A global summary and missing patches + up to date explanations of versions of rance series to help people have a better experience of 'canon'/'intended' story:
1) 
Rance 01 - a remake of rance 1, just download the version in this thread, all perfect, nothing extra required for full experience.
Original 1 is not worth it.
2)
 Rance 02 - you have 2 choices:
Playing regular OR kai version(or technically both)
Regular is purely graphical edit from default game.
Kai is a 'revision' of both gameplay and lore to suit the new 'canon' storyline of rance VI - Rance X.
Basically you want to play Kai if you are in for the long run. Playing both is not worth the time IMO.
Kai version is not perfect and there is a better KaiKai version but it's not translated into english during the time of this post.
If you want to play Kai Version in the best way possible:
Download Kai version from thread AND then download this tiny fan patch to fix some of the official english kai bugs - simply replace the file in the game folder basically.
	
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3) 
Rance 03 - remake of rance 3.
Download the base game AND patch, both in the main thread. Apply the patch and you are good to go.
Original 3 is not worth it.
4) 
Rance 4 - Rance 4 is the most outdated/'poorly aged' Rance game by default due to existance of remakes for 1-3.
This likely will never really change since the studio is essentially no more without TADA(the main head behind the entire series).
HOWEVER there is a 'better version' of the game, a 'TADA revision' of sorts which fixes a lot of things, adds some QoL and grind reduction which heavily improves the game.
Since it would take too long to explain the entire installation process - I did them all for you and combined them together:
This is the final english version of TADA revision of Rance 4:
	
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Rance 4.1+4.2 - those are still as outdated as the original but those are very short games, roughly 2-4 hours each, following guide would make this really fast basically, going blindly is extending this roughly twice as there is a lot of optional choices that do nothing.
Most new characters don't have any major role in the future Rance storyline BUT the games themseleves are 'canon' and 'direct continuations' of 4.
If you want to play those on modern systems - you need to download them from my links - my links are latest prepatched versions(2.0) for those:
Rance 4.1:
	
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Rance 4.2:
	
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5) 
Rance 5D - a tiny annoying RNG roulette game, among worst in the series, but luckily super short, only slightly longer than 4.1 and 4.2 combined.
Nothing special required - simply install and play.
6) 
Rance 6 - this is where rance games are starting to become some of the best in the H industry, a fact that will likely never ever change considering that mobile gacha industry is just so much more profitable than trying to make a good game.
This one had quite a few fan patches.
Last one is based on the final 'TADA Revision' of the game. To be exact final english fan patch based on that revision.
The revision itself is mostly just like the rance 4 one - a grind reduction.
All you need to do is download the original game from this thread and then apply this patch:
	
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7) 
Sengoku Rance(Rance 7) - most popular rance game in english community and one of the best ones.
Majority of people played with fan translation originally but the new mangagamer one is outright better.
Just download the game + 1.07 patch, those are all latest, nothing extra required.
Apply the patch and you are good to go.
Three for Slash! Thrust! Burn! is ultra tiny extra game focused on 3 girls from Sengoku Rance - Kanami, Senhime and Suzume.
If you download this from the main link in this thread - you should have english patch called 'sanbikiga_en_v1'.
Try to use said patch. If you are not on japanese locale then it might fail.
If you still have issues patching even on JP locale then use the following link for a 'manual' replacement of required files.
	
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If you have issues actually running the game - I recommend using 'locale emulator' software. Find it on google and install it. After that you just right click any game which requires JP locale and tell it to 'run with JP locale(admin)'
8) 
Rance Quest Magnum(Rance 8) - download the game and the 'Fix' linked. Apply the fix for your game to become 1.002 and you are up to date.
English version uses the latest 'Magnum' version which is basically the version with all fixes/revisions.
9) 
Rance 9 - latest version is 1.02 and that's already installed in this thread:
https://f95zone.to/threads/rance-ix-the-helmanian-revolution-v1-02-alicesoft.149754/
10) 
Rance 10 - still being translated as of my latest post edit. If I won't forget about the post - I will add it here.
If anyone notices some issue with the links or process - notify me and I will edit it out!
11) 
Kichikuou Rance - I was wondering where to put this but decided the best way is to put it near the end rather than putting it according to it's release date.
A highly simplified TLDR would be that this game is a very old version of Rance X.
But if you want details:
Kichikuou Rance is basically an 'old canon' Finale of the game back when company was having financial troubles and decided to use up all their preplanned lore in a single game.
This resulted in a massive scale game that was so much ahead of time that it's perfectly playable even now, almost 30 years past it's release date as of me writing this.
This along with their 'territory conquer' gameplay ended up becoming a huge success, allowing the company to create another successful 'Dai' series of games and eventually expand the Rance series in the way they originally wanted(Rance 6-10 and later 01-03, which is called the 'new canon')
Starting with this game - all the next games became relatively darker/more serious in their tone with less of the silly humor(which is still present, but earlier games were harder to take seriously due to all the silly jokes)
My personal opinion is that the best time to play this game is after finishing 01-03 and 4-10.
While game released after 4.2 - it would spoil almost everything that's going to happen in 6-10. Some details will change, but yet again it's 'details' - the 'core' of the story will be spoiled to you entirely.
Obviously as you might have understood - playing it is essentially fully optional. It won't reveal anything new, it's just a great old game that you might enjoy if you enjoyed the Rance series..
You might want to take a break after Rance 10 before going into this one however as they are too similar and despite Kichikuou being a considerably shorter game - it's still pretty long.
That being said there is also an option of playing it after Rance 4.2.
That would allow you to understand a few 'references' that you would have seen in Kichikuou before they are explained in the main canon. You would just have to always keep in mind that some things change quite a bit the entire time you are playing 6-10 and that's why it's called 'new canon'.
You might have seen a few silly references as well in 01-03 where they emphasize 'Brutal King' Rance quite a bit - that's the direct translation of Kichikuou.
Decide yourself which order you want to play based on the above.
As for the game files themselves - they are all up to date in the listed topic, so just download it there, nothing extra is required.