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

**sailabc1** · 10-12-2013, 10:50 AM

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

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.

Code:

/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.

**PoingdeFeu** · 05-02-2014, 12:06 AM

Originally Posted by Veneficae

both things you mentioned I've done throughout a whole run but no crash so it's probably only for some pplz and not all.

Indeed.
I Did have those problem at very first, but, again, I wasn't playing using japanese unicode.
Doing so fixed it, and, trust me, I use CTRL a LOT.

**Veneficae** · 05-02-2014, 12:15 AM

CTRL is a Japanese illiterate eroge gamer's best friend.

Also, damn x4 turtle is damn strong. Got it just now.

**chuankai5** · 05-02-2014, 12:17 AM

Skippers!
Well it most probably has something to do with ITH or something I guess...
Also kinda glad I know how to understand romaji, would suck to play a entire game and not know what the hell is going on.

**TokiNoKimi** · 05-02-2014, 03:58 AM

Finished the true route of R9, my thoughts.

Pros:
- Better storyline than R8, which was mostly a bunch of random stuff happening.
- Good art... I guess?
- If you're a long term fan and care that Kanami and Shizuka or whoever your waifu is will finally be lovey-dovey towards Rance than this game is for you.
- Semi-lack of grinding. You can mostly get past the game without playing any of the "Free Battles" but I would say this actually depends on your item drops. Get some good drops like rare +HP items and even the weakest character turns into a tank, but get shit like the barrier cost down items and it gets tougher.
- Mission design is generally good. A lot of them tends to surprise you with "WTF" moments like suicide bomber soldiers or splitting enemies.

Cons:
- I can't really think of a single stand-out music in the game. R7 had a lot of them, R8 had a lot of rocking boss themes. Most of the music in this one is "ok" in that it doesn't really get grating but nothing that makes me want to listen to it outside of the game.
- Rance himself feels kind of superfluous to the plot. He's here to provide his wacky strategies and screw some women on the side which feels so disconnected from the rest of what is happening.
- BATTLES ARE TOO SIMPLISTIC. Each character basically only have 2 moves, and one move tends to be very situational. And you can only use the specials a limited number of time so you end up with this "Super Meter bar" that tends to be filled but you can't do anything with it because you already used up your 1 shot of Rance Attack or whatever.

For those missions where there isn't much design done, the game becomes a very boring simple management of using your Taunt characters to Aggro, healing the tank and then picking the mooks off with your other characters.
- Character development too limited. You get points and you sink them into stats, and most stats are too expensive to raise to see a statistical difference outside of HP and Attack. Yawn.

- There's a "fortress building" system which basically just translates to giving you a couple of consumable "items" you can use during battle. This actually does make the battles a lot more interesting, like being able to create magic walls to form chokepoints on the battlefield or shooting lines of lasers...

But then I feel like most of the game takes place in in-door missions where you CAN'T use those powers, so WTF?

- The R8 girls were honestly kind of pointless... I mean, even more pointless than usual.

Misc:
- They really should have done this as a Grand Scale strategy game IMO. I feel like it's so dumb that 10-20 dudes are mowing down thousands of what is supposedly Helman "elite" soldiers like it was Dynasty Warriors or something.
- This must be one of the few Eroges in existence where the male cast is way better and focused on than the female cast.

Final verdict: Personally even though R8 was somewhat grindy, I had a lot more fun with it than R9. For plot R9 is better but I can't help shaking the feeling that the way the Helman story was done in Kichikuou was way more interesting. For example Siera...

Spoiler

and stuff like (KR and R9 spoilers)

Spoiler

Out of the new heroines introduced in R9, I think Miracle is the best. She's really... delusional (or Chuunibyou if you want to use the Japanese term I guess), in a funny sort of way. Completely different from what I expected her to be like. Though it feels like false advertising that they always drew her and Pigu together like they're related or something but actually they aren't in the game.

The battle system is just too simplistic to sustain long-term play IMO, but unlike something like R4 the surrounding structure is probably the worse because it's just a linear SRPG - you read a bunch of text and get shunted off to your next mission. At least in R4 you had to explore dungeons and solve puzzles even if the battle system isn't stellar.

If R10 is going to be the final game in the series I hope they get back to Grand Scale Strategy. I think that sort of gameplay makes the Rance series stand out compared to regular JRPGs or SRPGs.

P.S what the hell happened to Soul and Bound? Didn't they draw concept art for those guys? Guess they weren't important enough.

P.P.S man I was expecting Merim to show up in this game since she's from Helman. Oh well.

**asaness** · 05-02-2014, 05:16 AM

Grand scale strategy? perhaps they could do nobunagas ambition battle system in battle or RTS for wars, then in battle that involves not army like example battle against bosses a FF style battle XD , then during Non-battle they use the Total War system of making troops for our units and such , and if 10 will be the last game they should call it Final Rance (Parodying Final Fantasy Title)

**Nyu666** · 05-02-2014, 05:37 AM

By Grand Grand scale I think he just means like Sengoku or Kichikou. And I guess what the fanbase wants is a remade Kichikou Rance.

**asaness** · 05-02-2014, 07:01 AM

ahh i see though i thought the battles in sengoku and kichikou are more of skirmishes considering the troops number , i read books about wars and usually Grand Scale are like 10,000 etc but i know game cant handle that many troops so maybe like total War we can have 50 units to control

**congaac** · 05-02-2014, 07:16 AM

I completed the true route already but still don't get some points about story line

Spoiler

**banzemanga** · 05-02-2014, 07:21 AM

I guess they got rid of the level system because it was starting to get inconsistent specially since Rance should be really high level by now. I mean they tried to get around it last time by putting a curse on him. But i dont think they should just erase it completely neither because this was one of the reasons that Rance badass. In addition, he was the only one who did not have level cap.

Questions: They said that Sachiko was unable to come because she had to study since she got a red mark on the test. Do they bring her back at some point of the game? Does Suzume (my favorite Character) makes any appearance?