” content is the standard thing for Rance and Alicesoft, static but uncensored screens, but the art quality is good and they added more frames to each scene here than in previous Rance games. Still looks too silly to really be erotic IMO (with Rance’s cartoon dick and the can of shaving cream he keeps opening into the girls) but the artist had talent and took time to apply appealing color and detail to all corners of the game (including the non-H ones). Some scenes do drone on for far too long as well, a common issue with this series, but c’est la vie.
Add in Shade’s finest soundtrack to date in this series, and you’ve got a definite recommendation … even if you didn’t care for Kichikuou Rance, the much smoother interface and more reasonable difficulty of Sengoku makes it worth a shot. The original release was Japan-only in 2006, it got a fan translation around 2010 that introduced the West to Rance, but the MangaGamer official 2019 release (with a new and much more polished translation plus some patching of annoying bits) is the way to go IMO.
Random Advice
- I don’t want to do any spoilers, but since the game tells you next to nothing about what to expect on an initial playthrough and throws tons of unpredictable curveballs, here’s how to basically handle your first game (so you don’t get frustrated and quit before the good stuff is unlocked): try to just fight one nation at a time, don’t overextend ESPECIALLY when things start getting real weird with Nobunaga because demons are coming to change the game (you can’t get even close to conquering the map before they arrive), leave Takeda and Mouri alone, when the demons show up just fight a defensive battle as you’ll get a first-game-only event after about 10-15 turns that hands you most of the map with no effort. Don’t sit in a shell in the initial territories though as you’ll need some of the good characters from other provinces you conquer to be competitive against the demons in the endgame, and nearly all become unavailable once the demons conquer those territories.
- If you’re trying to lift Mouri Motonari’s curse I found a glitch (more like sloppy code really) that I didn’t see documented anywhere. The process is take over Izumo and find the dungeon, conquer Takuga completely and recruit Ryouma from prison, then do a purple event “Ask Ryouma About Mouri” that appears in their territories. You should then hear about Daidara, who will replace the normal bonus boss on the 18th floor of the Izumo dungeon. The glitch is that, if you haven’t beaten the bonus boss already, the first time you beat Daidara the game proceeds as if you beat the bonus boss instead (you get his weird ninja deer painting and the usual dungeon clear level up). You then have to enter the dungeon AGAIN and fight Daidara a second time, which should get you a brief scene of Rance and Ryouma talking instead. Don’t attack Mouri any more, just wait for their next start of turn and there should be a scene where Motonari loses his curse. Apparently this whole process also stops if you character clear Ryouma before lifting the curse.
Links
Darkness Hero Rance Mod – Fan-made total conversion
Sengoku Rance Unofficial Expansion – Ongoing project that adds a ton of new stuff to the game (requires MangaGamer official release, linked at top of page)
Videos