Easily the best gameplay of Rance's retro timeline and my favorite pre-2000 grand strategy game. Rance becomes king of Leazas and he strives to take over the world. Surprisingly solid core gameplay loop (the retro games often weren't great in that regard) with a ton of secrets to find.
The downsides are that there are a lot of ways to screw yourself over that you can't realistically figure out beforehand. Like, taking certain cities will trigger flags that send more powerful enemies after you with nothing in-game telling you about it beforehand. Also, the writing suffers since the developers had to speedrun the plot before they were really ready to (thankfully they managed to eventually get the series wrapped up properly).
Still a fun game. For a more detailed look, check out this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8SN8uVf1sk
The downsides are that there are a lot of ways to screw yourself over that you can't realistically figure out beforehand. Like, taking certain cities will trigger flags that send more powerful enemies after you with nothing in-game telling you about it beforehand. Also, the writing suffers since the developers had to speedrun the plot before they were really ready to (thankfully they managed to eventually get the series wrapped up properly).
Still a fun game. For a more detailed look, check out this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8SN8uVf1sk