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My initial impressions of Rance 02 were that it probably wasn’t quite as solid a game as Rance 01 is, and I think that’s probably still true; after all, Rance 01 was completely rebuilt for a modern audience, while Rance 02 is mechanically almost identical to its original incarnation. But that doesn’t mean Rance 02 is a bad game by any means, either; on the contrary, it’s a title that becomes more rewarding and satisfying to play the longer you spend with it — and when you couple that with the excellent story and characterisation, you have the perfect recipe for a thoroughly compelling RPG that will keep you gripped right to the end.
Ahem. Anyway, Dungeon and Gravestone is a good time, and has the potential to become really addictive with its solid pacing and varied challenges. Its voxel-style characters and environments coupled with a fun tilt-shift effect provides a nice “toy-like” feel to the entire adventure, and the arcade-style scoring system and online features provide plenty of replayability. This is definitely a great game to have handy on your Switch for when you fancy a quick bit of adventuring; its short-form play sessions make it ideal for play on the go, but there’s enough substance here to keep you busy for a very long time indeed.
There are plenty of fun red herrings and even a few well-implemented, infrequent jump scares — it’s certainly not one to forget about any time soon. With two endings for each character — one good, one bad — and a single playthrough taking around seven hours to complete, it’s well worth its asking price.
Hooked on You will be quick to remind you that you’re pretty suspicious for trying to hook up with a murderer, so if you don’t mind a game you’ve purchased constantly shaming you for buying it, then be my guest.
Sofiya and the Ancient Clan could have been pretty good with a bit of tweaking here and there. Unfortunately, it’s clear that the developer’s priorities were on the game’s aesthetic rather than making sure it plays well — and as such it’s tough to recommend this one. It’s by no means as poor as the aforementioned Arsonist Heaven was, and if you have a soft spot for mediocre 16-bit platform games you may get a kick out of this — but for everyone else, there is much better fare available.
However you choose to play Galaga today, it’s still a worthwhile experience. While the inherent limitations of early ’80s fixed shooters may initially prove frustrating to those raised on later titles, Galaga is a great means of developing your shoot ’em up skills, and is regarded as an all-time classic with very good reason indeed. It holds up extraordinarily well today, and is one of those titles I suspect we’ll still be playing another 40 years from now.
My initial reaction to Rance 02 is that it’s probably not quite as solid a game as Rance 01 was, but this is understandable given that it’s not as substantial a reimagining of the original as Rance 01 is. Instead, the intent here was to provide a modernised experience that is still very true to the original game — and so far, at least, it feels very much like it’s succeeded in that regard. I’m looking forward to diving deeper.
Ghouls’n Ghosts is a game that requires a certain degree of patience and persistence to truly enjoy from a modern perspective, then. It’s by no means a bad game by either the standards of 1988 or today — but it is definitely an acquired taste. I’m just not quite sure I’ve fully acquired it yet, even after all this time!
Essentially, then, how much you get from Avenging Spirit depends on how much you generally get out of arcade-style experiences. Blast your way through with unlimited credits and you may well be done and dusted with it in less than an hour, but give yourself some self-imposed challenges — or just step back and enjoy the lovely pixel art and sprite animation throughout — and there’s plenty of fun to be had over the longer term.
Suffice to say, it should be pretty clear at this point that, in terms of sexual content, Rance is a lot more than “Look at her underwear” — and more broadly, that the series is far more than just its erotic content, too.
That doesn’t mean it’s not worth playing, mind; if you enjoy this sort of simple early ’80s shooter, Savage Bees is as good as any out there. Just don’t expect a particularly life-changing experience!
The game leans into the classic JRPG trope of starting slow, forcing you to sit through multiple long cutscenes before the world opens up for you. It doesn’t quite reach the limits of my patience, but there are multiple stretches of at least 20 minutes where I never even touched the controller. The world-building is good and I’m excited to play with these characters. I just wish the game didn’t take so long to let me get there.
New characters will be introduced, and will show up again in later games — indeed, there are several characters who first appear in Rance 01 that I already recognise from my previous encounters with Rance 5D and VI. Rance’s relationships with these characters will evolve and change in sometimes surprising ways, and there’s a real sense that you’re going on a journey through this character’s life as the series goes on.
Billionaire Lovers is a game about trust, and is an experience that challenges your very own preconceptions, giving you plenty of harsh reality checks along the way.
All in all, I kind of regret having slept on Forgotten Worlds until now; it turns out that those seemingly boring muscle-bound meatheads have quite a colourful, chaotic adventure to enjoy — made all the more entertaining by their borderline nonsensical digitised speech quips between each stage. I can see this being a particular blast if you bring a friend along for the ride — so if you’ve held fire on this one until now like I have, I’d encourage you to give it a shot!
As it stands, Arsonist Heaven has failed to learn any of those important lessons, and as such is not a game I can recommend in any way. But at least in failing to learn those lessons, it, in turn, has its own important lesson to teach.
Rance 01 is a relatively short game compared to later games in the series, but that’s in keeping with the relatively small-scale nature of the story it has to tell. One of the particularly appealing things about the series in its entirety is how it develops in scale and scope over time — both in terms of what you, as the player, get to experience, and what Rance is actually getting up to as part of the narrative.
It’s cleverly designed, it’s smartly written, and there’s nothing else quite like it out there. It’s a delight to see it make a grand return after nearly 10 years of being confined to PC — and I sincerely hope that at least some of you reading this manage to guide Elodie to something vaguely resembling happiness, because heaven knows I’m still struggling.
So perhaps skip this one if you’re looking for a satisfying survival horror experience — but keep an eye on Suzaku, because there’s definite potential here. It’s just not realised in SENSEs Midnight.
If it’s not a classic Capcom title you’ve heard of before, downloading the free Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium pack is a good opportunity to familiarise yourself with it — and it sets a solid expectation for the rest of the collection to also feature a variety of enjoyably lesser known titles. And, of course, several versions of Street Fighter, but you know how it is.