Sengoku Rance (2006)

Sengoku Rance is the first time I've been hooked by an H-Game, and it's mostly in spite of the sexual content in the game, which can only be described as boisterous. Behind the facade of a lust fueled game about a violent r*pist is a charming JRPG with deep and interesting combat and a strong cast of characters.

The game has you play as the titular Rance, the somewhat-tyrannical secret leader of the Oda faction of Feudal Japan in some kind of odd Parallel universe. Rance himself is likely to be the barrier for entry for most people however, as contrary to the stereotypical RPG protagonist, he's crude, violent, selfish and has an insatiable sexual appetite. Despite this, he's shown to care quite deeply about the women closest to him, even if he'd never admit it. Rance also serves as a foil to the game's villain, who is shown commiting acts of evil many degrees worse than our horny hero ever has.

The game's combat can be a little tricky to get a hang of, but towards the middle and later sections of the game when you've truely mastered it is when it shines. When engaging in skirmishes with countries you're at war with, you select units to send into battle, with each troupe differentiated by their class. Warriors deal big damage if they're in the front row, Foot Soldiers can guard their allies from incoming attacks (Like Cover from Final Fantasy), Archers delay less damage than Warriors but can attack from anywhere, with the list growing to a sizable number of jobs to play with. There's a fair amount of depth here, especially with some of the reinforcements (which are cameos from past games) you can call having unique classes.

The game's story is also fantastic for its genre, with A LOT of very interesting lore to be uncovered. While Sengoku Rance is the 7th game in the canon story, it's also one of the best places to start with the series, both because the story is entirely standalone and because Rance himself is a lot more full on in previous games (I played the fan-translated version though so this may be different when the official English release comes out). If you can stomach a little bit of sometimes-consensual sex played for black comedy (or just...skip those scenes like I do) then I HIGHLY recommend checking this out, especially when Mangagamer releases their translation in the coming months!

This is one of the best games I've ever played, in spite of (not because of) its sexual content. A challenging, interesting, tongue-in-cheek strategy game in a really interesting world that unfortunately happens to be lead by an awful protagonist. The one saving grace of Rance, is that he punctuates exactly how awful the villain is by being such a vile person, that you can see that if you still hate the villain more than Rance, then the villain must be truly god awful.

Beyond all that is a (somewhat unfairly difficult, especially on the first playthrough) turn-based, menu-oriented strategy game. In these mechanics is where Sengoku Rance shines. There's always something to do, some weird little part of the world to invade, all utilizing a rather impressive strategy combat system with great RPG elements. The vast cast of weird and interesting characters always gives to someone interesting to learn about, and in at least 4 playthroughs of the game, I never ran out of content.

The nature of the game is unfortunate, but the gameplay is just too good to pass up. Every few months I find myself scouring the internet for something like this game, and I wish that someone else would make a game that hits all the points of this (menu/turn-based strategy (tactics and strategy are not the same thing) with a colourful cast of characters, a decent challenge, and a ton of replayability), and other than a few older (and less polished) Alice Soft games, I always come up empty handed. If anyone ever comes across this review and has a recommendation (and as I mentioned, I'm definitely not looking for just 'adult' games here, just something very much like the gameplay of this game), I'd love to finally find something that pulls me in like this game.