Back in 2018, my friend got me to watch an anime called That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. While I’m typically not a fan of the isekai genre, I found the first season of Reincarnated as a Slime fairly interesting and distinct from similar anime. The anime (itself based on a light novel series) eschews some of the worst aspects of the genre like harem romances or slavery and focuses more on nation-building and slice-of-life interactions between the characters. Bandai Namco found this a solid foundation for an RPG adaptation, and thus ISEKAI Chronicles was born. Developers Monkeycraft and ZOC took inspiration from some of Bandai Namco’s other RPG series, mixing fast-paced 2D action combat (classic Tales of) and 3D town building (similar to Ni No Kuni II) to deliver a very fitting combination for the source material.
The game begins with the origin story of Rimuru, a man from modern-day Japan who is stabbed in a random attack and dies. He is then reincarnated in a fantasy world as a slime. However, he has the unique personal skill Predator, which allows him to consume other creatures and take on their abilities and attributes. Through this power, Rimuru unites the various races and forms the Jura-Tempest Federation, a nation where all races can coexist as equals. The initial setup is sped through very quickly in the game, and I was glad I was familiar with at least the first season of the anime. If you don’t have any background knowledge of the anime or light novels, the initial events, as portrayed in the game, could be fairly confusing. Rimuru’s awakening in the fantasy world, his friendship and absorption of the dragon Veldora, and his initial battles to unite the goblin and wolf tribes in the forest of Jura all occur within about 20 minutes, mostly told through a mix of in-game cutscenes and short battles that double as tutorials.
After that introductory chapter, the pace of the story is more relaxed, with new storylines and characters unique to the game seamlessly woven into the original storyline of the anime. These new characters and storylines were created by the light novel author, Fuse, and fit the general tone of the story. Since the narrative generally follows the same formula of Rimuru and his allies regularly meeting a new friend or foe, the addition of game-specific allies and enemies didn’t negatively impact the narrative pacing. I appreciate that the developers went the extra mile to ensure the game isn’t solely a retread of plot beats from the anime, and that there is new content here for fans of the source material. The game mostly covers the show’s first two seasons and caps the narrative off with a battle against an original foe. This ensures the game has a satisfying climax without conflicting with the events of later anime seasons, which I thought was a nice touch to expand the universe.
The game is divided into two main portions: dungeon crawling with action RPG combat and town building. Dungeon exploration and combat take place on a 2D plane, and the combat system is very similar to classic Tales of titles like Tales of Phantasia or Tales of Destiny. You can perform different combos by holding a different direction while using the attack button, and map special skills to directional inputs combined with a face button. The action is fast-paced, and you are graded on each combat encounter based on your combo counter and the amount of damage you deal. A higher grade results in better item and experience rewards, which ensures a simple yet satisfying gameplay loop.
You spend most of the early game playing as Rimuru in his human form, but as more allies join the Jura-Tempest Federation, you unlock a whole host of other characters to add to your party. For example, when the Ogres finally join Rimuru’s cause, you get a whopping six new party members to play around with, each with unique fighting styles and special skills. This steady stream of additional playable characters, plus support characters you can equip to the party for passive stat bonuses and special moves, ensures that the simplistic combat system has enough variety to remain fun throughout the game’s run time.
Character progression, on the other hand, is lacking. There is a web of passive skill nodes you can unlock as characters gain experience, but they only provide basic stat bonuses or the occasional modifier, which doesn’t have a significant impact on the gameplay. Character skills are unlocked linearly through story progression, so there isn’t much opportunity to tailor character builds to your play style. Partway through the game, you unlock a training facility that allows characters to gain experience even if they aren’t participating in dungeon runs, so there isn’t any need to commit to a particular party setup either.
Unfortunately, the game mechanics only get shallower and more repetitive from here. The town-building aspect of the game had me initially interested, but the execution leaves much to be desired. Most structures you can build only offer minor passive bonuses for dungeon runs, and these bonuses can’t be stacked with one another. The result is that the actual layout or composition of buildings and facilities doesn’t matter, and there aren’t any additional mechanics tied to managing resources or the well-being of your citizens. Some buildings impact gameplay, such as the aforementioned training facility or the farm that produces resources needed to build additional structures, but ultimately the entire town-building experience feels incredibly simplistic.
ISEKAI Chronicles is further let down by the mind-numbing monotony of its dungeon design. Each dungeon is constructed out of small adjoining rooms, similar to the 2D dungeon layouts in Muramasa or Odin Sphere. However, in those Vanillaware titles, the rooms vary in size and shape and contain verticality and platforming elements, NPCs to interact with, and other environmental details. The dungeons in ISEKAI Chronicles feature none of these elements and are simply empty rectangular rooms with either chests or enemies inside. Every single dungeon in the entire game follows this same structure, differing only in the type of environmental backdrop they use. There are no platforming elements, no puzzles to solve, no NPCs to talk to, nothing but running to the left and occasionally opening a chest and fighting a small group of enemies ad nauseam.
Enemy variety is also woefully lacking, and by the third chapter, you already start to see recolors of the same enemy types you’ve fought before, who do the same animations and have the same attacks. Boss fights, at least, introduce unique enemies and are significantly more complex and difficult than typical fodder encounters. However, even these boss fights are recycled over and over again, sometimes as many as five times throughout the game. For a game that is already relatively light on content, it begins to feel incredibly padded out just to hit an arbitrary 15 to 20-hour length.
I can’t say I fully regret the time I spent with That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime ISEKAI Chronicles, but the overall experience wasn’t incredibly memorable either. If you are a huge fan of the anime or light novel series, I think it’s worth checking out, as it’s a faithful adaptation of the source material with some original narrative content and a solid enough gameplay foundation to be fun if you can look past the repetition. For casual fans of the anime such as myself, or those who aren’t familiar with the source material at all, this is an easy skip. If the dungeon designs were less bland and repetitive or the town-building mechanics more impactful and fleshed out, ISEKAI Chronicles could’ve been special. As it stands now, it’s just an average anime-licensed RPG.