Ranma 1/2 - Treasure of the Red Cat Gang (1993, SNES/SFC English Gameplay 2023)
1Ranma 1/2 - TRCG is a Jrpg released for the Super Nintendo/Famicom in 1993. It was Developed by Atelier Double, and Published by Toho. The English fan-translation was released in 2000 by Dynamic Designs. It's a game based on the Manga and later anime series of the same name, Ranma 1/2.
STORY: 12/20
When a strange man accidently breaks as tatue at an ancient temple he releases a demon unto the world. The appearence of the demon calls for a cult known as 'The Red Cat Gang' who goes on a crime spree, kidnapping the strongest people of the country. These captives will be brainwashed into serving a ghostly figure to bring forth it's resurrection unless Ranma and his/her friends can stop it.
SOUND: 14/20
The game's sound effects are okay, but they are nothing special, it's all the bells and whistles you'd expect from a Jrpg from this era. The OST is not bad but I foudn that some of the tracks get old quite quick which resulted in me using my own music. The OST also does a good job with the game's setting, drawing on cultural musical genres.
GRAPHICS: 12/20
The game's graphics are okay, they are certianly not the best i've seen for the console but defintely not the worse. You can easily tell who's who from the Manga/Anime in the game, and the character models are quite nicely drawn. The let down for me is how low quality for the town looks, it kinda reminds me of the old RTS games that you'd see on PCs from the 1980's. Attacks, skills, and such are not that great in the way they look or animation wise so that was another letdown for me too.
GAMEPLAY: 10/20
Again, this game plays like the traditional Jrpg from this era, explore areas, loot treasures, talk to NPCs, defeat monsters and bosses and then move on. There's not really much for this game to make it stand out from others that are far superior games. The game is easy enough to pick up and play but it's hard to know exactly what each skill, item, magic and such does unless you are using a guide, some type of descirptions would have been nice for them but well, they weren't in the original version so they wouldn't be in this one either. The game itself is quite small in my opinion, I wish it was longer but it's actually not so that's a bummer. The game has no additional features than that of a traditional Rpg so don't expect much in the way of say things like crafting,. or side dungeons, or going off the beaten path for extra exploration type stuff. OH! I must not forget about how slow you move, I couldn't figure out how to run or move faster so assume there is no such function for faster movement.
TRANSLATION: 18/20
This is where the game actually shines for me, 1. because the game never got a release outside of Japan in English (other than this fan translation) and 2. the writing does a good job of capturing the feel and essence of the Anime characters and their individual personalities. Playing right through the game a good few years ago and what I can remember I did not encounter any issues with the translation or any technical issues for the translation, Dynamic Designs did a great job on this one again. I do recall thoguh there being issues with certain emulators running this patch for a while and I assume now that those have also been fixed since then as they did update their patch.
Is the translation of the story perfect, well.. i'd say no but thats due to cultural differences in jokes and stuff that westerners just wouldn't get, you knoww hat I mean if you've watched the animes. so libverties were taken in translation but that does not mean it's a bad translation, just means it';s not a word for word translation.
OVER ALL: 66/100
It's an okay game, any fan of the Anime and Manga would feel right at home playing this now. So, would I recommend it now..? Yeah, probably especially to Ranma fans who like Jrpgs.
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