Rance IX : A Solid Enough Revolution
It will probably come off as a surprise to most people here but I’m a huge fan of the Rance series, I’ve been so pretty recently as I started truly getting into the series around September 2021 and it quickly ruined any sort of credibility I had left in any online argument about RPG’s as it became my new hyper-obsession. Suffice to say that when I finished the latest release of the series (Rance Quest Magnum) I was craving for more and lo and behold the translation of Rance IX was right around the corner and it became by default one of my most anticipated game of 2023 (despite being a 2014 eroge).
Rance IX is a game which is a bit special even amongst other titles in the series, Rance IX places itself at the tail-end of the series most long-running subplot which is everything surrounding the Helman Empire, this is a subplot introduced for the first time in Rance III and which has been expanded upon in almost every single entry ever since. The series has rich lore and pretty consistent continuity but everything surrounding the Helman Empire and the Holy Magic Sect is the one part of the lore that the series fully embraced instead of shying away from so I was pretty excited to see how they will pay off more than 20 years of buildup surrounding this mysterious land and its secret and how they’ll reimagine the Kichikuou Arc related to it.
In another surprise twist however, this game more than simply being a pay-off is also a pseudo-remake of Mamatoto another AliceSoft game released in 1999 that I’ve played in preparation and which Rance IX heavily pulls away from. From its gameplay to different plot beats and themes, Rance IX isn’t shy about its inspiration to the game's benefits and sometimes to its detriment.
As it is tradition in the series, each entry has a different gameplay system. This time Rance IX is a Tactical RPG where you place units on a grid and fulfill different objectives. The game is fun but isn’t going to win any award in originality or complexity, Rance IX is perhaps one of the easiest game in the series which at least since Rance VI has tried to deliver a decent challenge, the game has a NG+ feature which allows you to up the difficulty a lil bit but I haven’t messed around with it as 2 runs of the game was enough for me to experience most of the content I wanted to see anyway.
The different maps are pretty barebone and straightforward and even though the game likes to spice things up sometimes with objectives which aren’t just “kill everything on screen”, you won’t be finding these battle instances to be substantial enough to warrant an epic “fire emblem killer own” in a random Twitter argument. It is a shame to say that I felt Mamatoto definitely fared better in this department with more challenging maps, more varied win conditions and a better overall difficulty so while Rance IX tries to copy the game-feel of Mamatoto, years of experience didn’t lead to a significant enough upgrade to call it a better game than the original.
Character growth is also pretty straightforward, only the weapon upgrade system is a bit quirky where you pretty much an increasing amount of money to maybe have the chance to boost your equipment, in any other case I would’ve complained about such a system but since Money as a resource is only used for this purpose, I don’t mind it as much but it might seem more problematic on higher difficulties. Much like Mamatoto you can allocate skill points to different stats and you get an overall bonus for reaching certain threshold for all stats of one character (something I forgot during my first run but wasn’t detrimental in the end)
Unlike the other title however, you won’t be doing many battles, since the game is definitely more focused on telling a grander narrative about Rance going to Helman to find a way to save Sill, fuck a couple of girls along the way and maybe help the revolution as a bonus. Progressing through the game is done through a series of clickable events most of which are just story driven with the occasional battle, if you’re really craving more fights however, there’s the optional (but not really) “free battle” which unlocks as the game progresses and reward you with items as well as Monkey Orbs for the game’s titular “Rance mode”.
Since the story is definitely the bigger focus this time around, how does it compare to the rest of the franchise ? Well I will say that Rance IX is an overall pretty pleasant ride all things considered.
The game is definitely more for the lore-addict of the series more than anything so if you’re not familiar with the rest of the franchise there’s not a great chance that starting with this one will give you much value since it really is here to pay-off several plot-points spread across the rest of the series. The game is excellently paced in my opinion as it is the case in almost all Rance games, it’s never boring, always fun to go through and the antics of Rance and his interactions with his surroundings is always a joy to go through.
Something that I definitely did appreciate this time around (and which was apparently a point of contention in its home country, different folks, different strokes I guess) is the heavier focus on different POV’s, a lot of Rance game tend to strictly follow the POV of Rance which is great but tend to not properly put into light the high stakes of the narrative at place. The game also has a surprising amount of male characters getting the spotlight this time around outside of Rance which in my opinion is great as most of these male characters went pretty under-utilized in the other title despite their appearances being more than welcome, some might say that so much sausage of burly men sitting around talking about war and stuff isn’t the most exciting premise for an erotic JRPG (especially ones that doesn’t focus on fiery male skinship) but it’s been long since I’ve given up on the Rance series actually being fully erotic for me and it’s not this game which is going to prove the contrary.
The main mean of obtaining h-scenes in this game is through a separate mode called “Rance Mode” where you spend Monkey Orbs obtained in battle to raise affection level with one of the game 7 main heroines, you will need 3 monkey orbs to raise one affection level and you can only stack up to 7 of them until you need to inevitably spend them (a baffling design decision as 7 isn’t a multiple of 3 which triggers my game design OCD). Spending these orbs will trigger an h-scene and this is where my main point of contention with this game will rise.
Most of the h-scenes in this game, while the art is still relatively fantastic, are honestly pretty barebone, generic and often-time kinda boring but less so than the erotic nature of the scenes. It's what they tell about the characters that bothers me a little bit more. Simply put, I have nothing against character development and this game delivers plenty on that, the idea this time around is that Rance will try to actually make the character fall in love with him, this includes ofc 2 characters which throughout the course of the series has been (and understandably so) averse to Rance’s typical bullshit, these are Kanami and Shizuka.
The issue is that the game has no sense of progression whatsoever, Kanami’s whole arc in this game is realizing that the happiness and normalcy of a healthy relationship she’s been looking for this entire time lies within the arms of the most unlikely person that just happened to be the one constant in her life (Rance). The problem is that Kanami comes to this realization literally on the first tier of affection level and this bothers me because that means that for the rest of the game onward, Kanami’s entire character will just boil down to “I love Rance” with very little to no variation towards that sudden realization.
Kichikuou did something much more interesting with Kanami in my opinion where her good ending is killing off Rance and running away with a stranger who is ostensibly worse than him showing that Kanami is the kind of girl who to quote Chaos “is the kind of girl that will let a bad man ruin her life”.
While I know Orion decided against reusing Code in the modern title as he actually hates the character, a bit of tension and drama wouldn’t have killed to make this new development for her character work and not reduce her to a one-note anime archetype which she wasn’t really to begin with.
The only time where that arc goes anywhere interesting is during her heroine route during the last chapter of the game where Lia figures out about Kanami and Rance’s relationship and throws a tantrum which almost lead to a global geopolitical warfare, that was indeed pretty funny and also gave some insight towards Kanami and Lia’s relationship not only as contractors and employees but also as friends and I admit that the ending of that arc wasn’t as catastrophically bland as the build-up leading up to it so in the end I felt satisfied.
Shizuka on the other hand is a bit more complicated, now for the record at least she has an arc going on outside of getting courted by Rance (which is the main objective of the dude, turning his biggest hater into a potential love interest) which is to save her sister Nagi who’s been burning with revenge ever since the events of Rance VI. So at least this is an on-going plot within the main story which isn’t solely about how she will end-up falling for Rance.
But again the game lack any sense of progression, Shizuka in the other titles tend to be reserved for the end-game, since Shizuka holds genuine grudge against Rance and is often the one to call out on his bullshit and trying to protect her best friend Maria from being more miserable trying to chase this man. From an erotic fan POV, the build-up/Pay-off nature of finally being able to get on with Shizuka has always been amazing but nothing more than a punchline which is fine since Shizuka is better when she puts up some resistance but here…
They did some weird things, first off Shizuka can be h’d toward the mid-game and is weirdly assertive about doing it with Rance even if she does it under some conditions. This creates a bizarre loop where Shizuka actually reaches for Rance’s affection like she “gave up” somehow and I can’t help but feel like this is a blatant case of character regression. While in the other game Shizuka was wary of Rance, here Shizuka fills more of a typical tsundere role where she actually enjoys having sex with Rance but is too prideful to admit to having feelings for the guy. Eventually laxing out and seeing some form of comfort for her underlying father issues into him.
It’s certainly a surprising turn for the character who has been firmly opposed to Rance’s advance since 1990 but I don’t know if it’s really all that great of a development. In fact this is kind of a pattern I’m starting to notice with Yoroide’s take on Rance and the relationship he has with most of the other female party members.
While Rance still does a lot of horrible shit, he sees a bit less comeuppance for doing so and while Yoroide is pretty good at introducing and writing for new characters (and making funny as shit situation about them), he seems to still have a problem having a grasp on characters with years of history behind them. It seems like Yoroide is not really daring enough to explore character dynamics that isn’t just strictly “X loves Rance '' which tends to pack these characters into a comfortable little hole. In general, Yoroide with Rance IX seems to try and reach a comfortable position to prepare the terrain for X and doing so as quickly and inelegantly as possible rather than incorporating nuance into his writing style to make the overall group dynamic better.
In the end it works out since progression is still progression and I’m pretty sure X definitely delivers plenty on paying-off from that (and Yoroide isn’t the sole man on board to make all the decisions regarding the writing of the series) but it’s sad that he seems buttheaded on boiling down these characters to their mere essential stripping them of what once made them so special back when Tori was still at the helm of writing for the series.
Many characters in IX are just here to be here, Maria kinda just exist in the plot and outside of a few exchanges like her going “wow” at funky magic technology, she doesn’t seem to do much despite the fact that her technical knowledge of war weaponry could’ve given an edge to the group during the main conflict and the same could be said about all the characters who don’t have a dedicated Rance mode. Tilde is an unfortunate character as a reinterpretation of Raftalia from Kichikuou I find her relatively weak as a character (and the whole sexual training arc really doesn’t help make her character shine the way she should) even Senhime, I’m all for bringing back Senhime since she was one of my favorite unit in Sengoku but in this game she’s pretty one note and about as deep as a puddle (with the whole joke about her being that she really isn’t “all that deep” which admittedly is a funny plot-point).
Pigu and Miracle end up being the best addition to the cast because if anything Yoroide is good at coming up with wacky funny concepts for characters and rolling with it to the extreme, their h-scenes were extremely funny and goofy and actually felt like the type of h-scenes you expect from this series instead of very long and drawn out too vanilla for my taste smut. Miracle herself is just absolutely perfect in her role and her existence and lore surrounding her power promises some really interesting stuff for the near future of the series
I think Yoroide still struggles at truly “getting” the Rance series, while the plot of IX is genuinely engaging, well-paced and fun to go through with both serious and emotionally charged moments as well as moments of levity as it is first and foremost a parody RPG. Rance IX lacks that edge, that biting style of self-awareness and socio-political commentary than a game like Kichikuou, Rance VI or even Sengoku Rance seemed to have. Which makes a lot of the elements of this game hit way less than they should.
Combine this with the game's obsession with following the throughline of Mamatoto almost to a T and the story becomes weaker as a result because of some choice that could’ve made the story better (like incorporating Io into the story, like what the hell AliceSoft ?) just weren’t made in order to keep the game true to his inspiration. In the end it does work out because these little winks at Mamatoto help enhance the charm of the game but I wonder if it would’ve been better to let Rance IX's own ideas shine brighter.
In Quest many of Yoroide’s problem came from not being able to quite manage the subtle balance between comedy and seriousness leading to some baffling narrative design decision that made a lot of the stronger aspect of his style weaker as a result as well as leading to a more “flat” interpretation of the series setting and characters, something that definitely carries over in Rance IX which is a more serious plot in comparison.
Another addition I wasn’t super fond of were the bad endings, apparently this was added by Orion and I’m going to be totally honest their inclusion was done really poorly. Not only do these scenes rarely feel like a punishment for the players own incompetence (since the game is really easy, actually getting these bad endings are harder than missing them) taking away from the “bad” side of these endings.
But outside of Sheila’s and Miracle’s bad ending which genuinely are harrowing and depressing as shit in a character accurate way (more so the aftermath and context of the h-scenes than the actual scenes themselves mind you), most of them are just gratuitous and feel like shock value for the sake of shock value. I know the easy answer behind their inclusions is “Some people are just into that kinda shit” but while the series is very self-indulgent to a fault, this is just another degree of it that I find didn’t add anything especially when similar types of content were included much more gracefully in previous titles such as Kichikuou or Sengoku Rance.
Now I’ve been going on negatively ranting about some of the game weaker aspects so you might expect me to come out the other end saying that the game is trash and not worthy of the expectations I projected onto it and this would be a blatantly false assumption because the game still manages against all odds to be one of the best entry in the series, not in my Top 3 mind you but at least in my top 5.
If like me you’ve been following this series from the beginning to the end and have been waiting for some form of pay-off on some of the game more in-depth plot line then you will be served with this game from the returning characters finally getting some closure to their arc like Patton, Hunty or even Hubert to some stellar reimagining of Kichikuou characters (Lelyuokov, Aristoles and especially Rolex were re-written wonderfully in this modern iteration of their character, I’m glad Rolex doesn’t die too meaning that he’s here to stay and be a badass for Rance X which is great, I wish he was my d-) to a deeper exploration of the lore surrounding the magic sect that’s been laying dormant since Rance IV.
This is genuinely a fantastically ambitious title that will have you at the edge of your seat and always wanting more at every second of it. The different endings are glorious, pretty hype and while it is kinda stupid that the game hides some of its content on NG+ because AliceSoft just needs to be quirky or they would probably die from a stroke. This is still a well-polished, well written, exceptionally satisfying entry into the series.
Sheila is a great character and a great main heroines and with Sill lacking in the cast it was cool to have someone to counterbalance Rance’s antics even if she does so in a very different way and discover different things about herself in the end (despite the circumstances of their meeting and relationship still being relatively fucked up, this is still Rance we’re talking about), I already mentioned how Miracle although she comes off pretty randomly in the middle of the plot absolutely slays in every scene she’s in with her dumb chuuni antics that will give Rance’s manchild attitude a run for its money and in general I still love the writing enough to be entertained by it.
I also got genuinely emotional and hype at some scene in this game and if that isn’t a testament that Yoroide has it in him to make scene like this work in-spite of the weaker aspect of his style I mentioned earlier then I don’t know what more prove would you need to convince yourself that I actually much like all the other title love this game.
In general the heroine route which serves as the conclusion to the different heroine arcs more than makes up for the shortcomings of everything building up to them which are more of consequences of structure issues than actual writing issues ! My favorite one being Shizuka’s and Kanami’s ending but all of them (outside Sheila which was kinda unnecessary) had something to look forward to and get hype about.
AND DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THAT TRUE END EPILOGUE ! I ABSOLUTELY KNEEL FROM ALL SIDES !
In the end, I will blame the weaker aspect of the game’s plot to Yoroide still needing to round up his skill a little bit, the structure being a bit awkward on the “affection” side of things and a general lack of bite that sadly won’t probably return to the series even in X since Tori isn’t her to provide on that front but it’s alright since a softer more straightforward style is probably what the series need leading up to its final entry !
I am VERY VERY excited for Rance X and can’t wait to see if all the fuzz and hype surrounding it was worth it (but 03 first ! And I also happen to be pretty excited in this one too)
It will probably come off as a surprise to most people here but I’m a huge fan of the Rance series, I’ve been so pretty recently as I started truly getting into the series around September 2021 and it quickly ruined any sort of credibility I had left in any online argument about RPG’s as it became my new hyper-obsession. Suffice to say that when I finished the latest release of the series (Rance Quest Magnum) I was craving for more and lo and behold the translation of Rance IX was right around the corner and it became by default one of my most anticipated game of 2023 (despite being a 2014 eroge).
Rance IX is a game which is a bit special even amongst other titles in the series, Rance IX places itself at the tail-end of the series most long-running subplot which is everything surrounding the Helman Empire, this is a subplot introduced for the first time in Rance III and which has been expanded upon in almost every single entry ever since. The series has rich lore and pretty consistent continuity but everything surrounding the Helman Empire and the Holy Magic Sect is the one part of the lore that the series fully embraced instead of shying away from so I was pretty excited to see how they will pay off more than 20 years of buildup surrounding this mysterious land and its secret and how they’ll reimagine the Kichikuou Arc related to it.
In another surprise twist however, this game more than simply being a pay-off is also a pseudo-remake of Mamatoto another AliceSoft game released in 1999 that I’ve played in preparation and which Rance IX heavily pulls away from. From its gameplay to different plot beats and themes, Rance IX isn’t shy about its inspiration to the game's benefits and sometimes to its detriment.
As it is tradition in the series, each entry has a different gameplay system. This time Rance IX is a Tactical RPG where you place units on a grid and fulfill different objectives. The game is fun but isn’t going to win any award in originality or complexity, Rance IX is perhaps one of the easiest game in the series which at least since Rance VI has tried to deliver a decent challenge, the game has a NG+ feature which allows you to up the difficulty a lil bit but I haven’t messed around with it as 2 runs of the game was enough for me to experience most of the content I wanted to see anyway.
The different maps are pretty barebone and straightforward and even though the game likes to spice things up sometimes with objectives which aren’t just “kill everything on screen”, you won’t be finding these battle instances to be substantial enough to warrant an epic “fire emblem killer own” in a random Twitter argument. It is a shame to say that I felt Mamatoto definitely fared better in this department with more challenging maps, more varied win conditions and a better overall difficulty so while Rance IX tries to copy the game-feel of Mamatoto, years of experience didn’t lead to a significant enough upgrade to call it a better game than the original.
Character growth is also pretty straightforward, only the weapon upgrade system is a bit quirky where you pretty much an increasing amount of money to maybe have the chance to boost your equipment, in any other case I would’ve complained about such a system but since Money as a resource is only used for this purpose, I don’t mind it as much but it might seem more problematic on higher difficulties. Much like Mamatoto you can allocate skill points to different stats and you get an overall bonus for reaching certain threshold for all stats of one character (something I forgot during my first run but wasn’t detrimental in the end)
Unlike the other title however, you won’t be doing many battles, since the game is definitely more focused on telling a grander narrative about Rance going to Helman to find a way to save Sill, fuck a couple of girls along the way and maybe help the revolution as a bonus. Progressing through the game is done through a series of clickable events most of which are just story driven with the occasional battle, if you’re really craving more fights however, there’s the optional (but not really) “free battle” which unlocks as the game progresses and reward you with items as well as Monkey Orbs for the game’s titular “Rance mode”.
Since the story is definitely the bigger focus this time around, how does it compare to the rest of the franchise ? Well I will say that Rance IX is an overall pretty pleasant ride all things considered.
The game is definitely more for the lore-addict of the series more than anything so if you’re not familiar with the rest of the franchise there’s not a great chance that starting with this one will give you much value since it really is here to pay-off several plot-points spread across the rest of the series. The game is excellently paced in my opinion as it is the case in almost all Rance games, it’s never boring, always fun to go through and the antics of Rance and his interactions with his surroundings is always a joy to go through.
Something that I definitely did appreciate this time around (and which was apparently a point of contention in its home country, different folks, different strokes I guess) is the heavier focus on different POV’s, a lot of Rance game tend to strictly follow the POV of Rance which is great but tend to not properly put into light the high stakes of the narrative at place. The game also has a surprising amount of male characters getting the spotlight this time around outside of Rance which in my opinion is great as most of these male characters went pretty under-utilized in the other title despite their appearances being more than welcome, some might say that so much sausage of burly men sitting around talking about war and stuff isn’t the most exciting premise for an erotic JRPG (especially ones that doesn’t focus on fiery male skinship) but it’s been long since I’ve given up on the Rance series actually being fully erotic for me and it’s not this game which is going to prove the contrary.
The main mean of obtaining h-scenes in this game is through a separate mode called “Rance Mode” where you spend Monkey Orbs obtained in battle to raise affection level with one of the game 7 main heroines, you will need 3 monkey orbs to raise one affection level and you can only stack up to 7 of them until you need to inevitably spend them (a baffling design decision as 7 isn’t a multiple of 3 which triggers my game design OCD). Spending these orbs will trigger an h-scene and this is where my main point of contention with this game will rise.
Most of the h-scenes in this game, while the art is still relatively fantastic, are honestly pretty barebone, generic and often-time kinda boring but less so than the erotic nature of the scenes. It's what they tell about the characters that bothers me a little bit more. Simply put, I have nothing against character development and this game delivers plenty on that, the idea this time around is that Rance will try to actually make the character fall in love with him, this includes ofc 2 characters which throughout the course of the series has been (and understandably so) averse to Rance’s typical bullshit, these are Kanami and Shizuka.
The issue is that the game has no sense of progression whatsoever, Kanami’s whole arc in this game is realizing that the happiness and normalcy of a healthy relationship she’s been looking for this entire time lies within the arms of the most unlikely person that just happened to be the one constant in her life (Rance). The problem is that Kanami comes to this realization literally on the first tier of affection level and this bothers me because that means that for the rest of the game onward, Kanami’s entire character will just boil down to “I love Rance” with very little to no variation towards that sudden realization.
Kichikuou did something much more interesting with Kanami in my opinion where her good ending is killing off Rance and running away with a stranger who is ostensibly worse than him showing that Kanami is the kind of girl who to quote Chaos “is the kind of girl that will let a bad man ruin her life”.
While I know Orion decided against reusing Code in the modern title as he actually hates the character, a bit of tension and drama wouldn’t have killed to make this new development for her character work and not reduce her to a one-note anime archetype which she wasn’t really to begin with.
The only time where that arc goes anywhere interesting is during her heroine route during the last chapter of the game where Lia figures out about Kanami and Rance’s relationship and throws a tantrum which almost lead to a global geopolitical warfare, that was indeed pretty funny and also gave some insight towards Kanami and Lia’s relationship not only as contractors and employees but also as friends and I admit that the ending of that arc wasn’t as catastrophically bland as the build-up leading up to it so in the end I felt satisfied.
Shizuka on the other hand is a bit more complicated, now for the record at least she has an arc going on outside of getting courted by Rance (which is the main objective of the dude, turning his biggest hater into a potential love interest) which is to save her sister Nagi who’s been burning with revenge ever since the events of Rance VI. So at least this is an on-going plot within the main story which isn’t solely about how she will end-up falling for Rance.
But again the game lack any sense of progression, Shizuka in the other titles tend to be reserved for the end-game, since Shizuka holds genuine grudge against Rance and is often the one to call out on his bullshit and trying to protect her best friend Maria from being more miserable trying to chase this man. From an erotic fan POV, the build-up/Pay-off nature of finally being able to get on with Shizuka has always been amazing but nothing more than a punchline which is fine since Shizuka is better when she puts up some resistance but here…
They did some weird things, first off Shizuka can be h’d toward the mid-game and is weirdly assertive about doing it with Rance even if she does it under some conditions. This creates a bizarre loop where Shizuka actually reaches for Rance’s affection like she “gave up” somehow and I can’t help but feel like this is a blatant case of character regression. While in the other game Shizuka was wary of Rance, here Shizuka fills more of a typical tsundere role where she actually enjoys having sex with Rance but is too prideful to admit to having feelings for the guy. Eventually laxing out and seeing some form of comfort for her underlying father issues into him.
It’s certainly a surprising turn for the character who has been firmly opposed to Rance’s advance since 1990 but I don’t know if it’s really all that great of a development. In fact this is kind of a pattern I’m starting to notice with Yoroide’s take on Rance and the relationship he has with most of the other female party members.
While Rance still does a lot of horrible shit, he sees a bit less comeuppance for doing so and while Yoroide is pretty good at introducing and writing for new characters (and making funny as shit situation about them), he seems to still have a problem having a grasp on characters with years of history behind them. It seems like Yoroide is not really daring enough to explore character dynamics that isn’t just strictly “X loves Rance '' which tends to pack these characters into a comfortable little hole. In general, Yoroide with Rance IX seems to try and reach a comfortable position to prepare the terrain for X and doing so as quickly and inelegantly as possible rather than incorporating nuance into his writing style to make the overall group dynamic better.
In the end it works out since progression is still progression and I’m pretty sure X definitely delivers plenty on paying-off from that (and Yoroide isn’t the sole man on board to make all the decisions regarding the writing of the series) but it’s sad that he seems buttheaded on boiling down these characters to their mere essential stripping them of what once made them so special back when Tori was still at the helm of writing for the series.
Many characters in IX are just here to be here, Maria kinda just exist in the plot and outside of a few exchanges like her going “wow” at funky magic technology, she doesn’t seem to do much despite the fact that her technical knowledge of war weaponry could’ve given an edge to the group during the main conflict and the same could be said about all the characters who don’t have a dedicated Rance mode. Tilde is an unfortunate character as a reinterpretation of Raftalia from Kichikuou I find her relatively weak as a character (and the whole sexual training arc really doesn’t help make her character shine the way she should) even Senhime, I’m all for bringing back Senhime since she was one of my favorite unit in Sengoku but in this game she’s pretty one note and about as deep as a puddle (with the whole joke about her being that she really isn’t “all that deep” which admittedly is a funny plot-point).
Pigu and Miracle end up being the best addition to the cast because if anything Yoroide is good at coming up with wacky funny concepts for characters and rolling with it to the extreme, their h-scenes were extremely funny and goofy and actually felt like the type of h-scenes you expect from this series instead of very long and drawn out too vanilla for my taste smut. Miracle herself is just absolutely perfect in her role and her existence and lore surrounding her power promises some really interesting stuff for the near future of the series
I think Yoroide still struggles at truly “getting” the Rance series, while the plot of IX is genuinely engaging, well-paced and fun to go through with both serious and emotionally charged moments as well as moments of levity as it is first and foremost a parody RPG. Rance IX lacks that edge, that biting style of self-awareness and socio-political commentary than a game like Kichikuou, Rance VI or even Sengoku Rance seemed to have. Which makes a lot of the elements of this game hit way less than they should.
Combine this with the game's obsession with following the throughline of Mamatoto almost to a T and the story becomes weaker as a result because of some choice that could’ve made the story better (like incorporating Io into the story, like what the hell AliceSoft ?) just weren’t made in order to keep the game true to his inspiration. In the end it does work out because these little winks at Mamatoto help enhance the charm of the game but I wonder if it would’ve been better to let Rance IX's own ideas shine brighter.
In Quest many of Yoroide’s problem came from not being able to quite manage the subtle balance between comedy and seriousness leading to some baffling narrative design decision that made a lot of the stronger aspect of his style weaker as a result as well as leading to a more “flat” interpretation of the series setting and characters, something that definitely carries over in Rance IX which is a more serious plot in comparison.
Another addition I wasn’t super fond of were the bad endings, apparently this was added by Orion and I’m going to be totally honest their inclusion was done really poorly. Not only do these scenes rarely feel like a punishment for the players own incompetence (since the game is really easy, actually getting these bad endings are harder than missing them) taking away from the “bad” side of these endings.
But outside of Sheila’s and Miracle’s bad ending which genuinely are harrowing and depressing as shit in a character accurate way (more so the aftermath and context of the h-scenes than the actual scenes themselves mind you), most of them are just gratuitous and feel like shock value for the sake of shock value. I know the easy answer behind their inclusions is “Some people are just into that kinda shit” but while the series is very self-indulgent to a fault, this is just another degree of it that I find didn’t add anything especially when similar types of content were included much more gracefully in previous titles such as Kichikuou or Sengoku Rance.
Now I’ve been going on negatively ranting about some of the game weaker aspects so you might expect me to come out the other end saying that the game is trash and not worthy of the expectations I projected onto it and this would be a blatantly false assumption because the game still manages against all odds to be one of the best entry in the series, not in my Top 3 mind you but at least in my top 5.
If like me you’ve been following this series from the beginning to the end and have been waiting for some form of pay-off on some of the game more in-depth plot line then you will be served with this game from the returning characters finally getting some closure to their arc like Patton, Hunty or even Hubert to some stellar reimagining of Kichikuou characters (Lelyuokov, Aristoles and especially Rolex were re-written wonderfully in this modern iteration of their character, I’m glad Rolex doesn’t die too meaning that he’s here to stay and be a badass for Rance X which is great, I wish he was my d-) to a deeper exploration of the lore surrounding the magic sect that’s been laying dormant since Rance IV.
This is genuinely a fantastically ambitious title that will have you at the edge of your seat and always wanting more at every second of it. The different endings are glorious, pretty hype and while it is kinda stupid that the game hides some of its content on NG+ because AliceSoft just needs to be quirky or they would probably die from a stroke. This is still a well-polished, well written, exceptionally satisfying entry into the series.
Sheila is a great character and a great main heroines and with Sill lacking in the cast it was cool to have someone to counterbalance Rance’s antics even if she does so in a very different way and discover different things about herself in the end (despite the circumstances of their meeting and relationship still being relatively fucked up, this is still Rance we’re talking about), I already mentioned how Miracle although she comes off pretty randomly in the middle of the plot absolutely slays in every scene she’s in with her dumb chuuni antics that will give Rance’s manchild attitude a run for its money and in general I still love the writing enough to be entertained by it.
I also got genuinely emotional and hype at some scene in this game and if that isn’t a testament that Yoroide has it in him to make scene like this work in-spite of the weaker aspect of his style I mentioned earlier then I don’t know what more prove would you need to convince yourself that I actually much like all the other title love this game.
In general the heroine route which serves as the conclusion to the different heroine arcs more than makes up for the shortcomings of everything building up to them which are more of consequences of structure issues than actual writing issues ! My favorite one being Shizuka’s and Kanami’s ending but all of them (outside Sheila which was kinda unnecessary) had something to look forward to and get hype about.
AND DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THAT TRUE END EPILOGUE ! I ABSOLUTELY KNEEL FROM ALL SIDES !
In the end, I will blame the weaker aspect of the game’s plot to Yoroide still needing to round up his skill a little bit, the structure being a bit awkward on the “affection” side of things and a general lack of bite that sadly won’t probably return to the series even in X since Tori isn’t her to provide on that front but it’s alright since a softer more straightforward style is probably what the series need leading up to its final entry !
I am VERY VERY excited for Rance X and can’t wait to see if all the fuzz and hype surrounding it was worth it (but 03 first ! And I also happen to be pretty excited in this one too)
Lemonov
1 year ago
It will still be a while until I get to it (need to replay Kichikuou, play TTII, play Mamatoto, clear Sengoku at least 2 more times, clear Quest...), but knowing how ~not soon~ we are getting X, I'm not in a terrible hurry.