I'll give this 5, since I'm assuming anyone looking at this has at least some interest in the Rance series. If for some reason you don't and I'm rating this as a stand alone game, please deduct one star.
If you are interested in the Rance series should you start with this one? No, boringly I recommend 01.
If you are playing through the series should you skip this one? Probably not, it may have the weakest gameplay but unlike 4.1 and 4.2, characters here are carried over. Rizna and Coppandon, two of my personal faves, are introduced here and Feliss gets a lot of screentime. On the other hand, the setting and general world building aren't important later (from memory- I played this over a year ago).
Having gotten all that out of the way, onto an actual review... Rance 5d plays as an rpg adventure where you travel a land interacting with others and the environs and fighting monsters. Rance remains his usual selfish self but to be honest the plot isn't that memorable- basically you're stuck in some sort of pocket dimension and you're trying to escape. Being Rance, you have the additional goal of trying to have as much sex as possible.
+ As with most Alicesoft (AS) stuff, the production levels are very high. Music and art (albeit only 30 cg's) are on par with the rest of the series.
+It's short and with a walkthrough, it's not difficult to see everything in one run, unlike most AS games.
+I appreciate that they played around with the adventure game theme (you can't say Rance just recycles gameplay between games), and that luck is ingrained into all the game systems. Unfortunately, this plays badly with the first negative...
-The biggest problem are the time limits. The game is divided into sections and each needs to be completed by a certain number of turns. While this adds urgency and meaning to the player actions, it discourages exploration, and for me (I'm not up for restarting a game 20 times) necessitated a walkthrough from the start. All AS games need a walkthrough, but mostly I only need it to grab a few completionist things. It's frustrating to see that performing an unneeded action prompts a tailored response (cool!!!), but by doing so you've wasted time.
-It's not always clear what you're supposed to be doing. Combined with the first neg, that's terrible.
-While I liked the use of luck thematically, it obviously can be aggravating at times. I remember a few bosses where I just had to hope that a certain move would be used at a certain time with little I could do other than restarting the whole game and minmaxing better. Probably would be fine if not for the time limits.
So basically, remove the time limits (which tbf, aren't extremely tight if you're just following a walkthrough) and this would be a fun, short, occasionally frustrating game which serves as an intro to a few girls. With time limits, I'd treat it as a VN where you have to sometimes replay a choice until you get the result you want.
So why 5 (or 4) stars? It is still better that 90% of stuff here and complete, so I tend to be generous in my ratings. Sadly, it's right at the bottom of my list of full Rance games but part of that is simply an indication of how good the others are.
If you are interested in the Rance series should you start with this one? No, boringly I recommend 01.
If you are playing through the series should you skip this one? Probably not, it may have the weakest gameplay but unlike 4.1 and 4.2, characters here are carried over. Rizna and Coppandon, two of my personal faves, are introduced here and Feliss gets a lot of screentime. On the other hand, the setting and general world building aren't important later (from memory- I played this over a year ago).
Having gotten all that out of the way, onto an actual review... Rance 5d plays as an rpg adventure where you travel a land interacting with others and the environs and fighting monsters. Rance remains his usual selfish self but to be honest the plot isn't that memorable- basically you're stuck in some sort of pocket dimension and you're trying to escape. Being Rance, you have the additional goal of trying to have as much sex as possible.
+ As with most Alicesoft (AS) stuff, the production levels are very high. Music and art (albeit only 30 cg's) are on par with the rest of the series.
+It's short and with a walkthrough, it's not difficult to see everything in one run, unlike most AS games.
+I appreciate that they played around with the adventure game theme (you can't say Rance just recycles gameplay between games), and that luck is ingrained into all the game systems. Unfortunately, this plays badly with the first negative...
-The biggest problem are the time limits. The game is divided into sections and each needs to be completed by a certain number of turns. While this adds urgency and meaning to the player actions, it discourages exploration, and for me (I'm not up for restarting a game 20 times) necessitated a walkthrough from the start. All AS games need a walkthrough, but mostly I only need it to grab a few completionist things. It's frustrating to see that performing an unneeded action prompts a tailored response (cool!!!), but by doing so you've wasted time.
-It's not always clear what you're supposed to be doing. Combined with the first neg, that's terrible.
-While I liked the use of luck thematically, it obviously can be aggravating at times. I remember a few bosses where I just had to hope that a certain move would be used at a certain time with little I could do other than restarting the whole game and minmaxing better. Probably would be fine if not for the time limits.
So basically, remove the time limits (which tbf, aren't extremely tight if you're just following a walkthrough) and this would be a fun, short, occasionally frustrating game which serves as an intro to a few girls. With time limits, I'd treat it as a VN where you have to sometimes replay a choice until you get the result you want.
So why 5 (or 4) stars? It is still better that 90% of stuff here and complete, so I tend to be generous in my ratings. Sadly, it's right at the bottom of my list of full Rance games but part of that is simply an indication of how good the others are.
