Rance Series

[Nirvash]

ok when do i unlock the change absorbed item option in the alice maison?

 

[Reinhardt]

now it's time to start magnum

 

[Terra]

Ok, finished Rance Quest + Magnum, might as well type up my scattered thoughts on it. Since it's a new English release, I've marked all potential spoilers. Spoilers for both the original game and Magnum follow, so don't read unless you've finished it all.

As I've done with all my past write-ups, I make these notes as I play, then cajole/edit them down when I'm done, helps me remember all the stuff that happened over the course of the game. I am more of a story & characters focused guy than gameplay mechanics, so yeah, much greater emphasis is spent there in what follows. Big game, so big write-up.

[GENERAL]
It's sort of curious/amusing to me that they went with the canon/continuity that Rance did pretty much everything in Sengoku, seems a bit crazy given I'm always super time-pressed to get things done and the notion of doing all the Ran/Souun events on one side of Sengoku's map and Mouri clan on the other simultaneously, yeah, that's not something I've been able to pull off successfully, lol. I understand why they've done it this way (and I'd naturally prefer it to be this way), but it'd be hard to do everything Rance canonically did in a single Sengoku playthrough, imo.

It was very cool getting to return to old areas such as Nippon and hear the music again. As we draw nearer to the end of the series, there's just such a wealth of backstory events and characters to capitalise on and Rance 8 really makes good use of it all.

It was nice seeing Kou again, grown up just a little bit since the last game (though Kou's Oda armour decimating her speed stat made me cry). And we saw Kenshin without the silly hat, always a plus. Satella showing up from Rance III was neat, plenty of throwbacks to those events in her dialogue. Way, way too many great callbacks and reappearances of old favourites to list them all here.

Rance Quest is sort of like a celebration/montage of the cast - it's *very* fanservicey in the sense that a load of old faves come back for a bunch of little funny/sweet adventures and I have to say that I am glad I took the time to play through Rance 1-7 prior to this game as it really paid of with the returning characters (of which there were many). The game is just jam-packed with old-favourites, each with differing ways to meet and recruit them into your party. While some recruitment methods were a little... obscure, the game easily elicits a smile when Emi shows up, flaunting her recently acquired kink after you've ran from battles a couple of times, or when Merim from R4 pops up if you blow up too many chests. These little events help bolster the cast and keep you entertained during side quests and it works surprisingly well across the whole game. The game is definitely longer than I expected (I did the majority of quests in World 1) yet I found that the game really didn't overstay it's welcome. With TADA mode on at least, it ended up being just about the perfect length for this type of game and I didn't have to do too much grinding to see most of the content I was interested in as it's thankfully quite easy to level up stragglers in this game (reminded me of the Suikoden quick levelling system in that regard).

While I'll get into more detail later, I enjoyed the story for both the original game and the Magnum expansion, interspersed with many optional sidequests, this method of progression would often be a herb-gathering exercise in boredom stretched out across many hours. Not so here, more so than any prior game in the series, Rance Quest has the opportunity to leverage it's sizeable roster of past characters, both friend and foe to deliver a succession of interesting/funny/endearing side stories that keep any fan of previous entries entertained. Thanks to the great dialogue and interactions between Rance and these cast of returning characters, I was kept fully entertained across the whole game, as the group jokes and squabbles quest after quest, their character arcs slowly progressing as you gradually make your way through the game. The system works surprisingly well on the whole.

Ultimately, while Rance Quest debatably doesn't further the overall plot very much after Sengoku, that description really does the game a disservice. After spending the past year playing through prior Rance titles, Quest finally picks up the story where Sengoku left off, something people waited for for a very long time, and the huge cast of characters and trials you'll face with them carry the game all the way to the end. It's not the best Rance title I've played, but in terms of celebrating it's cast and delivering payoff and comedy based on Rance's history with the cast, it's top tier stuff. The game gave me what I wanted; a continuation, with two different major plot threads to explore while having an absolutely blast with most of my favourite characters from the series, in that regard, I think it's served as a great setup/last hurrah before the series finale.

[GAME BALANCE TIDBITS]
-At least towards the beginning-midgame, I found the game balanced to an almost infuriating degree. The number of times I'd reach the boss icon at the end of a dungeon and just not *quite* have enough juice left to carry me through the encounter. This ultimately turns out to be a good thing as it forces you to learn the system and how the game wants to be played.
-Hammers seemed to be the go to weapon for Rance and Alkanese at least, eventually swapping back to swords for Rance once you get Chaos.
-My old nemesis the Stone Guardians made an appearance in this game, naturally, however they didn't have any irritating placements/encounters in this game, which made a nice change.
-I'd have liked an expendable emergency escape type item that you can use to exit a dungeon anywhere and keep any items you've found, especially for Malgrid exploration.
-I liked that you can't truly die, so even if you wipe on a quest, you still keep the exp so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
-I did end up using Cheat Engine to give myself enough money to unlock Kisara & Rebecca, as well as enough money to buy several weak Forbidden Talents in order to quickly raise the Ice Flame trio's level cap and get their scene. But with TADA mode active, I didn't really have to grind for EXP very much across most of the game.

[SCROLL / MINOR CHARACTERS]
While having a large returning cast is great, the scroll-acquired girls in particular definitely felt a little half-baked and didn't get as much dialogue/events as I'd have liked. Were the scroll-girls added later in a free patch or something?

While it is certainly nice to have some of these characters around, it felt weird going through the whole of the game without (m)any lectures from Sel or shenanigans between Sel/Chaos (Sel did start interjecting more towards the end of Magnum). In this regard, some characters are *almost* present in name only, but don't actually do/say anything or have any events unless you go to effort of levelling them up past a particular threshold and I must confess I was not particularly fond of their content being solely gated off in that fashion. Obviously with the cast growing as it does, you can't have every character commenting on everything, but there were a fair few characters I wish were interwoven with the rest of the game a little more (or hell just toss them 2-3 castle/city events that weren't dependant on levelling them). I'm not 100% sure, but it seems that the "A Day in Cidade" events for characters need the involved character to hit a certain level? I got a bunch of events after finishing the game as I quickly levelled most of the cast to 35+ in the post-game, but it felt weird that say, Rocky, never said a word after his initial recruitment event (I never got around to raising his level cap), though I imagine everyone has at least one scene if you break past their level cap.

Until these events start to unlock it's almost like the chest-failure responses you get in dungeons are the main characterisation of the affected characters. Given Rance as a series lacks VO, there's nothing really inhibiting the developers from adding in a few more quick VN-events for returning characters and it kinda felt like a missed opportunity here given that they did a really good job with the non-scroll characters on the whole. I can only hope Rance X doesn't make this sort of mistake.

[GAMEPLAY NITPICKS]

Spoiler

[GRINDING]
There's still the ever-present late-game Alicesoft bullshit in this game - oh look, here's Kisara, yeah, you can't really make any use of her at least in your initial playthrough due to an obscene cost to her freedom. Even to lower that cost, you have to hammer Copandon up to high levels (more grinding). It's always a bit frustrating when you see there's story content that's essentially needlessly restricted in such a fashion that it's really only feasible for a newgame+ run through of the game or similar.

[ANNOYING QUESTS]
There's a small number of pretty aggravating quests. Divide & Conquer sticks out, since you have to go in with just Rance and it's up to the RNG what characters you get, it's RNG dependant on how fast you get additional characters, move onto the next floor etc. Even at high levels you can still get fucked over if the game gives you a spread of crappy characters and you run through Rance's skill uses before you get more party members. Oh and you cant rearrange party members in battle for that one either. To be fair, there aren't a huge number of these, but they can be very frustrating, indeed, I left a couple of these in my quest log until close to the end of the game just so it'd be easier to steamroll them.

[CHARACTERS]
Ok, so there will be major spoilers for some characters here.
[COPANDON]

Spoiler

Ok, they did a really good job with Copandon in this game, she's got a load of internal monologues about her worries and her arc during this game is kinda sweet, doubly impressive given that I wasn't really interested in her in prior entries, heck I think I even skimmed over some of her lengthier dialogue in R6.

Copandon shooting Rance down early on immediately made her a more interesting character to me than in prior entries. She became a lot more endearing to me in Quest and came into her own as a character now that she's at least partially succeeded in her goals. Plus I found her new outfit in Quest to be considerably more visually appealing/striking this time around. Heck even her dialect is cuter now, or maybe it was always this way and I just started paying more attention, lol.

So yeah, in summary, I grew to really like Copandon in this game, she had a lot more interesting dialogue and development now that she was well on the way to achieving her goals. Her early-on rebutal of Rance piqued mny interest and I really liked her events. Will definitely have to pay more attention to her when I replay prior games. One of my favourite characters in the game for sure.

[KATSUKO / TORAKO UESUGI]

Spoiler

Kenshin's little helpers/retainers were freaking hilarious in this game; from their endless squabbling and mad gambles to stop Rance making moves on Kenshin to their funny little furious portraits that show whenever they get mad (quite often!) - they were very entertaining to keep around, to say nothing of how useful they can be in battle. The Shikigama Bird can destroy enemies and Katsuko can be built into a solid fighter over the course of the game. Another great h-scene with those two and Rance on top of the mountain, lots of amusing dialogue as they fail fail to arouse Rance . They did a really good job with further characterising these two little side units that you barely see in Sengoku outside of their h-scene, (and battles I guess) can they be captured and recruited in Sengoku? I never managed it, if so.

As an aside, I'd actually say the h-scenes are the stand outs in Quest when conpared to prior, not in terms of being prime jerk-off material, but they're definitely peak comedy as far as Rance h-scenes go and a really nice change of pace from the standard fare of prior games. Sorry Rance, but your defective member made these scenes way funnier; there was just something more interesting to read this time around with Rance having to come up with creative ways to get the girls off instead of just a new connotation of "Rance fucked em till he came, gahahahaa". Artwork was top notch in the scenes, though the game largely stuck to humour over 01's flirtations with eroticism.

[ATAGO]

Spoiler

Atago's yet another example of a character you just end up feeling sorry for more and more as the game goes on, as Rance takes her charity and just sequentially abuses it more and more. Damn, nice lotion scene, though. Serves as a fairly important home-base type character as Rance messes about during the opening section of the game.

[ALKANESE AND HER FRIENDS FROM TWITTER]

Spoiler

Damn, when was Quest made, because it almost felt like AliceSoft had reached out to 2020 and plucked some of the brightest feminist minds and butch lovelies from twitter and gave them all a homebase under glorious leader Alkanese.

But seriously, Alkanese was an unusual character, certainly kicked my arse the first time I fought her, but definitely a solid addition to the roster. Fun h-scene with Rance and she has a cute portrait variant when flustered.

[SUZUME]

Spoiler

[MAJOR SPOILERS]

Spoiler

Suzume's death was sad, yet I feel it was perhaps undermined a little given that she instantly came back as a ghost. But even that's thematically fitting and kind of sweet that she's hanging on to help Kanami out, however there's no end-game denouement to this event...

This is definitely an event I wanted/needed to see more reactions from other characters from in the immediate aftermath - Kou doesn't get a comment, really? But Sachiko does. It's handled a bit weirdly I guess since it's not immediately made apparent if other characters even know she's dead or not... Although as the game continues on, it becomes more apparently, especially given Suzume's still nonchalantly interjecting in cutscenes in Magnum.

Thankfully I avoided this spoiler prior to playing, but I pity anyone who casually browses the AliceSoft wiki and happens upon the Suzume page; as with most wikis - the piss poor fucking layout/design features a prominent Alive/Deceased status right under the character portraits - massive fucking potential spoilers waiting as usual from just a casual glance too far down the wiki pages.

Definitely a bit of a downer when she died (and it can happen pretty early on I guess), given that Suzume was THE major carry-over character from Sengoku, and with Sill out of action for whole game, yeah... Suzume brought a lot of levity to proceedings and was definitely one of my favourites from Sengoku. I was genuinely surprised they offed her, thought she was being set up to be another permanent tag along with Rance.

I do wonder if Suzume's death should maybe have been saved for a more fixed late-game scene, giving it a bit more weight/gravitas in the story - it *is* both a sad & nice scene in how it plays out, considering who she is and her relationship with Rance; she's (seemingly) jokingly mentioned she doesn't expect to live too long in Sengoku and to be fair, she wasn't doing so great in that first sex scene in retrospect, but then it just hits you straight on almost out of the blue - shit, she wasn't joking. It's one of the scenes where (and there are several) where Rance seems to be on the cusp of something / some breakthrough, but then thanks to the ghost development, it sorts itself out in a way. Nice event, but I'd have positioned it differently.

[SHIZUKA]

Spoiler

Oh man, Shizuka had Rance's number in this game. Hilarious scene when you try to bed her in Rance Castle and she's figured out a way to game the system - she got what she wanted and Rance got nothing. Brilliant.

In battles she's just brutal, once you get the Crystal Rod there's no stopping her and she can just throw powerful spells out with impunity thanks to efficient action.

Not a whole bunch of character development for her in this game it must be said, largely just worrying about Maria's feelings toward Rance, not wanting to sleep with Rance and some references to her sister Nagi. Still, I like having her on the team as she's typically my go-to mage.

[BISCUITTA BURNS]

Spoiler

Like Rance, I wasn't initially sure what to make of her, nor the direction this character was going to go in, and that's great because you get to go on that journey with Rance together through a lengthy sequence of events. Biscuitta frequently crops up in other events throughout the castle so she feels well-integrated into proceedings across the game. I liked her character and development arc, it was a fun build up with Rance absolutely convinced she disliked him and disapproved of his actions, with Rance often feeling scared/intimidated by her which puts a hilarious spin on the tail end of many events. When you finally find out what Biscuitta's deal is, she has a surprisingly down to earth story and the road to her sleeping with Rance is paved with many laughs. An unexpectedly well-realised character.

[Kisara and Rebecca]

Spoiler

So Kisara returns from 4.1/4.2 and this is the first time we see her sister Rebecca, but she was mentioned previously in the 4.x games.
I think when Pluepet shows up with Rebecca you don't know who the heck she is, so, it's kind of a shocker when it finally clicks who Rebecca actually is, precisely halfway through the scene when Kisara shows up you suddenly clock on that the dead-eyed girl Pluepet is trying to rent/sell you is Kisara's sister and Kisari obviously ain't doing too well either. It was a good, well-executed scene in that regard and one where you really wouldn't get the full impact unless you'd played the 4.x games beforehand.

This was also a nice chance to show Rance's more compassionate side, of which we see a fair bit of in this game. Although I'm reading that neither sister shows up again in a future game, an oversight maybe, but pretty disappointing if they don't get a mention at least.

The cost to free the sisters is sadly the typical AliceSoft "grind for the sake of a grind" lulzy bullshit, though at least there's a fair few events with them once they're freed.

Overall, a nice addition to the game, and an unexpected returning character.

[LIA]

Spoiler

Lia has really grown on me across the whole series, while she's the main antagonist of Rance 01 and up to some pretty sadistic stuff in that game(some nice callbacks to that in the Leazish Horror Story quest), she is now one of my favourite recurring characters. She definitely becomes more endearing over the course of the series and her antics in this game are very entertaining on the whole as she tries to put-down other girls vying for Rance's affection. Her trio dynamic with Maris & Kanami really comes into its own in this game as we see much more from all three ladies. All the more subtle little details in the game start to bear fruit in Quest; like how there's multiple hints that Kanami is in the ceiling of Rance's room, watching over him as per Lia's orders well before she starts showing up. I think there was also a quest where Arlcoate is hired to keep tabs on Rance too, Lia has an amusing presence across the game even if she isn't directly present in a scene.

Good scene with her & Maris when Lia lacks the requisite levels to fuck Rance and the developers didn't overlook a quick text-only scene with her if you decide to raise her past lvl 35 either.

First time she's ever accompanied Rance directly too, she can turn out quite powerful if you put the time in.

Probably fair to give a shout out in the original game's ending too, where she's the one to help jolt/trick Rance into action and in turn probably saves the lives/sanity of Rance's remaining harem, which in itself is noteworthy.

[KENSHIN]

Spoiler

Yeah, they did a *really* good job with Kenshin in this game. Kenshin has some very good scenes with Rance on that mountain especially. Hell, the game was leaning extremely heavily into a more typical Rance/Kenshin romantic pairing in that scene, almost makes me wonder if there could be contention for that top tier waifu spot held by Sill, will be interesting to see how this ultimately ends up. She's a great character and all the Uesugi girls were great to have around in this entry, she just doesn't have a huge amount of prominence in the main plot thread this time around outside of her recruitment quest.

[KANAMI]

Spoiler

So Kanami's in this game...

Oh man, Kanami in this game is just perfect. They should have spread Kanami's curse out across a greater section of the game, it was SO freaking funny seeing Kanami get flustered and essentially want to crawl into a hole and die as all her thoughts and secrets were broadcast to the town.

Hell, we talk about Rance Quest being a funny game, and Kanami basically embodies the Ceiling Cat meme as we learn she's up there touching herself whenever Rance is getting busy with another girl.

She's such a funny character (though for completely different reasons than Suzume) and it's nice to see how far she's come from Rance 01, where she shows up as a fairly tough late game boss encounter, to now being the series' mainstay ninja girl. You run the galmut with Kanami really, the highs, the lows, you feel sorry for her in her more clumsy moments, but she seems to be coming into her own with Suzume's help.

It's really funny when Rance and Kanami team up to bust into the Kalar village and get their curses lifted and Kanami is just elated when she is freed from her curse, lol.

I think Rance pulled the same trick he did with Sill's sweet new kimono in this game too when he takes Kanami shopping for clothes, poor Kanami. She's remained one the best developed characters in the whole series and, as part of Lia's trio, she's around even when you don't see her. They did a great job with her character arc in this game, and while I am conflicted on how Suzume's death was handled, having Suzume take Kanami under her wing and help train her to be a proper ninja before she passes on is a nice development, especially given Kanami's past, inferiority complex and constant teasing from Rance.

[MARIA]

Spoiler

As you play through Rance Quest you notice that there's more and more recurring characters/scenes that are questioning Rance's actions/antics in this game, as the story prepares to enter its final arc, we see lots of characters are trying to stand up to Rance and get him to comment/commit one way or the other on the Sill situation. For the game as a whole, it's a weird juxtaposition given Rance's surface level goals are just to build this harem and fuck about all day, yet quite a few recurring secondary characters are seemingly starting to pull away more strongly from him, while subtly and not-so-subtly questioning him on marriage and giving him frequent nudges toward Sill. Maria's date being one such example, but Urza/Keith/Suzume all touch on the topic or try to broach the subject in their own way. Keith actually gets to the point when we hear about his situation and he basically tells Rance he should be de-icing Sill and settling down and Rance naturally will go out of his way to avoid commiting on the issue one way or the other.

For a series that oft doesn't take itself too seriously, there's some serious overtures towards marriage / parenthood as we approach the end of the series. Makes me a little sorry for characters like Maria and curious for what the final outcome will be in general.

That aside, not too much to say on Maria really - I liked her new outfit, definitely more visually interesting than previous games, she's in a similar place to Shizuka as far as lack of prominence in this game is concerned, albeit the little arc where she loses her memories after inventing a nuclear reactor was an interesting little interlude and tied in nicely with Crook and Alicism. As always, good to have her around, though you can definitely start to feel Maria's (and others) frustrations towards Rance / the status quo bubbling up in this game, which is interesting in itself.

[GAY FRIED CHICKEN]

Spoiler

Oh, Rance, what have you done?

So Gigai returned and looked pretty good to be fair, lol. Very funny h-scene with Rance thanks to the dialogue. Rance's PTSD flashback as Souun reminded him who Gigai was was pretty humourous too lol.

Interesting that Gigai shows up again after Sengoku and he/she's not really hostile, to be fair he was doing his own thing in Sengoku for the most part. I look forward to seeing him again.

[MOURI CHARACTER SPOILERS]

Spoiler

[CHINU]
You know, I had something to say about the setting and Chinu's revival as a zombie, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. If I remember I'll edit it in here, suffice it to say, I had my doubts Gigai's plan would lead to Ran's revival, but I honestly wasn't expecting Zombie Chinu. Nice callbacks to Chinu character arc events in Sengoku,I guess. But, not much more to say other than it was a bit unexpected really.

[AURORA]
I love the way she just constantly pops up and nobody bats an eyelid when miss apostle mailgirl is still doing her thing all over the world. Does Rance even remember who she is, lol?

[FELISS]

Spoiler

Feliss returns and she looks really good in her Quest rendition. She's certainly doing better than in her last appearance and her mission with the angels was pretty damn funny with the angels getting scared off by Rance while screaming DIE! at him after he's had his way with them.

Her story arc has definitely taken a more sombre turn than how it started out and her dialogue/plot seems to sit on a similar edge to Sill's with Rance being right on the brink of acknowledging/saying something profound and/or undergoing a shift in his persona but not quite getting there. I like that Feliss is back in play, Rance has definitely softened towards her and isn't actively bullying her in this game, but I do kinda want her on the combat team.

She's the first of Rance's women to have his child, and despite Dark Rance being introduced way back in Rance 6, it's taken until Rance 8 to get an opportunity to really learn about her thoughts/feelings on the matter. Still, there's some decent payoff for her character in this game, at last.

[DARK RANCE]

Spoiler

So Dark Rance wasn't messing around in this game and can actually be pretty nasty in his battles if you aren't prepared. Good thing he seems to weak to magic. Nice post-game scene/quest with him and Reset. So close to reuniting with Feliss, lol.

[AEGIS]

Spoiler

Aegis was, at least initially, shaping up to be one of the more compelling new characters, for me. Her initial story developments and eventually joining Rance's party due to his lies was a great setup. She and Rance actually have some surprisingly nice scenes together over the course of the game, but right up until the end of Magnum I was sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Pastel or someone else to point out Rance's lie to Aegis. I dunno, in a way I found the way Aegis restructured her life around Rance's lie to be one of his more mean-spirited acts across the whole series thus far, especially given the truth was never revealed to her. It is funny that at least parts of his hastily constructed story end up coming true by the end of the game though. Seeing Aegis's reaction if she learned the truth would be interesting though, I think.

[CROOK]

Spoiler

Crook was a really weird character for me to be honest. I wasn't enormously keen/interested until she started stealing Balance Breakers like the Curse Eraser and Maria's memories, got kind of interested in how that would play out. Then she almost seemed autistic/retarded when she managed to end up in the oh-so-predictable gangbang in the church... Things were looking a bit iffy for her character at this point and I wasn't sure how if she was going to end up being a character of interest.

Or at least, that's what I would have said if I hadn't watched the follow up events after she becomes pope, where she wanted to give the balance breakers back and was getting eviscerated by Alice. That definitely changed my opinion on her toward the positive. Becoming Pope seemed quite transformative for her character. In her later scenes with Rance, there's an almost nihilistic undertone now that she knows the truth behind Alicism, but doesn't want to share it. So, yeah, my opinion on her changed quite a bit once she became Pope and that storyline began unfolding, she became a *lot* more talkative and had some interesting dialogue/scenes while serving as a buffer between Alice and the rest of the world. Her many deaths at the hands of a capricious Alice and desire to keep Rance & the party safe from Alice gained a lot of respect for her character from me. There are definitely some things I'd have done different with her character, particularly in the first half of the game, but she ended up surprising me and I hope to see her in the future, and for the Alicism plotline to be furthered.

We never found out just what the heck Mr Troche is...

[MAGIC]
Magic had some good moments in this game, I'm enjoying her ongoing rivalry with Lia. Her whole recruitment quest was great too. I wish I had more to say, but it's just more Magic as she was in the previous games really. She's actually one of my favourites so I wish I had more to say.

[CURSE ERASER]

Spoiler

It's a nice touch and nod towards Rance's development/softening that at every opportunity Rance has to erase dispel his curse, be it via the eraser, Pastel or w/e, he always wants to get rid of Sill's curse first.

[HIKARI]

Spoiler

Nice callback to the first game and an unexpected turn of events! Damn, bitch shows up with a knife immediately after her scene lol. The Yandere tournament or whatever it was made me chuckle.

[GODDESS ALICE]

Spoiler

She looks cool and suitably evil, but fuck if I'm doing the ridiculous amount of grinding needed to fight her.

[ARMS ARC]

Spoiler

Nice character design, very typical ridiculous Rance sex scene atop the mountain, and plenty of laughs were had while she was describing her ideal monster as Rance got increasingly excited.

[RESET / PASTEL]

Spoiler

Yep, I almost forgot about these two. How the heck did I forget to include Reset?

Reset definitely plays a pivotal role in softening Rance, the scene where she's first introduced as Rance's kid and the question/test over her paternity is brilliant. While Rance typically runs/ducks dodges the serious questions on whether he loves Sill, or anything involving Dark Rance, yet we start to see a different side as he interacts with Reset over the course of the game. He's essentially forced to start growing as a character because of Reset, whereas he successfully dodged it with Dark Rance in the past. Her imitations of Rance's laugh are cute and I don't doubt we'll see more of her in later games, she's a good addition.

Pastel on the other hand is pretty funny, especially as Reset keeps trying to get her to play nice with Rance. Good dynamic going on between these three. The fact that she bears this grudge against him while Rance goes on to be heralded as the saviour of the village is so Rance-esque, lol.

I do wish we could have fought Pastel with all 3 of the special items she had.

[SILL]

Spoiler

Major spoilers

Spoiler

-So Sill actually gets a little unfrozen cameo at the end of Magnum.
-Really nice rendition of her Sengoku outfit in the Quest artstyle too, I liked it.
-Rance's immediate reaction when Sill got thawed was brilliant, one moment there's dead silence, the next, Rance's theme kicks in and he's cast off his clothes in a maneuver that'd leave Kazuma Kiryu jealous, these moments are just so well timed with his theme music, lol.

To be honest, I truly wasn't expecting a Rance/Sill interaction in this game, especially with the original ending, so the Rance/Sill CG was a fun and a nice way to cap off the game - with one major caveat, which I'll now get to below.

[PLOTLINES & ENDING THOUGHTS]

[CROOK + MAGNUM PLOTLINE]

Spoiler

I liked where the Magnum plotline headed and ended up, Like a lot of scenes in this game, at times it felt like we were only a sentence away from someone accidentally spilling the beans on Alicism/the state of the world to the party. Am's goal/rationale were interesting, I hope unravelling that thread happens in the remaining games. While I'm not sure I want them going all Star Ocean 3 on me, it'd be interesting to see character reactions at the very least if the truth was revealed.

[ORIGINAL ENDING VS MAGNUM ENDING]

Spoiler

While the original ending definitely has dark undertones and presumably was giving more than a subtle nod to certain routes from Kichikuou Rance I've read about (wherein Rance is very likely to go off the rails in a particular circumstance), Magnum's ending maybe wound things back a little too far in the lackadaisical direction. While I'm sure Rance's whims are satisfied in the short term given he thawed out Sill for a quickie, I could definitely feel the developer's hand (*insert stereotypical deep apologetic Japanese bow here*) in the Magnum rendition of the "curse cannot be broken" scene, where Pastel's dialogue was *considerably* softened (which is justifiable to some degree given Pastel's further character development across the Magnum storyline). I can't help but feel a more happy medium could have been struck here between the two endings. While Rance definitely does react badly in the original ending, how that scene ultimately leads into him travelling to Helman was definitely stronger than Magnum's transition toward Rance IX. The original ending also helps paint Lia in a better light respectively given in that scenario she gave him something to work towards as well as showing us who Rance's more steadfast girls were, even when he was being cruel to them. Yes, the ending was dark and harsh on Rance's women, but I think the lead-in to Rance's next adventure was better than what was shown in the Magnum ending, I really wish they'd been better able to merge/hybridise them.

The Magnum ending doesn't even specifically call out Helman as a goal on Rance's part... It's a tricky one to call really, given I'm sure the new Magnum ending was presumably influenced by fan feedback for the original Quest ending.

It's a little bit ironic that the whole Shepards plotline barely exists in the base game, given its whole focus on despair, when Rance himeself really starts heading off the rails in that original ending. And they were almost going to go there with Am's little gambit at the end of Magnum. Hmm...

Both endings are imperfect, I can see and appreciate why people are/would be disappointed with the base game ending, but Magnum's "I'm just gonna go on another adventure" kinda tossed aside some of that weighty gravitas the original ending held, which at the very least, balanced out much of the rest of Quest's levity. Given that IX & X are the finale, I'd certainly have leant more toward the darker ending as a transition toward IX personally.

[MISCELLANEOUS STUFF]
-It really paid off for me playing through all the previous games in the series over the past year before I played Quest, for anyone considering Quest after getting hooked on Sengoku, playing through the prior titles is highly recommended if you want to get the most out of Quest.

Spoiler

-Did they ever comment on why they killed off Milli unceremoniously off-screen between games? Something 03 remake foreshadows maybe?

As for me, I think I'll finally take that break from Rance for a little while before moving onto Kichikiou.

Oh, should probably give a shout out to translators/editors. As many have mentioned in the thread already; this is a really funny game, and across the whole series, but especially this game, they've really carried the characters' voices through the whole series really well: Rance definitely still feels like Rance, and it's the same with the whole returning cast, even those with smaller roles; their mannerisms and quirks were carried through the games and come across really well in this game. The translation and editing is really spot on, had me laughing at many different points; it capitalises on what some of my favourite h-games of the past did well; comedy through absurdity. Really, I think Quest's greatest triumph is through its celebration of its huge cast of characters, and that the character writing is so consistently strong throughout is admirable. It is not easy to make a game as funny as this one and maintain it throughout, whilst also simultaneously blending in more serious plotlines, but this game manages it.

Anyway, I'm done with the game for now since I won't be moving onto World 2, thanks to MangaGamer for bringing it over. I truly hope the wait for IX isn't too long, and fucking lament the fact we've had to suffer drama with the X translation, I'll just cross my fingers and hope that comes out. The money's standing by for the next game, whenever it gets released.

 

[TheEntitledOne]

I personally like the original ending. And the stuff about shepards I believe was completly missing in 1.00, Alkanese getting the bracelet I believe was a retcon?

Milli's event, I think is a reference to KR, weird that you can't change it.
And Crook does grow a lot through the series, while Maria gets sidelined.

 

[abnaxus]

I wish western rpg game still have cute gurls as party member.

 

[Jaedar]

This fucking quest.
5 enemies, each of which does ~2000 damage melee attack or aoe debuff+stun+instakill rance, and it's timed, and they have a high chance of ambushing you, and they're resistant to elemental damage. AND WHEN YOU WIN YOU INSTANTLY JUMP INTO A FIGHT WITH 4 MORE OF THEM AND IF YOU TIME OUT YOU HAVE TO START ALL OVER.

Then I tried another quest, and this time whenever I switch rooms everyone of a certain class gets instagibbed. Guess we're done playing around then?

Spoiler

 

[Haba]

Some quests are basically puzzles.

But as this is an RPG (hello front page news post), autists have also the option of brute forcing the square box in the round hole (aka grind).

"Oh yea, Rizna was immune to magic damage... d'uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!"

 

[Jaedar]

But as this is an RPG (hello front page news post), autists have also the option of brute forcing the square box in the round hole (aka grind).

Sure. But it also creates the problem that sometimes you have right solution, but your puzzle pieces have 10 levels too few so you lose anyway.

Or maybe I am just bad. But most of my chars are still around level 40, and the "challenge rating" is around 60 for all the uncleared quests.

Also crook was really mean to maria

 

[Reinhardt]

Never liked Crook. Looks like her ring worked too well.

 

[thesecret1]

I thought Crook was alright, but after she meets Alice, it feels as though she gets a lot blander.

 

[Haba]

But as this is an RPG (hello front page news post), autists have also the option of brute forcing the square box in the round hole (aka grind).

Sure. But it also creates the problem that sometimes you have right solution, but your puzzle pieces have 10 levels too few so you lose anyway.

Or maybe I am just bad. But most of my chars are still around level 40, and the "challenge rating" is around 60 for all the uncleared quests.

Yeah, that is definitely a weakness of the system. it is hard to get a "feel" if you are on the threshold or not. Sometimes you get a lucky roll and crit, sometimes you get wiped several times in a row.

 

[Jaedar]

But as this is an RPG (hello front page news post), autists have also the option of brute forcing the square box in the round hole (aka grind).

Sure. But it also creates the problem that sometimes you have right solution, but your puzzle pieces have 10 levels too few so you lose anyway.

Or maybe I am just bad. But most of my chars are still around level 40, and the "challenge rating" is around 60 for all the uncleared quests.

Yeah, that is definitely a weakness of the system. it is hard to get a "feel" if you are on the threshold or not. Sometimes you get a lucky roll and crit, sometimes you get wiped several times in a row.

Spoilers for quest: "Letter from nippon"

Spoiler

As an example, the fight against the sillbarrel groups. I beat this yesterday, but I have no idea if it was legit or I got lucky. I felt I had picked a decent group for it, but I felt that last 2 attempts as well. First attempt I get creamed, but I might blame it an bad rolls, the sillbarrels got 10 turns before I got any, and the first turn of all my dudes they were stunned. Proceed to replace dead frontliner (got a good full revive towards the end of the fight for minimal losses) and try again. This time, I get 2 arlcoate ambushes in a row on the first two fights, making them relatively easy despite mediocre assassination rng. But did I deserve the win? arguably not, two ambushes in a row is fairly unlikely. Or maybe it's sort of intentional that this is a Pierre fight and you retry until you "win initative". Either way I took the win, cause that's a fucking bullshit fight.

I've still to figure out a way to win malgrid X and not just praying to rng that the hard counter lives. Doesn't help that the rng gods have only given me two light charms over the course of the entire game.

 

[Haba]

I wonder if the devs really thought that "equip squad with Hanny Zippos so they can survive the first wipe" was a legit tactic the players should pursue.

 

[Jaedar]

I wonder if the devs really thought that "equip squad with Hanny Zippos so they can survive the first wipe" was a legit tactic the players should pursue.

Is there a way to get more than one of those? I only have one, and so far I've never actually used it.

 

[thesecret1]

I didn't find that fight too difficult – while the Silbarrels had high stun and acted first, they were also pretty squishy, and I usually didn't have EVERY member stunned (using people with high resilience or however it's called then further boosts your chances). If you had for example Torako cast a spell in, that was a win.

Then again I may have arrived at a higher level than you guys, I spent a lot of time moururuning everyone and stuff

 

[Nirvash]

malgrid X can be easy completed by a 50+ rance and a 40+ kenshin, brutal attack to win.
Is just a lottery to not lose the fighters.
The problem is capturing the damn valk and note at the other dungeon exit room, insane.

sillbarrel groups boss

volleys

 

[thesecret1]

The problem is capturing the damn valk and note at the other dungeon exit room, insane.

Yeah, those are really difficult. You need to luck out on a good encounter there. I advise taking a brawler with you that has the skill to prolong the battle, so that you have enough time to catch em

 

[Nirvash]

The problem is capturing the damn valk and note at the other dungeon exit room, insane.

Yeah, those are really difficult. You need to luck out on a good encounter there. I advise taking a brawler with you that has the skill to prolong the battle, so that you have enough time to catch em

Problem is the encounters are rare as fuck.
If you get the note+2 valk that's game over, helm thing + note you need to luck out with the stuns.

 

[Jaedar]

The problem is capturing the damn valk and note at the other dungeon exit room, insane.

Spoiler

Couldn't you capture a valk in the mula test pt1? The rest of the group that appears is fairly weak. Or does capturing not work outside of maps?

If you had for example Torako cast a spell in, that was a win.

I don't think I tried Torako, but I did try other mages and found that the sillbarrels had very high magic resist.

 

[Nirvash]

Couldn't you capture a valk in the

Eh i have yet to advance the story to that.

Ok, tried and you can't, is a boss fight.

Now my main problem is grinding the damn money to buy the last 2 girls.

 

[thesecret1]

I don't think I tried Torako, but I did try other mages and found that the sillbarrels had very high magic resist.

Maybe I misrememeber then. Still, train slash and impact are your friends for this fight.

 

[KingDoofus]

Just a reminder when grinding to try to buy the last two girls, it's way more efficient to grind Copandon's level (once you get to the infinite Malgrid, there's 1 scripted Lucky Can Can per dungeon that will raise everyone's level in the active party). The higher Copandon's level, the more she'll talk down the price - if you mega grind her she can lower it down from 8 million to 50k (you don't need to go that far though). I wouldn't bother trying this until the post game.

 

[Haba]

Now my main problem is grinding the damn money to buy the last 2 girls.

Bring a high level Copadon with you.

 

[Jaedar]

They changed ludo-rathowm to rudrathaum...
(ルドラサウム in japanese, typically romanized as rudorazaomu)
I don't get the mangagamer quality control. On a technical level, it's pretty much flawless, fixing lots of minor issues and generally going to extra mile to polish things up. And the translation is... fine? It's not great. You do notice once in a while that there's something that's pretty clearly supposed to be a joke or a pun but I guess neither the translator or the editor got it and so they just made some nonsense? It's just weird how they presumably spend weeks getting intimate with the source to make minor improvements, but then leave pretty basic consistency issues in the translation. Oh well, it is what it is, have a meme:

 

[Jason Liang]

The problem is capturing the damn valk and note at the other dungeon exit room, insane.

Yeah, those are really difficult. You need to luck out on a good encounter there. I advise taking a brawler with you that has the skill to prolong the battle, so that you have enough time to catch em

Problem is the encounters are rare as fuck.
If you get the note+2 valk that's game over, helm thing + note you need to luck out with the stuns.

2 valk + battle note is actually the easiest formation to catch the Battle Note. Anyway as I noted earlier, you want to try to capture Battle Note with capture rope (I tried at least 10 times with Noir and all failed), and kill everyone else except the Battle Note, then dismiss everyone except the character with the Rope so you get multiple tries to rope her.