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

[Milkiway1123]

man, how the fuck is rance 3 translation is not done yet, now i remember that the reason why i stopped after finishing rance 2 is to wait for rance 3 remake translation. its said that they said it will out before rance x even release but that's bs

 

[RoyalZel]

why is 5d controversial? i see that it's the worst but how bad can it be? also, i think rance 4 graphic looks pretty good, it had charm in it and atleast not eye shattering like rance 3 og

Rance 5D was in quite a bit of development hell because Alicesoft at the time had a hard time making a Rance game that could measure up after Kichikou's success. If I recall it was in development and canceled 3 whole times before they finally settled with 5D. The game itself is not all that good with its almost completely rng-based gameplay. But on the plus side it is fairly short so it doesn't overstay its welcome, it has its comical moments, and it does have a pretty bopping soundtrack(granted Rance having amazing music isn't really anything new).

 

[s3kai]

Does anyone have a Rance 02 save from right before Chapter 6 (Shizuka's mansion)? I got this strange bug where the "take" prompt doesn't appear for those water stakes on the 2nd floor, and because it's literally at the end of the game I would like to not start all over. Chapter 4 or 5 saves would be fine too.

 

[lamba]

why is 5d controversial? i see that it's the worst but how bad can it be? also, i think rance 4 graphic looks pretty good, it had charm in it and atleast not eye shattering like rance 3 og

The core gameplay loop is weird and using a form of gamba to dictate exploration means it's easy to softlock a run when you don't have enough random battles.

It's also absolutely wild and wouldn't want it any other way but I get why some people don't like it.

If I recall it was in development and canceled 3 whole times before they finally settled with 5D.

Correct, Rance 5 had three builds, each pretty far into development, canned because they didn't meet with the standards they'd laid out with Kichikou. The 'd' in 5d reflects that fifth build.

man, how the fuck is rance 3 translation is not done yet, now i remember that the reason why i stopped after finishing rance 2 is to wait for rance 3 remake translation. its said that they said it will out before rance x even release but that's bs

If I had to guess, it's not treated as a priority. Rance is an unusual series because the first English language release was 7 and by the time anyone had a license to release the games legitimately in the west, they were already in the process or releasing Rance 8. So while it's expected to make a profit, it's probably not expected to make much of one, and the kind of people waiting for that release aren't going anywhere.

Personally I can wait. Especially if they avoid the more outrageous editorial decisions made in the MangaGamer translation of Sengoku Rance. I'm sorry but Oda Nobunaga is not asking his little sister to call him 'Broski' like he's some frat bro.

 

[Asmody]

i need rance 03

 

[Erxkum]

I want to purchase the 01 and 02 remakes on GOG whenever I have the money so I don't want to pirate them, Will I enjoy it if I play the old ones 1, 2, 3 and 4 now and replay the remakes later? (Still waiting for 03 as well).

Do the remakes add substancial content or warrant a replay if you played the originals?

 

[Nicorondo]

I want to purchase the 01 and 02 remakes on GOG whenever I have the money so I don't want to pirate them, Will I enjoy it if I play the old ones 1, 2, 3 and 4 now and replay the remakes later? (Still waiting for 03 as well).

Do the remakes add substancial content or warrant a replay if you played the originals?

Just play the remakes of 1 and 2 and play the og for 3 and go from there

 

[BooDoof]

I want to purchase the 01 and 02 remakes on GOG whenever I have the money so I don't want to pirate them, Will I enjoy it if I play the old ones 1, 2, 3 and 4 now and replay the remakes later? (Still waiting for 03 as well).

Do the remakes add substancial content or warrant a replay if you played the originals?

The old games (I and II) are actively bad, there is absolutely no reason to play the original I and II first, the remakes are far and away better. The originals have really rough art, rough sound, rough gameplay, they're clearly the progenitors of what would come, rather than anything worth experiencing on their own. The only real reason to play them is to see how far the games have come.

 

[Jstain]

@Jstain what its with Number 10 ? for you Game list

Lol sorry I was tired when I made that post. Fixed:

Rance Series Cannon:
View attachment 3845327
We're still waiting for 03 and X to be translated.

A good post that outlines all this better than I can:


I decided to play the series in order of Japanese release (including non-cannon), here is my personal playlist order:
View attachment 3858591
I've heard some say to start at VI so where I have the Digest Edition can also be a good starting point.

Also the games found in the OP are missing patches found

You must be registered to see the links

from what I can tell. Such as the 2.05 patches by TADA.

 

[SymbolicSalad]

I want to purchase the 01 and 02 remakes on GOG whenever I have the money so I don't want to pirate them, Will I enjoy it if I play the old ones 1, 2, 3 and 4 now and replay the remakes later? (Still waiting for 03 as well).

Do the remakes add substancial content or warrant a replay if you played the originals?

Yeah, 1 and 01 are VASTLY different and 1 is probably the better game honestly, 01 was really really bad. 02 and 2 are decently similar but 02 has nicer art and streamlines some U.I while cutting out a lot of CGs, you could play 02 Kai for a laugh after 2 but it's really not better for anything other than a laugh, same game but a vastly worse script. 03 will have the same type of gameplay as 01 but will expand on it so it'll likely be better, but it'll be hard to turn the worst gameplay in the series by far into an actually enjoyable experience so 3 will likely be better than 03 regardless. 3 looks rather nice and plays pretty well and 4 is one of the nicer looking games in the series along with Kichikuou.

 

[Bloodguard]

Yeah, 1 and 01 are VASTLY different and 1 is probably the better game honestly, 01 was really really bad. 02 and 2 are decently similar but 02 has nicer art and streamlines some U.I while cutting out a lot of CGs, you could play 02 Kai for a laugh after 2 but it's really not better for anything other than a laugh, same game but a vastly worse script. 03 will have the same type of gameplay as 01 but will expand on it so it'll likely be better, but it'll be hard to turn the worst gameplay in the series by far into an actually enjoyable experience so 3 will likely be better than 03 regardless. 3 looks rather nice and plays pretty well and 4 is one of the nicer looking games in the series along with Kichikuou.

Sorry, but this did not help clear up any of my confusion about what games to actually play whatsoever.

 

[lamba]

Sorry, but this did not help clear up any of my confusion about what games to actually play whatsoever.

Numerical order, favoring remakes over originals.

 

[SymbolicSalad]

Sorry, but this did not help clear up any of my confusion about what games to actually play whatsoever.

..?

 

[Erxkum]

I think I will be weird to go from 03 to 4 and 4.1 given the jarring difference in the game's age and possibly quality if I'm to trust what's been said about 1 and 2. Or is the non-remake 3 better than the previous 2? I hope 4 is better since there's no remake.

With that said, I enjoy the older VN art style.

Regardless, I think I might wait for Mangagamer to release 03 then. Although I prefer to ownmy games on Steam>GOG>JAst in that order.
I do own some games from Manga Gamer but their website isn't very good, I'd rather they were just a publisher, At the very least it's better than Shioravune who seemsto stubbornly publish on Johren, that website DRM is a sin, I don't know who'd ever agree to such a DRM that's more akin to a rental than to a purchase. I really wanted the Dungeon Traveler series to go to GOG.

Edit: VNDB marks Kichikuou Rance(sequel to 4.2) as having an alternative version/remake in Rance X. Is this a correct assumption? How close will the story be given X is, I assume, a sequel to IX?

 

[BooDoof]

I think I will be weird to go from 03 to 4 and 4.1 given the jarring difference in the game's age and possibly quality if I'm to trust what's been said about 1 and 2. Or is the non-remake 3 better than the previous 2? I hope 4 is better since there's no remake.

With that said, I enjoy the older VN art style.

Regardless, I think I might wait for Mangagamer to release 03 then. Although I prefer to ownmy games on Steam>GOG>JAst in that order.
I do own some games from Manga Gamer but their website isn't very good, I'd rather they were just a publisher, At the very least it's better than Shioravune who seemsto stubbornly publish on Johren, that website DRM is a sin, I don't know who'd ever agree to such a DRM that's more akin to a rental than to a purchase. I really wanted the Dungeon Traveler series to go to GOG.

Edit: VNDB marks Kichikuou Rance(sequel to 4.2) as having an alternative version/remake in Rance X. Is this a correct assumption? How close will the story be given X is, I assume, a sequel to IX?

3 is significantly better than the previous games, yes. It's a major leap in quality, and completely freeware too. If you don't mind some jank and like old dungeon crawlers, I'd say that starting with III and working your way forward is a perfectly fine way going about things, there's walkthroughs on the Alicesoft wiki for basically all of the games in case you run into any trouble. 03 is a massive departure from the original, they're essentially different games with the same plot structure. I wouldn't say you're missing much from not playing the first 2, although you won't recognize some returning characters. Purists may disagree with me, but w/e.

X is basically, from what little I've read because I don't want to become too spoiled on it, a reimagining of Kichikuou. Kichikuou had a compressed development time and the game is, despite it's outstanding quality, rushed and lacking in several areas, particularly character development and cohesion. It's a hodgepodge of every single idea TADA and the team had that they wanted to get down before the studio risked complete failure; they wanted to include EVERYTHING no matter how shallowly they explored it. Elements of Kichikuou are present in many of the "new" timeline games, from VI to X. For example, there's a character named Magic in both Kichikuou and VI, but they don't really have much in common with one another beyond being tsundere-type characters, and all of Sengoku Rance (The seventh game) is a reimagining of the invasion of JAPAN of Kichikuou, which would only take an hour or two to complete in Kichikuou, roughly.

If you wanna wait though, I'd recommend playing some of the other (good) old Alicesoft games instead. Toushin Toshi II is very solid and freeware. Big Bang Age was never officially translated into English and has a fan patch, but it's also incredibly solid and will take up a good amount of time as it's fairly long.

 

[Nicorondo]

3 is significantly better than the previous games, yes. It's a major leap in quality, and completely freeware too. If you don't mind some jank and like old dungeon crawlers, I'd say that starting with III and working your way forward is a perfectly fine way going about things, there's walkthroughs on the Alicesoft wiki for basically all of the games in case you run into any trouble. 03 is a massive departure from the original, they're essentially different games with the same plot structure. I wouldn't say you're missing much from not playing the first 2, although you won't recognize some returning characters. Purists may disagree with me, but w/e.

X is basically, from what little I've read because I don't want to become too spoiled on it, a reimagining of Kichikuou. Kichikuou had a compressed development time and the game is, despite it's outstanding quality, rushed and lacking in several areas, particularly character development and cohesion. It's a hodgepodge of every single idea TADA and the team had that they wanted to get down before the studio risked complete failure; they wanted to include EVERYTHING no matter how shallowly they explored it. Elements of Kichikuou are present in many of the "new" timeline games, from VI to X. For example, there's a character named Magic in both Kichikuou and VI, but they don't really have much in common with one another beyond being tsundere-type characters, and all of Sengoku Rance (The seventh game) is a reimagining of the invasion of JAPAN of Kichikuou, which would only take an hour or two to complete in Kichikuou, roughly.

If you wanna wait though, I'd recommend playing some of the other (good) old Alicesoft games instead. Toushin Toshi II is very solid and freeware. Big Bang Age was never officially translated into English and has a fan patch, but it's also incredibly solid and will take up a good amount of time as it's fairly long.

Big Vouch on Toushin Toshi 2 please go play that game imo it's the best AliceSoft game that isn't a Rance game and probably the best out of their older titles. Also you don't really need to play the first game to understand it.

 

[Erxkum]

I was already eyeing Toushin Toshi tbh. I might play the first one.And Rance III has an uncensor patch for thr PC98 version, I might just go for that. Wonder how different the PC98 version is from the windows one.

 

[Nadekai]

... Finally got my limited edition copy of Rance IX ...

Yay

 

[Night]

 

[Milkiway1123]

is there guide for rance 4? like i said earlier it's stupidly hard, i can barely win a 1v1 battle and againts more than one enemy i just died, if the whole strategy is to keep do 1v1 and then go back to camp and heal over and over again until rance leveled up i'd rather just cheat. i just want to know the first encounter of ranec with the girl on rance 6