i didn't think 01 had particularly enjoyable gameplay but just a few hours of this already made me miss it, honestly did not expect this to have combat that somehow feels worse than fucking Dragon Quest I (1986) on the NES. legitimately some of the most frictionless, slow, poorly thought-out combat design i've ever seen, the only thing that even slightly redeems it is the turbo button but even then playing through it feels like experiencing ego death, actual kuso.

all that being said, the incredibly funny writing and flavorful translation (seriously, amazing work here) definitely helped me get through it. also much, much more enjoyable script in the moment-to-moment than 01 even if the plot pretty much goes nowhere, which i wouldn't have a problem with if it didn't feel like they just gave up having any sort of conclusion at the end. love all the witches though, excited for them to appear again.

Terrible and outdated gameplay, funny writing and flavor text. Likely a necessary play for anyone who wants to get invested into the series. I can't comment too much on this yet as I am still playing through it.
Tips for completionists
LVLs 21 to 30, go grind the flame monsters in the map with the tower east to the mansion. It takes a long time because they have high evasion, but it is good for both gold/XP and to raise your base stats. You can run from fights for free and spam find monster. Buy plenty of the full heal medicine from the drug store while you do this until you get to level 30 or 31.
From 30 to 40, you can grind the Little Runaways. They give 2000 XP and will bridge you to level 40, which is the requirement for a certain scene with a character. Keep in mind, you can rest after every fight since you will be spamming your high DMG atk.

This game is horrible.

In some ways outright irredeemable.

However it has Sill so I can't really be too harsh on it.

Seguimos con las reviews rapiditas de Rance. Este Rance esta ok. Sin mas. Dungeon crawler mas simple que el mecanismo de un botijo. La ost esta bien pero nada que me haya apasionado mas allá de nuevos arreglos de canciones icónicas ya recurrentes. Aun así tiene un humor simpático con varios gags de los que no podre olvidarme, diseños muy buenos mejores que muchos juegos posteriores y ademas es el debut de dos de los mejores personajes de la saga, asi que no todo es malo, y como es corto pues tampoco se atraganta mucho.

This has the most basic combat I've seen in ages and thanks to the SP system requiring energy to to anything they still mess it up. Combat slows to a crawl because you're constantly resting before attacking and your partner is useless unless her name is Maria because shooting the gun costed like no energy and did more damage than Rance would ever do. She's also the best girl but I miss the poker chip combat system and card aesthetic from Rance 01 even if this dungeon navigation is better.

Oh, Rance has mandatory sex about 10.5 times, with 4.5 of those times being rape and an additional one of them being kind of rape but Rance not being the rapist in that scenario. There's more consent here and the rape Rance does is conveniently set up by the plot to be a good thing actually. The first time he didn't even know it was a good thing actually, he just raped and it happened to be a good thing. So sex wise it....learned from Rance 01? There's a lot more H here in general by the way, so if that's why you're playing these games, good news! Shame you gotta get through the gameplay for it, real slog that is.

El gameplay es pésimo, es tedioso y las mazmorras son a lo más aceptables. Aun así termina siendo un juego con una escritura muy divertida y más disfrutable que 01, Le da espacio a sus personajes para interactuar y terminas agarrándoles cariño, aparte tiene pequeños momentos de introspección que si bien duran 2 líneas a lo mucho sirve para darle profundidad a sus interacciones y nunca espere que me sorprendiera pero el juego resulta ser bastante tierno.
Dura 5 horas con guía en mano así que esta bien