It is that time of the month when the developers at KEMCO release yet another retro styled JRPG onto an unsuspecting world.
Going by the title of Isekai Rondo, it promises to bring the usual staples of one of KEMCO’s games – retro style graphics, a story, and some fighting. So far, so obvious. But can Isekai Rondo do something unusual and deliver a game that is out of the ordinary?
Having been out on mobile previously, it is finally our turn to get involved, and while doing my research for this review, I discovered that Isekai is actually a subgenre of Japanese literature, anime and manga that deals with a person being reborn into another world. In other words, it’s something that is highly interesting. With that minor spoiler out of the way, I pulled on my best Boots of Exploring and set off into the brave new world of Isekai Rondo.
Story may well have been given away already, but I’ll explain a little more. We start the game as Sho, a Japanese salaryman who is miserable at work and has just been fired. Walking home, we narrowly miss being creamed by a vehicle, and then get killed when a plant pot falls on our head. Luckily, we meet the deity of the world of Facultas, who decides that he can reincarnate us into the body of someone who recently died. In a strange world, with no knowledge of what to do and how to survive, can our hero make a new life?
Now known as Shaw, he craves a simple peaceful life, but as is usually the case in this type of game, he finds himself getting caught up in an adventure! Obviously, things snowball, and with a team at his side, Shaw finds himself about as far away from the quiet life he wants as it is possible to get, without spoilers of course!
In terms of the presentation and Isekai Rondo is pretty much the same as every other KEMCO game I have ever reviewed (and let’s face it, this is a large and growing number). Apparently copying a pasting from earlier reviews is “frowned upon”, but there surely has to be only a set number of ways that I can write about retro style graphics, right? Well, thankfully, this time around there is a slight caveat in that the monsters and characters in the battle screens are more pixelated than usual. The design of them all is still very good, and the heroes that we gather all have a deal of personality that comes through the screen. But still, if you’ve played a KEMCO game, this is all stuff you’ll be very much used to.
On a personal level, there has been nothing in the presentation of Isekai Rondo that has blown me away, but neither have I been disappointed – it is all very much middle of the road stuff.
The audio follows a similar pattern, from the stirring battle music to the sound effects when we are fighting – you’ll have heard it all before.
So how does Isekai Rondo plays out? Well, the majority of the game is – for fear of repeating myself – pretty much the same as we have seen before, but there are amendments here. You see, in Isekai Rondo the only place that we find the random monster battles that this style of game are famous for is in the Dungeon; an area that we can explore on the hunt for materials, or to fulfil quests for the Guild in each town. Getting on well with the guild will bring rewards, and as we complete quests and kill area bosses in the Dungeon area, we accrue Guild points. Once rough of those are banked, the opportunity to apply to do an exam to get our Guild rank raised comes about. As we begin the game, we are a lowly Rank F, and this restricts how far we can delve into the Dungeon. For more dangerous quests, with the corresponding rewards, we need to raise that rank, so you’ll want to keep plugging away in order to get up to Guild Rank S as quickly as possible.
The exploration and combat is, again, extremely familiar. We can do all the usual things like being able to attack with our equipped weapon, use skills and items if we need to. But honestly, it feels very much like a big dose of deja vu. Killing monsters gives us EXP to level up, but more importantly every fight pretty much gives us Magistones.
These Magistones are the key to becoming massively overpowered in a short period of time. Let me explain. In common with many other KEMCO titles, there is a shop you can go to from the menu that allows you to spend Magistones in return for crafting weapons or armour; stuff that is then fully equipable. I did this before the first boss, and it went down with nary a whimper as the weapons my guys had were so overpowered it was a joke. It doesn’t help that the game is quite easy to begin with, even on the hard setting – it won’t be too long before you are pretty much one shotting everything you meet.
In fact, it’s here where the KEMCO staple auto-battle option is a godsend, as I can tell my team to just get one with it while I make a brew or pop to the little boy’s room…
I seem to have spent a lot of time telling you what is the same as other KEMCO games. But what of new ideas in Isekai Rondo? Are there any new features? Well, yes there are, and these are actually quite interesting. The first are the Passive abilities that can be learned, either as scripted story events or as a result of doing certain things in a certain way. I’m not going to tell you what those ways are, mind, but suffice to say that if a person uses a certain attack a certain number of times, their affinity for that type of attack will go up. Some of these passives are literally game changers – Shaw early on learns a Passive called “Accident Insurance”, and if the team ends up at a Game Over screen, this Passive ability will let them rewind time to a point before a fateful choice was made, allowing them to change their decision.
There are many more passives to try to find and obtain, and these add an interesting twist to proceedings.
It all means that whilst Isekai Rondo is very much a KEMCO JRPG, there are enough little additions to keep you engaged; like Passives and a likeable cast of characters. It isn’t too hard (in fact it is a bit easy) but this allows the story to move along at a good pace, ensuring that you get to appreciate the time spent.
In all, Isekai Rondo is one of the better retro styled KEMCO JRPG’s of recent times.
