Ranma 1/2: Treasure of Red Cat Gang
Platform: Super NES
Region: Japan (Translated)
Media: Cartridge
Controller: Gamepad
Genre: Role Playing Game
Release Year: 2000
Players: 1
Original Title: Ranma Nibunnoichi: Akanekodan Teki Hihou
Translated By: Naruto, The Ranma Team
Version: 1.00 / 0.99
_________________________
Alright. First, let me warn you: this game will make little, if any sense if you've never watched Ranma 1/2 before. If you haven't, I will take this opportunity to direct you to Viz Video's Website and order you to sign over your entire bank account to them in exchange for every Ranma video. Also, there's plenty of websites out there that can manage a fairly decent job of explaining the whole series. I'd explain it here, but it's way too complicated to fit in this review.

Anyway, the game itself is like any old-school RPG. The gameplay is much like anything you'd expect to see in Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy, except with a lighter atmosphere (it IS Ranma, after all?). Hell, this game is better than many RPGs released in the States (Secret of the Stars springs to mind), and it never got translated. I could never understand that. Rumicsoft had no problem translating the crappiest fighting game ever (Ranma 1/2: Hard Battle), but they wouldn't give us a quality RPG. Or any of the Ranma fighting games that were actually good. Which is really weird because even by the time this game was released, there were plenty of Ranma fans who'd buy anything with the Ranma name on it. And on top of that, there were plenty of RPG fans, too. In case you didn't know, Snes RPG fans are the most loyal and dedicated people on the planet. It's true, they'd go into EB or Software, Etc. and buy anything that said 'RPG' on the box. (I should know. I was one of those losers.)

Translation Description:

There are two versions of the patch. One is based more or less on the Ranma anime, the other is based more on the manga. The anime patch (v1.00) is available here, along with its readme. The manga patch (v0.99) is right here, along with its readme.

This is a great game. It's great to finally see it fully in english. And it's been quite some time in the making. I believe Shadow/Tasuki/System[ID] started this in '97. And since then has been passed around quite a bit until it ended up with the Ranma Team and Naruto. Anyway, this is a grade-A translation any way you look at it. They managed to squish the text from a 16-16 font to an 8-8, which makes it look nice for us english-types, as well as fit more text into a window. And the script (the anime version of it, at any rateI've yet to play the manga version) is extremely well-written. The fits the flavor of Ranma 1/2 very well. If you're a Ranma 1/2 fan, I strongly recommend you check this out. And if you're not a Ranma fan, I recommend you get into Ranma and then check it out.

Tips:

Play as any Character
At the Character Selection screen, highlight any character and hold R + X + A

Additional Difficulty Level
At the title screen hold L + R+Select and choose Option

Play as Herb
Hold L and R before the character selection screen shows up.

Reviewer: wraith
http://www.romhacking.net/trans/404/
