Only ask as I’ve seen one on ebay (from a US seller) in the same stance and apparently the same figure with a clear plastic oval base

I took more time on my Kill the Monkey play through, as I wanted to hit all the objectives. I got 5/6 treasures, then screwed myself because you need Iga’s commander for the last one. I captured Iga early on, but didn’t sweat it because I knew there’s an event where he retakes Iga from you. I waited a few turns while I built up my commanders for Orochi, and it never happened. I then spent even more time leveling up for Orochi, only to have the fight be a pushover.

I probably could have stopped leveling up a good 10 or so turns and defeated him without too much of a problem. After that, I just had the One Eyed house to conquer. Didn’t get any points from the clear, as I ended with about 76 points, and my previous clear was 82 (you only get the highest value clear counted), and the Kill the Monkey doesn’t count as a route to give you a 5 point bonus. Still, it was fun, and I got to see a few scenes I hadn’t seen before, as well as clearing characters I’d never bothered with.

In the playthrough I’m doing now I decided to save the game, and squander a few turns so I could see the Kenshin rape scene that I had absolutely refused to get previously, before loading the game back up. I managed to end the last game with something like 72 points, so I had 87ish points to burn. I didn’t end up doing everything I wanted to do. Some of the randomness in the game really pisses me off. It was the first time I had ever captured Agireda, and i wanted to get her clear, which requires you to fight the Shimazu brothers. So I sent Rance out every fucking chance I got, sometimes with a weak army in hopes of baiting them, and over the course of taking the Motonari land (not Demon Army) to all of Africa, they never attacked. And I also needed the Kenshin battle event to get her H scene, but sure enough every time I sent the two of them together Rance would talk to someone else. So the clear wasn’t even close to optimal, even though I did pretty damn well. I would have finished a good 10 turns earlier if I had given up on Agireda early on, but I had never seen her H scene so I really wanted to get to it.

I usually do the same route I mentioned above; last game was the first time I varied from it. After I get those territories, I feel I can do a whole lot more. Senhime usually comes shortly after that, and then depending on the route I try to get Souun/Ran. I’ve absolutely fallen in love with the capability of diviners. If you do end up playing a new game with some points to spare, I can’t recommend Elina enough. Especially if you can pick up the protection paper or Turban. Makes it easy to take over territories (including the castle for the first few houses) with 2-3 people.

I’ve always started out beating up on the central territories, then going east to get Senhime and Kenshin, and then going west to get Ryomou. I’ve got this strange compulsion to play games like this the same way; for example, when I played Rise of Nations years ago, I always played in skirmish mode and selected the Bantu nation and the same map, then I turtled in my base and tech up while grabbing the good wonders before pummeling everyone else with stealth bombers. I must’ve played at least 300 matches doing exactly that over the years.

I started playing around the time it was at patch .9, I believe. I remember my first play through took me around 150 turns, and there was a lot of back and forth going on between the Demon Army and me. I’d highly recommend playing through the other routes. I don’t really remember which is my favorite anymore, but I know they’re all highly enjoyable story wise, and some add some minor gameplay changes (nothing major, just changing the way you progress the story.) Then the Kill the Monkey route is great because it’s essentially giving you free reign to do whatever the fuck you want, while maxing out characters really fast because there aren’t many story cut scenes when the turn begins.

One minor problem, unless you still have the game installed on your computer with the saves, is that you’ll have to play the True route again or find a save file. Honestly, once you’ve gotten a handle of the game, it’s really quite easy. I didn’t have my saves anymore, so I had to do the True route again, and was able to do it in about 90 turns. It’s really easy to blitz through the first four countries or so, depending on your attack route. I usually go Hara -> Ashikaga -> Asakura -> (Miko) -> Uesugi, because I like getting Kenshin fast as she’s one of the better commanders. For Hara and Ashikaga you only have to send 1-2 commanders to capture a territory the first few turns. Send Rance alone versus Ashikaga to clear the Isoroku event, or don’t use him at all once you see she’s in the mix. Of course taking the last territory might require some reloading, but it’s not too bad if you have a decent army. Asakura is easy once you get rid of the panda event (don’t even bother defending of course.) Miko I sometimes save, but like to get done relatively early because Natori and Himiko are amazing commanders. The 1 star game I’m playing now game me some trouble, because it took me six turns (as well as countless reloading) to capture Himiko, but it was worth it; she’s great in commander battles due to Convert Action 2 and high AP, and she destroys armies if you invest the troops into her. Then Kenshin is a breeze if you send Rance alone everytime she’s in battle, and falls easily once you get the house event.

That’s just my general expansion route for the first 20-30 turns, depending on difficulty. This game I went about things a lot differently, instead expanding to the west, while avoiding taking too many gourds out of play. I was able to capture just about everything east of Mouri, excluding Tenshi (now allied), One-Eyed, and Iga (which I now hold) before the Demon Army appeared. It was rather funny, as the Demon Army was pushed so far back by the time they appeared, that a lot of story CGs were skipped entirely (forbidden Youkai appeared immediately and the Mouri Apostle exploded without any CG to show it was coming.)

You know, I’ve never done a second playthrough of Sengoku Rance. I played it through the first time with a partial translation patch and my army was so underpowered that there was no way I could defeat the demon army before they clobbered all my territories. When the final translation patch was released, it made it so I couldn’t skip through the text of scenes I had seen already, so I started over and beat the game. Then when I got a new computer, I started over again and played it through. I should probably play it again so that I can try macking on Kenshin or Yamamoto.