TITLE: 異世界輪舞 ～御社も異世界もブラックなのでここから先はホワイトライフを目指します！～ (Isekai Rondo ~Since your company and the other world are both black, I’m going to aim for a white life from here on out!~)
DEVELOPED: EXE-CREATE
PUBLISHED BY KEMCO
LANGUAGES: Japanese and English
RELEASE DATE: September 15, 2023
CONSOLE: Nintendo Switch
SIZE: 891 MB
PURCHASED ON NINTENDO SHOP JP: https://store-jp.nintendo.com/list/software/70010000070070.html
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: https://www.kemco.jp/game/isekai/ja/
A young man, Sho, who spends his days in misfortune at a modern Japanese black company, is reincarnated in another world due to an accident! ?
After being reincarnated as “Sho”, he is given the job of “unemployed”.
What awaits him is a hardship in a party with bad luck.
However, with the power of a strange stone tablet, he gets the best job “Sage”! He
also acquires UR passive skills and suddenly becomes the strongest! ?
Sho is aiming for his long-cherished white life, but after meeting the hero Viola, he sets out to defeat the demon king.
◆ Become invincible with the strongest UR passive skill!
Everyone has a “passive skill” that is always active. Sho has acquired many powerful passives such as “Future Preview” (you can prepare for the enemy by seeing your future defeat in your mind) and “Work Accident Insurance” (you can go back to just before the game over and change the future) !
As many who know me are full aware, I play a lot of games that are released in Japan and I absolutely love JRPGs. From big budget to low budget games.
In Japan, EXE-CREATE is an Osaka-based company known for making a lot of JRPG’s for mobile. KEMCO is a publisher that brings these games out for consoles and PCs. And because these games are originally released for mobile consumption, there are some who feel the games are inferior.
But my feeling is that there are many games developed in Japan for mobile that have yet found their ways to the West and for me, I don’t mind them one bit. And I have to say, for the price that they are sold for on sale (around $6) or under $9 when not on sale, makes things quite affordable and you can easily purchase multiple games on sale. But of course, those who despite KEMCO games would say, you could buy a top tier game for that money spent, and yes, that is true. But I’ve always been a big fan of Japanese games, including RPG’s, that I’m so used to getting them and enjoying them, in a way, I kind of like to find a jewel in the rough (note: I did not say “diamond”).
A game that I just finished playing is “Isekai Rondo ~Since your company and the other world are both black, I’m going to aim for a white life from here on out!~”, game that capitalizes on the popular “isekai” trend in Japan. That is a storyline in which a character dies on Earth and is reincarnated in another world. Yes, a trend that has led to many manga and anime.
For “Isekai Rondo”, you have the story of company man Shou (in English, they use the name “Shaw”, which I will use for the rest of the review). Shaw is not the best employee, in fact, he’s been fired many times and now he works as an overworked salaryman. One day he is killed in a car accident and reincarnated in a new world.
But Shaw discovers, he has been reincarnated in this new world as a “Sage” and where a person tends to learn a single passive skill, he has the ability to acquire many and quickly. Making himself quite powerful as time goes by.
Through his adventures, he meets Viola, she is a hero for a quadrant in the world. Problem is…she can’t fight. She has a passive to summon beasts but she’s terrified of beasts, so she is scared to death to be by them, let alone to use them. She’s always afraid and when she meets Shaw (and sees that he has some power), she asks him to join her.
She wants to protect people and Shaw admires that and decides to help her out, they receive help from demon farmer Drowt (who is also a Japanese guy reincarnated in this new world) and his demon sister Famin, who loves to eat.
GAMEPLAY:
So, these four are the primary characters and as a lot of these JRPG’s modeled after old school JRPG’s, grinding becomes a big part of the game. If you don’t like level grinding, this game is not for you. But since the old “Final Fantasy” years, I’ve grown accustomed to level grinding that it comes natural for me to level up my characters, so I don’t die often.
The game revolves around bad demons who have come to cause trouble in the world and because the demons and monsters have blocked roads and are causing trouble, it’s up to Shaw and friends to join a guild, take on jobs to earn money and also increase their guild rank level. But also, through working together, increasing their own passive skills.
So, through the game, Shaw develops offensive and defensive traits, Viola not only learns how to summon creatures/monsters that have a variety of skills, she will learn devastating attacks. Drowt is interesting because he can make vegetable monsters that have various offensive/defensive capabilities but also using his farming experience for attacks or protection. And for Famin, she loves to eat but she can do devastating fire attacks.
Can you die? Yes, but there is the “insurance policy” which allows you to come back and select the correct choice. Also, when you go against a high level boss, if you gathered enough “Megastones” (another reason why you will want to level grind), you can revive yourself right back if you die in battle where you last left off.
Also, cool things added to the game is the ability to synthesize and create better weaponry and armor (or dismantle to use parts to strengthen a weapon/armor), planting seeds to grown and become health and weapons. Also, there is a daily roulette to get better weapons, forging new weapons and more.
And when the game is done, you will be given a save file to start the game where you last left off and take on new dungeons and new arena battles.
I beat the game around the 30-31 hour mark but I beat every quest and grinded like crazy to get my characters up to a higher level (I believe I ended around level 250). If you are over level 200, you will find yourself beating the boss very easily. As long as you kept up with your weapon/armor upgrades and made sure to have enough of magic potions (which I would definitely have a lot of), especially for Viola and Growt.
There is no level cap and when you beat the game, and you continue your role as as a dungeon tester, you will notice that for every enemy beaten, you will level up 10 times and just an hour playing, I was already at level 500. The caveat is your enemies and level bosses also level up too. So, it does make things tougher.
LOCALIZATION:
The localization of the game was good. Saw no problems with translations and found the more humorous moments to be hilarious.
JUDGMENT CALL:
“Isekai Rondo” is one of those games that I played off and on. Played to level grind and come back to it whenever I felt like playing it. Once I got to the story where I started to go against major antagonists, that’s when I started getting more interested in the story and invested more time to the game.
The storyline is a bit hilarious at times but it’s not a deep storyline with any romance or emotional anguish. It’s a game where four people join together as friends and like their own personal family in this new world and use their skills to help people/demons and are the good heroes who takes on evil. And of course, you will see how the whole “isekai” is integrated to the storyline.
To be truthful, I was hoping there was a romantic storyline between Shaw and Viola but that would make this game more emotional than what EXE-CREATE usually does for these JRPGs.
There were some unnecessary things that were no doubt thrown in the game to extend the game which really was a drag. For example, you need to collect six shells from six sun turtles. But the turtles barely drop any of their shells, so you literally are level grinding for hours in hopes to collect six shells. I felt for every hour of fighting and I was getting one or two shells.
And if you play this game to complete and hope to get an ending storyline with a wonderful payoff, while there is an ending, it’s not a payoff. If anything, it just prepares you to continue the final game save to take on super tough dungeons and personally, I don’t know if I want to do that because it requires even more time grinding and because your level is increasing rapidly, your enemies levels are at such a high level that you can find yourself in a battle for a much longer duration. And because of that long duration, you find yourself spending more money to max out your “increase magic level” potions.
But I did enjoy playing the game and felt it was worth the 900 or so yen (under $7) that I spent on it.
“Isekai Rondo ~Since your company and the other world are both black, I’m going to aim for a white life from here on out!~” is probably one of the better KEMCO released games. It may not have a deep storyline, but the characters are fun and the crazy adventures they find themselves in are worth your time, especially if you get the game on sale!
