[AliceSoft][TRPG] Rance IX: The Helman Revolution [v2.00 out][2014/04/25]

[sailabc1]

RANCE IX IS NOW RELEASED!!!

This game takes place after the end of Rance Quest Magnum route, where Rance goes to Helman in search of a treasure that will supposedly release Sill from her frozen state which she suffered at the hands of the Demon King Little Princess during the events of Sengoku Rance. He there encounters Patton Misnarge, exiled prince of Helman and Rance's former comrade from Rance VI, who requests Rance to help in his rebellion to take back his country from the clutches of the traitors who banished him. Rance jumps the gun and takes charge of the rebel forces, this time aiming to bang Princess Siera Helman, plus any and all other cute girls that he may come across on his way to conquering Lang Baw, the Helman Capital!

Main Heroines:

Russian Kalette (new)
Kentou Kanami
Masou Shizuka
Tokugawa Sen
Pigu Geliciam (new)
Tillday Shape
Milacle Tou (new)

Other heroines:

Alkanese Rize
Crook Mofus
Siera Helman (new) who is actually disguising herself as Russian Kalette.
Maria Custard
Hanty Kalar
Amitos
Cream Ganoblade
Ruberan Zulle
Marcie Archer (?)
Elena Flower (?)
Anasel Kaspora (?)

AliceSoft have released a benchmarking tool (no gameplay no nothing, just 3D graphics display of several characters rendered by the engine) to let you people test if your machines can handle Rance IX. If your framerate is 22 or more in a given level of detail, you should be okay for that configuration. This benchmarking tool has also been TL'd in English by The Rance Translation Team.

English version of Rance IX benchmarking tool

OFFICIAL SITE [REQUIRES CAPABLE UNBANNED JAPANESE PROXY]

GETCHU PAGE [DO NOT CLICK DIRECTLY OR ELSE YOU'LL GET A "FORBIDDEN" ERROR]

TRIAL VERSION DOWNLOAD:

DMM [RESUME NOT SUPPORTED - FINISH IT IN ONE GO]
Click the 体験版ダウンロード button to the right. If popup blocker is enabled, middle-click instead.



SOFTWARE UPDATE PATCHES:

V1.01 [Sendspace] [LATEST SUPPORTED]

V2.00 [Sendspace] thanks to Pyottl [LATEST UNSUPPORTED]
Adds 4 new maps and makes Amitos & Elena playable characters [NG+ only?].

CAUTION: v2.00 is INCOMPATIBLE with v1.00-1.01 saves. You must start a new game. Only CG/scene/music and clear data for NG+ are retained. If you're in the middle of a playthrough, finish it first and only then install v2.00.


ENGLISH TRANSLATION INFORMATION:

Spoiler

NAW DICE NAWP.

This space is reserved for whenever such development occurs, but honestly, don't expect this to happen for years.

For now, an interface translation has been released on 4chan.

[mega.co.nz link] Compatible with v1.01 only.

H-code for text hooking: [DON'T USE AGTH; USE LATEST ITH INSTEAD]

Furthermore, it seems different codes are working/failing for different people, possibly depending on OS/ITH version... By "failing" I mean causing the game to crash at certain points where "ーー" characters (two successive prolongation marks) are used. Please try them all one by one to see which one works for you. The first one works in my personal experience using ITH 2.3 (2011.07.09) on Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, but it doesn't for some.

/HB-C*@56FE3D
/HB-8*@56FE61
/HB-C*@56FE3F

Above only works for dialogue, and not for anything else like options/tutorial/mission objectives/item description/encyclopedia etc.)

GAMEPLAY HELP/FAQ:

Pastebin (by PoingdeFeu) [INCOMPLETE]


Gameplay overview:




OST demo:




One warning to be given to all is that this game contains optional netorare. In certain maps, if a main heroine (Kanami, Senhime etc.) is KO'd in battle, the player is allowed to view post-battle events corresponding to both cases - one where the heroine safely escapes from the captives, and the other where she is tortured, raped and likely mindbroken by the Helman captors, resulting in her bad end. The game, however, can be continued thereafter assuming the "good" escape route. But be mentally prepared for this possibility - it's upto to you to view these bad ends or skip them altogether by choosing "escape", but if you're aiming for 100% clearance, you'll likely need to view them.

[Berries82]

Random pictures taken in Tokyo. See you guys when the game is released.

Images are 20-30% of its original size.

[sailabc1]

Oh, I have a general question about the game.

Do we know if there will be character movement like 6 or 8 had? Or is it just text-events & battles? If so, won't the game be a bit short?
Did they say how many chapters the game would have (I take the demo reveals most of the first chapter, minus the deleted bits)?

I might remind you that Sengoku had no "movement" either, just the battles themselves. Who knows, there could be attack and defense battles like Sengoku/Kichiku/Dai-series. Hopefully not too limited.

EDIT: Looks like infinite grinding is possible, those maps are where treasure dangos appear.


Ehh... Playing the demo. Not liking the fact that each character only has 1 normal attack and 1 special finisher with no other combat skills in between... Also, having Shizuka+Maria+Kanami right from the beginning is a bit overpowered IMO. Probably just Kanami and Tillday might have been better.




EDIT 2: So Rance banged about everybody in the slave trader caravan before letting them go. And that sex scene isn't depicted because? This is a Rance game, sex scenes (especially when they're said to be happening) are supposed to be shown right off the bat!


EDIT 3: Where did the "magic houses" get mentioned in Rance VI?

EDIT 4: This grind map is hard... I can't win with anything other than a Rance+Patton+Russian+Shizuka+Messian combination. And even then 2-3 people get past. That -10% per trigger makes things hard when the enemy numbers are about 8 times my forces @_@

[chaostk]

@sailabc1
The treasure dango only appear until you're able to get it once. Then it stops coming. You can also only get the monkey ball once. You can still redo the map endlessly for money and "XP". Also sometimes you get items and even rare items from normal enemies, although much more rare to happen than with the treasure dango.

That stage is specially hard because it was apparently a stage from later in the game that they made it available in the trial so we could have the chance to try out a floating fortress defense battle.

One tactic that seems to be useful is to use the magic hand in the first turn to send Rance all the way to the mage to kill him or send the mage in front of Rance for you to kill him. Your strong physical characters can take a lot of punishment from the physical enemies, but the mages are able to damage them a lot so you should try to deal with them ASAP.

[Prototype909]

Ehh... Playing the demo. Not liking the fact that each character only has 1 normal attack and 1 special finisher with no other combat skills in between...

Isn't that how it's always been though? Even in Rance VI and Sengoku Rance there was 1 basic attack and one special attack.

[inarashi]

@sailabc1
Actually you need to let one or two get pass and win the last defense battle to get the monkey orb.

@Prototype909
There are other skills too, like Kichiku attack, stronger version of Rance attack, or different skills with AoE which can be very helpful for SRPG like Rance IX.
It's just chapter 1, maybe we can get other skills later...?

[chaostk]

Isn't that how it's always been though? Even in Rance VI and Sengoku Rance there was 1 basic attack and one special attack.

In Rance 6 every character would have up to 6 skills. Some of those weren't actions, but the mages generally have lots of action skills to chose from.

You're right about Sengoku, it basically has two action skills while the others are support.

In this one besides normal attack, special skill, a character also have 5 other support skills (which one also reflecting as a command you can chose in battle).

@inarashi
I don't think we will get more skills to choose from. Although at some point some characters special skill may change / become stronger. Tillday for instance, may start with a basic special skill and then learn another later (there is a CG of what seems to be her learning some skill with Pitten).

[sailabc1]

Isn't that how it's always been though? Even in Rance VI and Sengoku Rance there was 1 basic attack and one special attack.

You're right about Sengoku I suppose, but in RPGs usually characters have more than that. In Rance VI all characters except the post-game omake ones (or the very lousy ones like Bernard) had several skills to choose from.

I noticed the message about dangos, so the maximum no. of dangos we'll ever be able to kill are the no. of repeatable maps in the game...

a character also have 5 other support skills (which one also reflecting as a command you can chose in battle).

Which character has FIVE support skills usable in battle? I know passive ones like counter, critical, range increase, move again and so on, but usable in battle are only 3 at most (for Kanami, the 3rd one is simply "pass").

Speaking of critical, anyone else thinks that the critical damage component of a physical attack hitting in spite of dodging is illogical? I mean the word "dodging" loses its meaning. Also, what the fuck is up with weapon upgrading!? They make the probability so low, yet the cost goes up, and the results of the next several upgrade attempts are predetermined and stored within your savedata!

[chaostk]

Which character has FIVE support skills usable in battle? I know passive ones like counter, critical, range increase and so on, but usable in battle are only 3 at most (for Kanami, the 3rd one is simply "pass").

Like I said, each character has up to 5 support skills (and with support I really meant passive) but with only one resulting in a command. Kanami pass it's also a skill. Rather than pass her turn, it makes so you can use her as the last action in the turn. As she tend to be the first to have an action, that skill is useful to wait and see what the enemies will do, wait for an enemy you wanted to attack with her that was out of range to get near range or when no enemies are in range.

[bungcoiri]

The SS each character still focus on AOE damage except Patton with provoke but the damage itself is low, i hope there good SS for single unit like Kenshin on RQ so it will be easy against boss

[chaostk]

There may be, although the focus of the game seems to be more about fighting hordes of enemies than tough bosses. The free map in the trial for instance. The boss itself isn't that tough, he should be a bit weaker than Rance at the start. What makes him tough is that when you fight him you will also be fighting lots of other enemies at the same time and the fight so far already will have drained some of your characters stats and specials.