Collection - VN - Others - Rance Series [Ch. 1-2 Remastered, Ch. 1-7 + Kichikuou] [AliceSoft]

I can think of very few fantasy series with a more fleshed out world both in terms of width and in depth, with this many memorable, lovable characters (many of which return at times when it makes sense), set to a series of escalating narratives, with plot-twists hitting you in the teeth out of nowhere (but in a good way) set to a soundtrack that has absolutely no business being this good, than Alicesoft's flagship series Rance, period, never mind just within the Japanese market, let alone within its adult segment.
Did I mention character-growth yet?
This series is perfect.
Anyone who disagrees with me on that can go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.

I played the remake of the first game (well, a couple of hours), and the positive I can say is that the game is very well polished, the dialouges sometimes made me laugh, the world is build up in a cool way and the system of fighting battles, managing your inventory, your place to stay and such are well thought out.

Why only one star then, you ask? Well, that's because while Rance is good as a casual game (at least for lewd games, with real casual games it can't keep up), it completely fails as a hentai game.

You'll often grind hours for the next scene, hentai scenes are very rare, and if you finally get them, they're just static pictures. They didn't animate anything which doesn't make sense for a hentai game, especially since they animated fights and such. At least low effort could have been put into the sex scenes with 2-3 pictures, a bit of movement and sound effects.

But this way the sex scenes really bore the hell out of you, and even as static pictures they're not really hot in any way, it's just boring angles and positions. Correction: Singular. Because you get only 1 static picture per scene.

I always don't get why people make hentai games when they actually want to make real games. Here's too much focus on the RPG part and too few on the lewd stuff.

Also you have the option to "assault" every woman you find, but it never functions. They always dodge, run away, someone interrupts, or they're stronger than you and push you back. Once wind just blew me out of a store. Okay, yeah, it was a bit funny for exactly 2 seconds, but then I remembered I am playing a hentai game. And I'm wondering why you would make an asshole MC that could assault every woman he wants, but cockblock that feature on every single woman you meet in the game.

Also, you can't really make decisions. You have a slave girl and he treats her like absolut garbage. Why can't we decide for ourselves? It's not that Rance is a very deep fleshed out character for whom it's important to have his own thoughts and decisions.

Anyways..this is a huge waste of time. If you want to play good RPGs, there are tons out there in the casual market. As a hentai game, Rance is a huge failure.

TLDR: MASTERPIECE
A legend in the Japanese Ero game. An interesting, humorous, touching as well as passionate story of a rapist adventurer over 30 years. I cannot wait for Rance X to be fully translated into English.

If you're reading this, sleeping on this series is actively doing yourself a disservice. And that's from someone who has only played a couple games in this series.

Sengoku Rance is not just one of my favourite hentai-games, it's one of my favourite strategy-games in general in some aspects, especially when it comes to characters. It's an excellent example of a waifu-collecting game done right, with far more content and craft that you can expect from 90% of indie-titles in general. This series is one that has truly started putting gameplay, story and hentai on equal ground long ago, and is one of the best examples of how to do it right, despite whatever problems the games may have individually.

I played Sengoku Rance which is the 7th game in the series.

To be honest, the sex scenes didn't appeal to me at all. They're mostly static drawings and not very interesting. Rance runs around fucking everyone he possibly can, especially princesses. I was also extremely relieved that the game allows you to not pursue the pedo content. So, weirdly, I didn't find this porn game sexy at all but I gave it five stars. Why?

This game is amazing. It's an incredibly fun and in depth strategy game. The gameplay is challenging, and can feel unfair during certain events, but it's absolutely a cut above almost any other porn type game I've ever played.

There are some gameplay elements and plot lines that are silly or don't make sense but the core gameplay loop of conquering, fighting, recruiting, and dungeon diving is excellent. It reminds me of ogre battle 64.

I do recommend playing with cheat engine's speedhack on as the time where the AI factions act during turns takes forever. The speedhack can greatly reduce this time and make the game a lot more enjoyable imo.

Also, this game is hard. Like really hard. You're going to struggle until you grasp all of the central gameplay mechanics. That said, it's still a very fun experience and I highly recommend it as a game rather than an eroge.

This series is insanely fun. Especially Sengoku Rance. If there are 2 h-game series that every h-gamer should play, it's this and monster girl quest. The music in this series is phenomenal. Again, focusing on sengoku rance, the music in that game in particular could give ω-Force a run for their money. This is WAY more than some VN series, and I wouldn't be surprised if people pass it by because of it being tagged as one, which is a shame, because wow I can't stop playing.

Please note this review is just for the first game Rance 1 - quest fot hikari

The plot is way too simple(go find girl) and it dosent get any more interesting from there.

Gameplay inculudes huge amounts of grinding thats not fun to do.

There is no depth to any character, i would be hesitant to even describe them as one dimensional.

For a rape game it is way too comedic, its slapstick comedy and when dealing with serious stuff like murder, torture, rape, etc... it just dosent fit.

The story is badly written and has no climax at all, lots of actions are pointless and just there to add a sex scene that makes no sense to the story add to that no consequences for the actions of the main bad guys and you realise the story is just totally pointless.

When you finish a game like this you have to ask what did i get out of playing it?
Was it an interesting story, No
Did it have great sex scenes, No
Did anything in the story matter, No
Was it fun to play, No

Rip the CGs and read a brief synopsis of the story, it will be much better than playing the game.

Thank you for the Rance thread! Rance is my favorite h-series, so thank you for allowing me, and countless others to be able to play these amazing games!

Rance games are a great mix of actual game, hentai, and a great story building, which is incredibly rare in hentai games.

Varying quality from game to game, the few first one aren't very fun gameplay wise, but one thing about the rance franchise that stands out in my opinion it's always fun story wise, because of rance , an absolute asshole and the main character, it's never boring thanks to him.

Like most people i would recommend sengoku rance if you're new to the series, good one to see whether or not it's your thing.

Absolutely recommended franchise !

I downloaded hundred of game from this website and this by far my favorite and the one I spend the most of time on it. I mostly played Sengoku Rance but I also played 02, V and VI. The characters of the serie is quitte good. Rance is one of my favorite protaganist all game considered lewd or not. Waifu have enjoyable and diverse personalities.
Speaking of Sengoku Rance which I played the most.
The game gameplay is very nice, and you found yourself quitte fast not playing for the porn at all. The replayability is amazing. You have different route, you can also play for the best score possible. The game have a lot of funny events and is very huge. I spend easily more than hundred of hour in this game.
Most of the game consist of battle between armies under a specific commander.
The game is also quitte challenging but not impossible either. Increasing the difficulty is at the same time quitte a challenge but also manageable.
You need to use your brain quitte a lot when you play this game.
They are a lot of different CG with plenty of themes. The CG of this game is however not their strongest point.
Sadly this game is not perfect. My main critics are that dungeon are boring, and that one class and some characters are a bit too op even if you still have to use them correctly they do not make the game easy, even more if you play in harder difficulty.
tdlr
Huge game, quitte funny, hight replayability, challenging, good CG, boring dungeon.
One of the best H game existing today.

Best 2 are Sengoku Rance (Rance 7 canon) and Kichikuou Rance (Rance 5 alternative route), definite 5 stars. I want to compare these 2 to Dieselmine's "The Salacious Story of Huayin" as its also a Japanese strategy rpg hentai games.

Art:
Anime-styled, much better looking than those dozen of Japanese RPGM games
Well proportioned characters, also range anywhere from children to average to super buffed dudes and bootylicious women.
"The Salacious Story of Huayin" has more hot/sexy/extreme art than Rance series.


Gameplay:
Kichikuou Rance 1996 and Sengoku Rance 2006 has similar strategy gameplay, that is you are presented a map, you control an area, multiple commanders and armies, your "initial goal" is to capture the whole map from many other warring factions.
Gameplay has a certain depth to it. You may expect a lot of mechanics to try out, but once you get a hang of it, most are just optional. So enjoy the game as your own pace, as its not hard and grindy, unless you play Rance 7's higher difficulties that only get unlocked after first playthrough.
Complex wise, both game has more and better gameplay than "The Salacious Story of Huayin". You can expect 10~40 hours gameplay for one Sengoku Rance playthrough, ~50 hours if you want to explore everything in Kichikuou Rance with a walkthrough. Walkthrough is definitely useful, but i suggest to not spoil yourself too much, as the story is interesting.
Obviously not as complex and stressing as playing the likes of Civilization and Total War. But the most complete gameplay experience ever existed in a game with large amount of sex.

Story/sex:
Protagonist Rance is an arrogant, narcissist, skilled swordman. He travel around the world with his slave Sill. In these 2 games he takes on the role of a leader of a region.
All characters has a consistent personality. There are no women who, prostitute herself out in one scene but get disgusted by seeing a dick in the next scene. You will likely feel love/hate toward certain characters
Good amount of sex is male dominance. Rance like to force women into sex, however he treat his women well, and try his best for his partner to feel good. You could say he is a rapist, well, remember that him being willing to risk his life multiple times to fuck any women is a joke in it's own, so dont take that too seriously. There is unavoidable rape not done by Rance in the game and thats way worse than what Rance do.

In short, definitely try Kichikuou Rance and Sengoku Rance out. I know many Japanese/anime styled games are just low budget trash, Rance series have a respected hitory of having existed since 1989, 30 years ago.
Play Kichikuou Rance first if youre patient, can tolerate the somewhat outdated art of a game from 1996 ( then again, still better than the shitty Japanese games nowadays). Or Sengoku Rance first if you want to jump right into the best game.

The other games of the series are not as interesting and worth your time, unless you are already hooked into the story of the series. I myself started with Rance 7, the best of the series. Rance 8 9 10 are not yet available in English, no idea about that. Buy the game from Mangagamer if you can, its worth it

The Legendary Rance Series. Rance was literally voted as the best Visual Novel Protagonist and kept the spot for so long that they had to disqualify and change the competition. This is one of the best VNs out there and to ever have existed. A cult classic of visual novels.