An enjoyable, affectionate parody of the isekai fantasy subgenre. Console/PC versions fix the Shop currency shortage, although four summons are gated behind Shop gacha.

This review is for the Playstation 5 version of Isekai Rondo.

Console/PC versions have a higher base price than mobile versions; in exchange, the player can grind Shop currency much more easily from random encounters and daily missions. This fixes a problem mentioned in another review – that mobile versions of Isekai Rondo are stingy with Shop currency.

However, four summons (one cameo summon from Asdivine Kamura, and three critter summons unique to Isekai Rondo) can only be obtained from Shop gacha. The good news is that no Achievements/Trophies, bestiary entries, or in-game panel rewards are gated behind Shop gacha. Furthermore, the only non-gacha Shop purchases that make a substantial difference are the Secret Room boosters that raise physical and magical damage by up to 100%, and the 250 Shop currency key to a postgame optional dungeon.

The Shop gacha summons will only matter to 100% completionists or possibly Asdivine Kamura fans, since Isekai Rondo is fairly easy even on the highest difficulty of Very Hard. It’s quite simple to overpower the party by improving their “passives”, innate abilities that usually increase from various battle actions; most of these abilities will naturally power up even if the player just autobattles. It’s also quite simple to turn Famin into an unstoppable powerhouse by feeding her so many items that her stats skyrocket.

After the first 1/3 of the game on Very Hard, it was easy to autobattle almost everything, other than the Arena at lower-than-expected levels. The fun from boss battles mostly came from finishing off the boss with Famin’s bite attack so that she could gain even more stats.

It’s possible to keep Isekai Rondo from becoming quite so easy by not maxing out the party’s battle passives. But since battle passives are initially hidden behind hints, unlocking them all is a set of fun mini-puzzles to solve. Figuring out how to efficiently improve some of the more unusual passives is another fun set of mini-puzzles.

In addition to powering up passives, there’s plenty of side content in Isekai Rondo: an Arena, twenty-six sidequests, three postgame dungeon levels and an optional postgame superboss. The postgame-exclusive Shop dungeon has lots of floors, a funny side-story, and a cameo summon from Miden Tower.

Isekai Rondo is an affectionate parody of the isekai fantasy genre, and the story has A LOT of isekai anime tropes: the protagonist dies and is reincarnated into a fantasy world; immense power is bestowed on the protagonist; explicitly RPG-like mechanics are openly acknowledged and discussed; memories of life in the modern-day world are directly relevant to solving problems in the fantasy world; and so on. Re:Zero fans in particular will get a chuckle out of the “insurance” collectibles.

The story isn’t all parody though – there is a serious plot beneath the lighthearted jokes. While the initial conflict seems to be a cyclical battle between the Hero and the Overlord (the protagonist Shaw is notably NOT the Hero, or a candidate to become the Hero), there’s much more going on beneath the surface.

The main characters are likeable, especially Shaw, who goes through some character growth as the story progresses and he has to figure out the most honorable, compassionate, practical, or clever response to difficult situations. The story’s biggest flaw is that sometimes Shaw finds it a little too easy to persuade or outwit his antagonists, but even that isn’t always the case for every antagonist.

Perhaps the story’s best aspect is that it harshly and repeatedly criticizes toxic overwork and unpaid overtime culture, which is a real problem in modern-day Japan. The phrase “work until you die” is repeatedly mentioned, and it refers to a horrible phenomenon that has its own name in Japan: karoshi, or “death from overwork”. Shaw’s memories as an abused and overworked employee in Japan frequently give him a grim perspective on how the Overlord abuses and overworks his subordinates.

Even the toxic effectively-mandatory-after-hours-company-drinking-socials of Japanese work culture are criticized for promoting alcoholism. I’ve heard the claim (on an RPG podcast years ago) that Kemco treats its employees well by Japanese standards, and I hope that Isekai Rondo’s story is evidence that the claim is true.

Overall, I definitely recommend Isekai Rondo for its story. While the game is so easy that “autobattle with effects turned off and speed turned up to x3” is the optimal approach for most random encounters, the player can choose to make the game harder by not maxing out everything.

Just be prepared to either grind/save up Shop currency, or do without the Shop gacha-exclusive summons.

A classic Isekai Storyturned into a fun game

I’m writing this months after I cleared it, so I do not remember a lot about it and the review may look horrible.. But I want to write even the small review. It was a very solid and fun game to play through.

The heroes are written well as they generally do, the story is interesting and I liked the Passive System and the many Bad Endings the game provides are funny and recommended to watch even if it’s for completion. Just don’t let Famin eat your ultimate weapon, please.

Accessibility Failure

As usual with my reviews, all scores default to 4 (“Good, but nothing to write home about”) and control defaults to 5 (“gets the job done, does not gets in the way”).

The game revolves around the concept of Passives. It has items which act as passives, but has consumables too. This was neutral to gameplay.

The story is nothing too innovative, but you’re probably already expecting this anyway, so it gets the job done. While it doesn’t have anything out of ordinary or worth write home about… it is solid and makes you keep to want playing, avoiding to overdo on the humor or breaking immersion, not to mention they actually put the effort to update the world map and what NPCs are saying as the story progresses, so I felt it would be a disservice to not give it five stars. (In fact, when story says “we’ll evacuate town X”, first the NPCs react saying it’ll happen, and then the NPCs vanish as the town is evacuated. It would be a disservice to overlook this).

Characters were also characterized and relatable. Memorable, even. It has been a while since I last played an Exe-Create game with an actually decent characterization. Story-wise, this might be the strongest point of this game. But even if characterization is good, the story itself still adheres to the cliché and sticks to it.

In this, I’ll agree with the Overlord: Why is Exe-Create still adhering to the cliché so tightly?

Anyway, you always heal HP after fights, but not MP. Some armor however provide MP regen.

Battle System is nothing to write home about ─ I’ve seen it so many times, it gets the job done and in overall good, but I always use auto. Tactics screen is OK, but nothing to write home about either, although you’ll be using it a bit. I only used Formation to get passives as well…

Skills are… Skills. Some you have little idea of the actual impact (e.g. the one for walking). Others are easier to understand. It is a bit annoying when your low-MP skill gets entirely replaced by a high-MP skill. The passives are a good addition, the collection for them is also nice, and when you learn a new skill they make fancy graphics (which… is not really exceptional). At a first glance, there doesn’t seems to have any wasted potential, it is solid. Fun, even. While you’ll rarely have low-MP skills and I advise to stack some seeds to raise max MP, due to how passives work, this will not affect gameplay negatively (surprisingly). They probably could have done better by counting total MP usage instead of times used, but eh. Also, NEVER buy stuff which raise PP rate. This will make the game HARDER, not easier.

Controls are not really OK, they have multiple walk speed settings, but I still hate that drawer system first added with Seek Hearts as it makes harder to do anything, and you’ll waste some time trying to pass through some floors just to open the drawer and switch the boots every time as they decide to put MP absorb tiles and arrow tiles in sequence (so -1 star for this, the drawer does get in the way). The buttons are sometimes too small, making the interface harder to use in overall. Not to mention some stuff is really hard to see like the danger areas, so -1 star again.

This is one of the greediest Kemco games I’ve played ─ Or, to be more precise, the money they ask for each IAP point is a rip-off. You should not consider purchasing points, they are overpriced, even if the items themselves objectively are not. You do get IAP points for battles, anyway. Well, even the premium version gives you a considerably low amount of IAP when compared to their other games. The roulette also doesn’t work when it is unlocked, you need to CLOSE the app and re-open for it to work, and going to title screen is not enough.

Now, having too expensive IAP currency is in overall fine, having to close the app so some stuff start working is not so good, but it would not be enough to subtract a star… by itself. Just like having low contrast and small text fonts by itself should not affect gameplay hard enough to be worth subtracting a star. But half star and half star is a whole star, so yes, I’ve subtracted a star. Some issues are worse than others, while other issues can be ignored, but if several tiny little issues stack up, gameplay will slowly erode itself.

The guild system itself is structured in a similar to Onigo Hunter ─ you have a guild rank, and most of the story happens while trying to level it up. It does not have fancy stuff like money limit, monster capture nor anything of the sorts, you can kill the boss to gain guild exp and/or do side quests. The amount of guild points you can gain is much more limited than in Onigo Hunter, but still plenty.

Nothing to write home about, this system is not particularly good nor bad, it is better than forced grinding and as a developer I can understand the appeal of using it. Well, the map seems to be much more restricted than Onigo Hunter (it uses Miden Tower as base) ─ but this is probably just an impression.

===== Conclusion
The game is good, but inconvenient at times.

Assuming you can overcome the terrible accessibility, it will keep you entertained for a while and is in overall an OK time killer with nothing to write home about besides “hey, this game is focused on passive skills!” as if it was the most innovative thing ever, and “hey, it combines stuff from Onigo Hunter, Miden Tower, Seek Hearts, Sword of Elipsia, Asdivine Kamura and others!” as if it was something unexpected (which… is not the case, Exe-Create always re-use and combine stuff, which sometimes create fun systems and in others, decent systems. This is the later). And that story is decent, but not being able to explain why because it does not deviate from the cliché.

As the game progresses, you’ll start seeing the places where they actually put some effort, and you might gradually start growing fond of the game as the characters get their chance to grow. But just like there are tiny little polished things to make the game grow on you, there are also tiny little inconveniences to cancel out the effect.

Surprisingly for Exe-Create, this is a game with a better story than gameplay. But while the story might be worthwhile, it follows the cliché in a weird way that makes harder to describe. Characters were worthwhile, story was fun, but in overall, you end up feeling a bit infuriated as if something was missing and you don’t know what is because it looks perfect already.

Overall experience: Like ordering a cake, and getting a cake. But the cake was not so tasty. You’re not sure why, it was a good cake, from a good brand, and you can say it is one of their best works. You already cakes from the brand before and they were all good. The cake is exactly how you wanted it to be. So why did it let you down? There are several sour spots in the cake, but did they really ruin the flavor? Maybe it was baked with care, but without love? Maybe the cake itself was tasty and we are overthinking this? I got mixed feelings after playing this game. It’s like most pros have an abstract con which is hard to describe, you just know it is there.

Also: Do not spend more money in the game than required to purchase it as the pricing is a rip-off, unless you have lots of spare money.