Rance Series

[Lucumo]

Imagine not playing in chronological order...

 

[Jaedar]

Imagine not playing in chronological order...

Imagine having to play 02, III, IV, 5D in a row. I'm fairly certain that could count as torture.

 

[thesecret1]

Imagine not playing in chronological order...

Imagine having to play 02, III, IV, 5D in a row. I'm fairly certain that could count as torture.

I have and it's fun. Up until 5D which is rage-inducing with its rng shit, at least.

 

[Lucumo]

Imagine not playing in chronological order...

Imagine having to play 02, III, IV, 5D in a row. I'm fairly certain that could count as torture.

Hm? It's I, II, III, IV, 4.1 and so on though.

 

[Vic]

Rance sounds like a homosexual franchise for lolis

case in point once u look at your avatars

it's porn with gameplay, or in the case of Sengoku Rance at least, gameplay with porn. Haven't played the other games in the series.

 

[Jaedar]

Imagine not playing in chronological order...

Imagine having to play 02, III, IV, 5D in a row. I'm fairly certain that could count as torture.

Hm? It's I, II, III, IV, 4.1 and so on though.

Imagine playing I and II when 01 and 02 exist.
(I can imagine someone playing III since 03 isn't in english yet and probably won't be until 2025).

Rance sounds like a homosexual franchise for lolis

case in point once u look at your avatars

it's porn with gameplay, or in the case of Sengoku Rance at least, gameplay with porn. Haven't played the other games in the series.

They're all gameplay with porn, although the quality (and genre) of the gameplay varies a lot over the series.

 

[Lucumo]

Imagine not playing in chronological order...

Imagine having to play 02, III, IV, 5D in a row. I'm fairly certain that could count as torture.

Hm? It's I, II, III, IV, 4.1 and so on though.

Imagine playing I and II when 01 and 02 exist.
(I can imagine someone playing III since 03 isn't in english yet and probably won't be until 2025).

Worse character art, voice acting...meh. Maybe newbies don't care, I certainly do though.

 

[Sigourn]

GAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

 

[Sigourn]

Rance 02 finished!

My short review on the game, compared to the first (whose remake actual came after this one)

• I hated the combat. I lost once in the entirety of the game, and only because I let a party member die believing you could resurrect them at the church.
  • The combat boils down to keeping your health in check against very weak enemy attacks, all while hurting damage sponges that take ages to die.
  • You start the game with two attacks and you end the game with two attacks. The only thing that changes is how much damage you deal and take. And the difference isn't really noticeable. Why even bother with levels and equipment, I ask?
  • By the end of the game, combat is a slogfest.
• I loved the personality of the game.
  • The chibi style vignettes were really cute, I wish there had been more of those.
  • Details such as level goddess Willis losing her clothes as you advanced through levels.
• There's less detail to the sex scenes in general.
  • You get a CG that doesn't really change throughout the course of the scene, e.g. cum is already present at the start (contrasted to Rance 01's, which would have cum appear after a short flash of the screen).
  • No sound whatsoever.
• Thankfully, the sex scenes are also shorter.
• Being unable to skip them was already a problem in this game, that Rance 01 didn't address. Accidentally clicking on Sill to "use" her leads to an unskippable scene.
• The story was decidedly more engaging which much less backtracking compared to Rance 01's.
• The characters were also far more entertaining IMO. Maria and Milli, my favorite girls.
• I think I enjoyed the art better than Rance 01.
• All in all,

 

[Jaedar]

• Being unable to skip them was already a problem in this game, that Rance 01 didn't address. Accidentally clicking on Sill to "use" her leads to an unskippable scene.

Iirc, holding ctrl skips all text and works in every rance game. It's like skip mode except also for unread text. It also tends to skip insanely fast in the old games.

Milli,

Milli is cool, why did she have to be one of the very few main characters who dies. She doesn't even get a cameo card in X

 

[Sigourn]

• Being unable to skip them was already a problem in this game, that Rance 01 didn't address. Accidentally clicking on Sill to "use" her leads to an unskippable scene.

Iirc, holding ctrl skips all text and works in every rance game. It's like skip mode except also for unread text. It also tends to skip insanely fast in the old games.

Milli,

Milli is cool, why did she have to be one of the very few main characters who dies. She doesn't even get a cameo card in X

Oops, I shouldn't have read that spoiler.
Anyhow, thanks for the tip about the text!

Now onto Rance III!

Playing fullscreen is a necessity because the default resolution makes my eyes hurt.

Dialogue like that makes me glad I played the first game.

 

[Jaedar]

Dialogue like that makes me glad I played the first game.

03 features I think literally every named character from 01 and 02, I assume III is similar.

 

[Jason Liang]

Rance 02 finished!

My short review on the game, compared to the first (whose remake actual came after this one)

• I hated the combat. I lost once in the entirety of the game, and only because I let a party member die believing you could resurrect them at the church.
  • The combat boils down to keeping your health in check against very weak enemy attacks, all while hurting damage sponges that take ages to die.
  • You start the game with two attacks and you end the game with two attacks. The only thing that changes is how much damage you deal and take. And the difference isn't really noticeable. Why even bother with levels and equipment, I ask?
  • By the end of the game, combat is a slogfest.
• I loved the personality of the game.
  • The chibi style vignettes were really cute, I wish there had been more of those.
  • Details such as level goddess Willis losing her clothes as you advanced through levels.
• There's less detail to the sex scenes in general.
  • You get a CG that doesn't really change throughout the course of the scene, e.g. cum is already present at the start (contrasted to Rance 01's, which would have cum appear after a short flash of the screen).
  • No sound whatsoever.
• Thankfully, the sex scenes are also shorter.
• Being unable to skip them was already a problem in this game, that Rance 01 didn't address. Accidentally clicking on Sill to "use" her leads to an unskippable scene.
• The story was decidedly more engaging which much less backtracking compared to Rance 01's.
• The characters were also far more entertaining IMO. Maria and Milli, my favorite girls.
• I think I enjoyed the art better than Rance 01.
• All in all,

- Rance 02 (it's very short and keep in mind this is a 14 year old remaster of a 33 year old game from 1990)

While 01 was a full remake made 10 years ago

 

[Vic]

why do you play them back to back so fast?

why not wait for 03 and play with proper translation and not this mess

 

[Jason Liang]

why do you play them back to back so fast?

why not wait for 03 and play with proper translation and not this mess

Well

It's still unclear if 03 will come out this year and is not freeware like III

III is longer than 01/02 but it's still very short, about 6-8 hours, shorter if you use a walkthrough or maps, and basically has 0 need for grinding (unlike 02).

IV is more or less skippable if you hated the GUI or combat in III, also short, and is unlikely to ever even get a remake so IV is what you get.

Next two games are Kichikuou which is a masterpiece and 5D which is short, has modern graphics and GUI, and some may even call it fun.

 

[thesecret1]

Next two games are Kichikuou which is a masterpiece and 5D

You're forgetting 4.1 and 4.2

 

[Jason Liang]

Next two games are Kichikuou which is a masterpiece and 5D

You're forgetting 4.1 and 4.2

I categorize those as spin off games similar to Slash! Thrust! Burn!, Naguri Makuri Tower, Kaeru nyo Panyon, Galzoo Island, Little Princess, Little Vampire, Gakuen Senki and Beat Wars Escalation Heroines.

 

[thesecret1]

Next two games are Kichikuou which is a masterpiece and 5D

You're forgetting 4.1 and 4.2

I categorize those as spin off games similar to Slash! Thrust! Burn!, Naguri Makuri Tower, Kaeru nyo Panyon, Galzoo Island, Little Princess, Little Vampire, Gakuen Senki and Beat Wars Escalation Heroines.

Later sequels make references to them, though. In fact, if you skip them, you'll be left wondering at the start of 5D about where the fuck Rance is and what he's doing there, things that are explained in 4.1 and 4.2. If you want a continuous story, you cannot skip them.

 

[Jason Liang]

Next two games are Kichikuou which is a masterpiece and 5D

You're forgetting 4.1 and 4.2

I categorize those as spin off games similar to Slash! Thrust! Burn!, Naguri Makuri Tower, Kaeru nyo Panyon, Galzoo Island, Little Princess, Little Vampire, Gakuen Senki and Beat Wars Escalation Heroines.

Later sequels make references to them, though. In fact, if you skip them, you'll be left wondering at the start of 5D about where the fuck Rance is and what he's doing there, things that are explained in 4.1 and 4.2. If you want a continuous story, you cannot skip them.

Yes, you are right. Genri is in Sengoku, Kisara is in RQM, Miracle mentions Marishiten in R9, Operation Bird is ofc significant, Wenlina returns in Rance X, etc... but later games similarly reference Naguri Makuri Tower, Kaeru nyo Panyon and Little Princess as well, so...

If you skip them you'll miss some things. This is true. And sure, it's probably worthwhile spending the couple of hours to play them. But if you skip them, you aren't going to miss anything that revelatory or significant.

Crucially, for me at least, Kichikuou Rance plays perfectly fine after Rance III, so I've always assumed that AliceSoft didn't expect players to have played IV, let alone 4.1 and 4.2

 

[Vic]

:autism:

 

[thesecret1]

later games similarly reference Naguri Makuri Tower, Kaeru nyo Panyon and Little Princess as well, so...

That's mostly just cameos, no? More importantly, it wouldn't be things Rance himself knows about (unlike here, where he greets Genri and such), so it wouldn't cause sudden confusion where the player is left wondering why Rance knows this random guy.

It's also where Rance bags Copandon, IIRC, which is a crucial character in later games.

Crucially, for me at least, Kichikuou Rance plays perfectly fine after Rance III, so I've always assumed that AliceSoft didn't expect players to have played IV, let alone 4.1 and 4.2

Are characters from IV really not in Kichikuou? Could've sworn there were...

Wish Alicesoft remastered Kichikuou or made a new Rance game with that theme. It's good even now, but the age sure is showing, plus I'm missing some of the smaller features from Sengoku.

I've tried some of the other games in that genre that Alicesoft made, but all seemed to me like basically a watered down, shittier version of Sengoku.

 

[Maxie]

later games similarly reference Naguri Makuri Tower, Kaeru nyo Panyon and Little Princess as well, so...

That's mostly just cameos, no? More importantly, it wouldn't be things Rance himself knows about (unlike here, where he greets Genri and such), so it wouldn't cause sudden confusion where the player is left wondering why Rance knows this random guy.

It's also where Rance bags Copandon, IIRC, which is a crucial character in later games.

Crucially, for me at least, Kichikuou Rance plays perfectly fine after Rance III, so I've always assumed that AliceSoft didn't expect players to have played IV, let alone 4.1 and 4.2

Are characters from IV really not in Kichikuou? Could've sworn there were...

Wish Alicesoft remastered Kichikuou or made a new Rance game with that theme. It's good even now, but the age sure is showing, plus I'm missing some of the smaller features from Sengoku.

I've tried some of the other games in that genre that Alicesoft made, but all seemed to me like basically a watered down, shittier version of Sengoku.

you may not be particularly interested in rance in general, just in sengoku rance

 

[Lucumo]

Crucially, for me at least, Kichikuou Rance plays perfectly fine after Rance III, so I've always assumed that AliceSoft didn't expect players to have played IV, let alone 4.1 and 4.2

Are characters from IV really not in Kichikuou? Could've sworn there were...

Wish Alicesoft remastered Kichikuou or made a new Rance game with that theme. It's good even now, but the age sure is showing, plus I'm missing some of the smaller features from Sengoku.

I've tried some of the other games in that genre that Alicesoft made, but all seemed to me like basically a watered down, shittier version of Sengoku.

Of course they are.

Nah, Kichikuou is their magnum opus. Sengoku has way worse character art and if you take the time they got released into account, there is a large gap in quality.

 

[thesecret1]

you may not be particularly interested in rance in general, just in sengoku rance

Nah, I loved all Rance games. Even 5D, despite it being shit.

Nah, Kichikuou is their magnum opus. Sengoku has way worse character art and if you take the time they got released into account, there is a large gap in quality.

Sengoku's UI is massively better, which is what I meant by Kichikuou's age showing.

 

[Jason Liang]

It's also where Rance bags Copandon, IIRC, which is a crucial character in later games.

5D. No worries, I assume you just repressed all memory of that game ^ ^