Roguemance Review

What else does a great date have other than destroying our enemies?

Ah dating. Someone can be great at it, horrible at it, not even looking to date, or just become awkward as they try to not to ruin the date. Even if someone is looking to date, they must want someone that can connect to them and treat them great rather than someone that won’t. In a way, dating is a battlefield. And in Roguemance, you literally take your date into a battle.

The heart-shaped island dubbed Heartipelago has been split apart by a raging volcano that threatens both parts from never reuniting again. Even more bad news, many monsters have decided to take onto the roads to attack any unlucky souls that wander by them. Luckily, you have stepped up to mend this heart island back together, but you can’t do it by yourself. Just mere recruiting won’t do, you’re on the island of love for god’s sake! Find a partner and have every battle be a date!

How do you pick up your partners, you ask? Well, surely not by the road, you go into bars to see who’s available. Entering will reveal several choices, you can only pick up one each bar visit, and will show you what their battle moves are. If you believe you will mesh well with someone, time to ask them to travel with you and off you go! You can have more than one partner, but you do risk them clashing, and soon, leaving if you don’t take their choices into account.

Each time you get out of an interaction, you will be able to move on and see how many you need to get to the area’s boss and at least two different paths. It can be a battle, a cat (which will either give you a randomized action as a gift or bring you to an action store based on their color), a health potion, or the bar. To mix it all up, one path may be shrouded in clouds so you won’t know what you will get. If you have a partner with you, they will choose the path they want to go to. If you go on the path they want to, they will gain some heart, and if you don’t they will lose some. If they gain a lot of heart, it will be converted to another health point (same for you as well). If you go into battle, you will be able to choose who you want to have a date with.

During battle, no one has their own turn as everyone does their actions at the same time. In addition, you can see everyone’s attacks and you will see which ones will be performed and what will come next. You must take into account what everyone is doing, and will be doing, before you choose. If an enemy is planning to jump up, you can’t exactly throw a dagger. Though, if you plan to jump the turn before and threw the dagger, the enemy will jump right into it. However, once you use an action you won’t be able to use it till all four are used.

It gets a little tricky when you have partners in the battle with you. Like the monsters, your partner’s actions will go around on a wheel. The only thing you can control in terms of your partner is which way they face till you get to know them better to connect the action wheels. This is where you really need to pay attention during battle. You can easily hurl an attack to your date, effectively hurting them, and vice versa. Though, you can blow a kiss to heal them, but make sure no enemies will get in the way or they’ll be healed instead. You essentially have to sync up with your partner or face death. As you play more, you learn a lot of tricks and as you play, be able to figure out what each new action that future enemies will have does. Such as, if your partner doesn’t have a smooch action, you can time it to where you smooch when someone shields to bounce it back to you the next turn.

After you successfully won a battle, you will come across a screen giving you two options. You can either spare the monsters that was just trying to kill you (mercy), or enact revenge and kill them yourself (no mercy). Each choice has their own pros, choose mercy and it will fill up your heart or choose no mercy and you will gain money. Have a partner with you? Your partner will also choose an option that will increase their heart meter if you agree.

Once you beat all the bosses, and the heart is finally together, you get to marry the partner(s) that was with you. You can choose whether or not you want to have a child, in which you will play the child and the enemies will gain one more health point.

Verdict

Roguemance is interesting in a way that the combat is kind of like a puzzle. Having to pick your current and future actions based on everyone else’s. In addition, your success is tied to how well you sync with your partner. Once you find that one partner, you are basically set. Despite the runs being a little short, Roguemance is quite a charming little game. I would totally recommend this for anyone that wants a simple rogue-like to play, especially when you don’t want to play anything else.