Rance Series

[InD_ImaginE]

seems that even they are fed up with mankograbber incompetence

nah dude, they just see how successful the first one in Steam and just cut the middleman alltogether

 

[Jaedar]

seems that even they are fed up with mankograbber incompetence

nah dude, they just see how successful the first one in Steam and just cut the middleman alltogether

We can only hope they revoke MG's rights to translate Rance X (seems they haven't even hired a new translator yet) and do it themselves too.

 

[KingDoofus]

This is the problem we're going to have going forward with Mangagamer vs Alicesoft directly translating and releasing their own works: Alicesoft works faster and is much more competent (and seems to pay their employees better). But they're forced to have the usual hentai censoring of anything they release. They don't have a choice on this. The Evenicle 2 demo has plenty of this, with one scene even being completely removed and replaced with some narration. Pick your poison. If this gets accompanied by fan-patches removing pixelations and restoring cut content then it's probably not much of a problem, but I'm not sure how much we can count on that. I'd rather have Alicesoft directly translating Rance X too, but not if it means we get huge swathes of cut content.

 

[Jaedar]

So I finished rance 01. Pretty short game, very little replayability.

I found it better than 5D, but not as good as VI or Sengoku. The combat is very simple but has some charm to it. In the mid and late game there's some consideration to be made between balancing offense, defense and cooldowns that makes it feel like you're not just getting better weapons. The dungeon crawling mechanic works quite well especially with how basic the layouts are. Traps are dangerous enough that it's actually a hard choice of whether to go with an extra weapon or a trap/sick/lost immunity item.

There seems to be some bug or strangeness with capturing gal monsters. Shouldn't bother me, but that's like 1/5th of the clear game report so it kinda does. Worked every time at first and then it feels like it never works, and I can't figure out what the conditions are.

Translation is also a bit iffy in some places. Dialogue is fine, but some of the item names, descriptions, debuffs and menu options look like they went through google translate. As an example, there's an item where the description says it prevents diarrhoea, but the name of the condition in game is "pigeon toed" and what it actually does is make Rance pick a random direction when dungeon crawling.

I assume 02Kai is the superior choice for the sequel.

 

[KingDoofus]

According to the translator, 02 is a translation of the original Rance 2 with upgraded graphics and 02 Kai is Rance 2 with upgraded graphics and a new (significantly longer) script.

 

[distant]

Meh honestly. Not really liking Rance 01 very much. Been pushing through it because of how much I enjoyed VI/SR to see the origin stories but only in bursts and end up putting it down very quickly. I wouldn't really recommend it. Sure there is some novelty to the combat system but it's very simple and becomes rote pretty fast. Maybe it's also because I saw the anime a while ago so the story doesn't have much pull either. Let's see how it goes.

 

[KingDoofus]

To be honest, Rance 01 and 02 were not made to be new, innovative games for Alicesoft. They were made because people wanting to play the Rance backlog found the early games unplayable (and not just because they don't run on modern systems). I mean, 02 is mostly just a graphical reskin. Rance 03 is probably the only game that really stands on its own as a really good game. Which is... unfortunately not being sold here. But yeah, 01 and 02 are mostly just for fans of the series to go back and see the origins in a playable format. They're fine, short little distractions, but don't expect either to be exemplary stand alone games.

 

[Jaedar]

Sure there is some novelty to the combat system but it's very simple and becomes rote pretty fast. Maybe it's also because I saw the anime a while ago so the story doesn't have much pull either

I thought it was very rote in the beginning, but you can skip a lot of combat by manoeuvring well and early on it's over quick, towards the end you need *some* planning to not get instantly killed by S+ attacks.

02 on the other hand, I am finding quite bad. Moving through the dungeon is slow, no ability to skip seen dialogue, combat is slow* and very simple... Which is a shame, because I like the townspeople more than I usually like random npcs in these games.

* And of course the first boss-like enemy has mountains of hp, and spends half their actions casting a sleep spell.

 

[distant]

02 on the other hand, I am finding quite bad. Moving through the dungeon is slow, no ability to skip seen dialogue, combat is slow* and very simple... Which is a shame, because I like the townspeople more than I usually like random npcs in these games.

Did you end up starting with kai?

 

[Jaedar]

02 on the other hand, I am finding quite bad. Moving through the dungeon is slow, no ability to skip seen dialogue, combat is slow* and very simple... Which is a shame, because I like the townspeople more than I usually like random npcs in these games.

Did you end up starting with kai?

Yes, but afaik there are no gameplay differences.

 

[Jason Liang]

I don't want to be an apologist for Rance 02's gameplay but it *is* a 30 year old jrpg. It's short and you level up quickly so not too grindy. There's more world building as well as the start of Rance's relationship with several important characters (more than Rance 01).

 

[Jaedar]

I don't want to be an apologist for Rance 02's gameplay but it *is* a 30 year old jrpg. It's short and you level up quickly so not too grindy.

Sure, and it's still better than 5D. Not entirely sure I agree about leveling p quickly.

But yeah, you know a game is pretty ancient when it refers to the berlin wall failing as a recent event.

There's more world building as well as the start of Rance's relationship with several important characters (more than Rance 01).

In later chapters maybe? So far (at start of chapter 4) all the world building has been local. Or maybe I accidentally skipped it because the skipping in this one sure is on a hair trigger
Coming directly into this from 01 also annoys me since Rance attack and Rance being able to summon Willis apparantly happened between games, even though 02 is directly after 01 (minus however long the traveltime to custom is).

 

[Maxie]

Early installments still have Rance being a small-time goon walking around a single town bothering people for info, which is hardly the case in VI onwards - the scale of the game expands pleasantly, which kinda alleviates the tedium of constant trips back and forth

01 & 02 are definitely not very welcoming (nor particularly fun) games, and a newcomer to the series would surely lose all interest altogether were they to tackle it chronologically

 

[Nostaljaded]

Played dohna dohna demo.
It's an eroge with lolis, coerced talent acquisition for brothel management and BrightestBrothel-lite exploration & combat. Not gonna have such genre mix other than from Japan.

Details

Handcrafted exploration nodes with rail stations & lines styling

4v4 Combat

- 4 vanguards; each member will eventually have max of 5 linear-progressed combat skills
- unlimited free swapping of positions and with rearguard before using skills
- 6 different attack properties resulting in 4 different outcomes (strong attack, normal attack, resisted attack & null) for different enemy types
- passive skills will trigger buffs upon meeting conditions, and active skills may have enemy debuffs
- all skills use MP/VP and cannot skip turns
- Ally item usage is only for the one ahead of active character while enemy item usage affects all enemies on screen; a poor substitute for skipping turns is using an unlimited item that will do 10 dmg to all enemies on screen
- can have more than 4 enemies but only first 4 will be shown and able to take action
- no permadeath, just out-of-action for current dungeon run
2 gripes:
-- no way to check enemies' stats and skills (& vanguard's stats) during combat
-- for order of turn, only the next unit-to-act (be it party member or enemy [orange next kanji] ) and done ones [blue tick] are shown.

NSFW game settings is included, useful for playing in shared spaces/on-the-go with a tablet.

Have options to:
- Not display ero CGs; even those explicit icons and images during normal gameplay will be replaced by pink silhouettes
- Skip ero events entirely
- Mute ero events' voices and sound effects (good for fair comparison between modern ero text and 90s text)

The combat system doesn't seem to have much depth, on assumption that enemies' stats and skills are still not shown even after acquiring all party members & allies.
So there's more mileage for those into loli eroge with full (except protag) voice acting. I would rather be wrong on the combat, just like what I initially thought of the single HP bar for Rance X.

 

[Jaedar]

Just about everything on mangagamer is 25% off. If you're reading this thread you probably already own it, but sengoku rance for 26 USD is really great value for your money. Rance VI is not bad either.

 

[KingDoofus]

One interesting thing about Rance 01 (which you may like or you may hate) is that there's a lot of hidden content. Most of it... is sex scenes. Almost every girl in this game gets at least 1 lewd scene. For example, one of the first things that Rance does is infiltrate a thief den. He gets the key to the boss' room from a woman that he bribes with alcohol. If you find some really expensive alcohol though, you can give that to her too and she'll... show her appreciation. There's more than just that though: some of the hidden stuff is lore, characters, combat, or stat ups. Doing the casino storyline opens up a small dungeon and shop (and several sex scenes) and a rat with an underwear obsession can introduce you to an easter egg-type character who can get you some stat boosters. None of this is necessary to complete the game - you don't even have to finish the Arena to complete the game, though it's a nice challenge. It's something that makes the game feel a lot less linear and gives you more to figure out (though some people may be frustrated if they missed some things).

 

[Reinhardt]

Played dohna dohna demo.

It's an eroge with lolis, coerced talent acquisition for brothel management and BrightestBrothel-lite exploration & combat. Not gonna have such genre mix other than from Japan.

Handcrafted exploration nodes with rail stations & lines styling

4v4 Combat

- 4 vanguards; each member will eventually have max of 5 linear-progressed combat skills
- unlimited free swapping of positions and with rearguard before using skills
- all skills use MP/VP and cannot skip turns
- 6 different attack properties resulting in 4 different outcomes (strong attack, normal attack, resisted attack & null) for different enemy types
- passive skills will trigger buffs upon meeting conditions, and active skills may have enemy debuffs
- can have more than 4 enemies but only first 4 will be shown and able to take action
- no permadeath, just out-of-action for current dungeon run
2 gripes:
-- no way to check enemies' stats and skills (& vanguard's stats) during combat
-- for order of turn, only the next unit-to-act (be it party member or enemy [orange next kanji] ) and done ones [blue tick] are shown.

NSFW game settings is included, useful for playing in shared spaces/on-the-go with a tablet.

Have options to:
- Not display ero CGs; even those explicit icons and images during normal gameplay will be replaced by pink silhouettes
- Skip ero events entirely
- Mute ero events' voices and sound effects (good for fair comparison between modern ero text and 90s text)


The combat system doesn't seem to have much depth, on assumption that enemies' stats and skills are still not shown even after acquiring all party members & allies.
So there's more mileage for those into loli eroge with full (except protag) voice acting. I would rather be wrong on the combat, just like what I initially thought of the single HP bar for Rance X.

Darkest Dungeon mods has really advanced from last time i've checked.

 

[Jason Liang]

Darkest Dungeon mods has really advanced from last time i've checked.

 

[Nostaljaded]

Did a mockup of how they could include the feature for showing enemies' stats and skills (& vanguard's stats) during combat by clicking/tapping on character image/HP bar.
So as to do damage calculation for efficient MP utilization & limited member position swap for whom to receive damage.

Kirakira's skill list at Lv 6:
Kira's Peach - Strike/Single/Range 1/POW 40%/MP8 [- normal attack]
Kira's Pain - Slash/Single/Range 2/POW 100%/MP18 [O strong attack]
Fuming Gas - Poison/Adjacent/Range 3/POW 40%/MP16 [-- both normal attack]
Kirakira's World - Poison/All/POW 180%/Voltage [Not Usable as VP not at Max gauge]

Level cap should be at least Lv 49, based on other character's skill unlock level requirement.

 

[Rance]

Rance Quest ANY DAY NOW.

 

[Maxie]

Rance Quest will be released Late 2017

 

[Terra]

Finally got around to finishing up my second Rance game, number 6. This game turned out way longer than I expected and with 2020 being such a retarded year, took me a few months to finally get around to finishing it, but I resumed my save over the past week and quickly got hooked by the characters & story again. Never really been a huge fan of blobber games, but this one kept me coming back for more, it's been a really good game. Story and characters were very good once again, in some ways it's better than Sengoku even. I'm definitely going to move back through more of the older titles now, filling in the gaps and it's making me more excited to (eventually get to) play through the later games. I liked how this game gave me Urza's story, having played Sengoku first, she was just some character with some useful moves, but now things will have context when I eventually replay.

Random thoughts on the game:
-Wasn't a huge fan of the SP mechanic and dungeon retreats it necessitated.
-Plenty of humour throughout the game again - frozen hyper weapon, the tranny female bandit leader outcome & Rance's plans to assault a bunch of people from his magazine showing up as events all made me chuckle.
-I ended up using cheat engine fairly liberally to streamline orb acquisition to rapidly fill out events and remove the grind, the orbs mechanic was definitely a weak point of the game for me.
-Sill looked cuter in Sengoku.
-I liked that we got a post game scene with Wichita/Kaoru, hope they'll show up in some later game. Kaoru being level capped upon her return up until reaching the post game was annoying.
-You get sent back to the start of the final story dungeon several times, that got a bit old as I was finishing up the main story.
-Overall though, I'm impressed with how effectively they've reused a lot of the R6 spritework in Sengoku, the games get a lot done with little resources it seems.

Anyway, I am still in the post-game and have a bunch of new events to clear before I fully finish up the game (wiki walkthrough mentions a true ending that needs all main characters clearing), so:
- how do you character clear Rizna? I have her FR at 25/25, I got her S rank weapon and have done all of her events through the story but there's no "COMPLETED" entry for her in the event list at homebase (I only have a (H) option for her and an (FR) option for her/Gandhi). Is it tied in with post-game content?
-no H scene for Chizuko outside of the shower event or is it in the post game?

 

[Jaedar]

- how do you character clear Rizna? I have her FR at 25/25, I got her S rank weapon and have done all of her events through the story but there's no "COMPLETED" entry for her in the event list at homebase (I only have a (H) option for her and an (FR) option for her/Gandhi). Is it tied in with post-game content?

I don't really recall (did you check wiki?) but I think if you get her S rank weapon she is cleared? Might be you also need to capture a certain amount of gal monsters as well, unless you already saw that event.

And yeah, Rance 6 has a better story/characters than sengoku. Shame the blobbing gameplay is very mediocre.

 

[Terra]

Solved the Rizna issue, I was missing the Cream Bun item from the very end of the 3rd Test Site dungeon (required to let her graduate apparently), luckily someone in the comments section of the Wiki guide had the same issue. Rizna's max FR is now increased to 30 so I should be able to clear her tonight.

 

[Berekän]

So what's up with Rance Quest? Shouldn't it have been out ages ago? Is it still being held hostage by mangagamer?