Original Release: AliceSoft, 2011, PC
Other Releases: PC (English official release), 2021
aka Rance 8, aka the immediate sequel to Sengoku Rance (aka Rance 7), the “Rance Quest Magnum” version is the most recent and updated version and the one officially made available in English via MangaGamer
Rance Quest Magnum (PC, AliceSoft, 2021)
Where to Buy: MangaGamer
Review by: Master-B
The eigth game in the series, Rance Quest (or Rance Quest Magnum if you bought the MangaGamer official English translation) continues two great traditions of the Rance series: 1) completely changing the gameplay style and structure from the previous entry and 2) not bothering to explain how most of this new stuff works, forcing you to trial-and-error around to figure out the game’s finer points.
This entry is pretty close to Rance 6 in style, however, being centered on an ever-expanding menu of quests that send you into self-contained mini-dungeons. But instead of a first-person dungeon crawl view, you get the first overhead view of the series with a little animated Rance trundling around. And in combat, instead of a limit on how many times each character can be brought into battle per dungeon trip, there is a limit on how many times they can use each of their individual skills (as well as a limit on how many times you can swap in new characters from the reserves).
The development lore on this one is that lead designer TADA passed off his ideas to another (and almost completely new) team than the one that had handled the series prior while he focused on some other project, and the initial release in Japan (in 2011) didn’t pass muster with the fans. The torrent of complaints led to numerous patches and additions over the ensuing decade, culminating in the “Rance Quest Magnum” release that brought all this new material together into a retail release (and was the version translated to English for the official release in the West).
Rance Quest Magnum does have a lot of meat on the bone in terms of game content, but it also still has something of a sloppy and disjointed feel overall. Part of that is the structure, which fills gaps where stuff like an overworld or lengthy and elaborate dungeons would be with A LOT OF GRINDING. I think I understand the aim of the design, basically it means to take the repeated forays into forests and dungeons and etc. of the more standard JRPG and shrink the process to a more bite-size and convenient form that lets you jump in and out of the action more quickly. However, given that it doesn’t fill in that saved time with much more than very repetitive grinding, I wonder if this wasn’t a cost-cutting decision more than it was one aimed at gameplay flow/improvement.
Whatever the case, the grinding apparently generated so many complaints in Japan that Magnum adds a “TADA Mode” that can be enabled after the introductory quest and boosts all experience and gold earned by 2X. Even with this turned on from the very beginning, I still found the game quite grindy (and would say it’s virtually mandatory to make it playable).
To be fair, and to not shortchange the game, it does have more to offer than just replaying mini-dungeons to an obscene degree to power up enough for boss / harder dungeon chokepoints. It has a ton of little slice-of-life Urusei Yatsura style bits in between quests, and some of the more funny and goofy ones in the series. TADA also intended this game to be something of a lighter “holding pattern” entry that ties up side character stories and loose ends before moving on to the heavier “demon invasion” arc of the series in the final two games, so it’s really more about unlocking character fanservice as you go than anything else. That said, part of the disjointed feel of the game is that some of these elements and character arcs end up being concluded either sloppily or not at all.
Then there’s the “gameplay elements that are never explained and up to you to experiment with / read the fan wiki” element. Nothing too frustrating, but the oddball character growth system is really not adequately explained in-game at any point. The main plot conceit is that Rance gets a “Mororun Curse” placed on him that makes him impotent if he touches any woman under level 35, but when he has sex with powerful characters they drop some levels temporarily, but also get better starting base stats (and increase their level cap if it was at max when you H’d them). The biggest headache is that each character has a pool of “skill points” that usually has to be manually re-attributed every time you “Mororun” someone, but as it happens there isn’t much you can screw up permanently. You can only Mororun each character 10 times in total, but you are also eventually just swamped with items that raise their level cap so it’s never any trouble to keep powering everyone up, other than the sheer amount of grinding that’s called for.
My only other little complaint is that there’s no gamepad support. It’s a fairly mouse-and-keyboard friendly game, but I always find the gamepad more comfy and the three previous titles from MangaGamer all had native gamepad support. That, and the H scenes that make you click through a sea of tedious droning text the first time you encounter each one, but the series is clearly commited to that at this point and it is what it is.
I can’t say Rance Quest Magnum is bad, but it was definitely a disappointment following the excellent Sengoku Rance. It just seemed like a step back in almost every area – writing (outside of the purely goofy comedy scenes), gameplay, menu interface, art (though the new 3D models for the monsters look pretty good), even the soundtrack which has a few gems but isn’t the absolute killer that composer Shade put together for Sengoku. It’s good enough (and has enough fun moments) that hardcore Rance fans will still probably want to play it through just to keep up with the happenings and meet the new characters, but I don’t know that I would recommend this to anyone else.
Links
- If you miss an optional character that requires you to find them in a dungeon then beat the boss / formally complete it to get them (like Shizuka and Tomato), they will respawn if you go back in, but they’ll be in a different spot (may be on a totally different screen)
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