Play Rance III, IV, 4.1 and 4.2 despite the old graphics, III and IV especially are great games despite the 03 remake and IV having no remake. 4.1 and 4.2 are pretty short, but enjoyable adventures that are referenced in later titles. Chronological order usually isn't recommended at least in terms of playing the remakes first primarily due to some changes made primarily with 01 and 03 both narratively and gameplay wise. 02 even with the Kai update is very similar story wise to the original game and doesn't change much while the other remakes make references to newer titles and change scenes to reflect the tone of the newer games. The most common referenced way is release order via two methods.
The first method is the Japanese releases thus being I > II > III > IV > 4.1 > 4.2 Kichikuou > 5D > VI > Sengoku > 02 > Quest > 01 > IX > 03 > X. This gives you the intended progression as you can really see how the game evolves over time both in terms of technical things like gameplay and also how the story and narrative evolved as the world fleshed out. The developers had a lot of elements thought out about the world during the titles pre-5D and wrote a lot of notes on them, but some of these wouldn't be fleshed out until the post-5D titles hence why people usually recommend to play the originals before the remakes or at least alternatively "play" the Digest for Rance I and Rance II. Since 01 and 03 have hints of the newer elements that were fleshed out in newer titles. Kichikuou is a big one though. You should play Kichikuou even though it is not canon, in fact many fans usually split the Rance canon between "old" and "new" canon with old being Rance I to Kichikuou and new from 5D to X(including the remakes). As narrative wise the remakes replace the old titles to fit better in new canon. Kichikuou was created because the developers had so many ideas for the world they didn't think the series would continue long enough for them to complete and they wouldn't actually finish the series until about 22 years later. Kichikuou has the best pay off if you have played I, II, III, IV, 4.1 and 4.2 before it because it is basing everything on that old canon and in many ways Kichikuou in its current state is a great peek at the many ideas they had that would basically get remade and expanded upon in later entries being 5D, VI, Sengoku, Quest, IX and X.
That brings me to the second method, the official English release order which is typically recommended for people who don't want to bother with the older games so this just means playing the games in release order but only the new canon titles as MangaGamer has been pretty consistent with releasing the Rance games in the same release order as Japan. The only exception being Rance 01 that released bundled with 02 for MangaGamer's release between Sengoku and Quest while in Japan 02 came after Sengoku and 01 after Quest, but it is fine to play 01 between Sengoku and Quest alongside 02 regardless. This order gives a better idea of the evolution of the series as 5D is basically a shorter game and a similar narrative style to 4.1 and 4.2, but is also important in setting up the new canon and being basically a prologue chapter for VI while also planting seeds for Sengoku. We continue to see this progression in VI which really shows off the new canon with an epic adventure. Sengoku is less relevant overall narrative wise aside from some character and relationship setup, but it really ties things together and because it is less relevant narrative wise it helped being an entry point for the long period of time when it was the only title translated. Sengoku features many references to older titles and even some returning minor characters from the old canon with direct references to those events. This is one of the major drawbacks of only playing only the new canon as IV, 4.1 and 4.2 have no remake, those games are continued to be the only way to experience those stories. If you were to play them it is usually recommended to just play them after whenever you play III or 03. MangaGamer is likely already working on 03, but will continue to follow the Japanese releases of doing it after IX, but before X which makes sense as 03 contains references to Quest and IX plus is the only title with voice acting.
Since you already played 01 and plan to play 02, I would just suggest playing the original Rance I and Rance II and using a guide or at least playing the digest versions then playing the rest of the games in release order which is basically chronological order at that point from III to IV to 4.1 to 4.2 to Kichikuou to 5D and so on.
