I hope so. I've struggled understanding the menu with this release more than with any of their previous titles. Has made it difficult to enjoy the game.
. This is the final progress report, and comments are now disabled. Once again, the developer stresses that nothing from the alpha matters; zzinzinz even went so far as to delete the article containing the alpha. We cannot use the save data in the final version. The reason for using Ci-en in the first place is because the circle really did not want anyone to leak anything. If zzinzinz makes another game, the subscription fee will probably be reduced to 100 yen. If there is a progress report in October, that might be free.
For those that have not taken part in being a ci-en backer.
There is an interesting tweet posted 3 hours ago linking to a ci-en page showing some of the villager woman's "features" **wink wink**
Somewhat spoiler warning down here but not worth the spoiler tag tbh...
And from what i gathered thanks to google translate, he goes something of the lines of: "If you know who the character is I'm very happy"
In that image it shows the mantis girl, and personally because she looked a little different i thought it was just a refrence to the one in onesyota, but this actually means, that mantis girl, IS that same one from onesyota.
Interesting.
does not require following or paying. The creator is still imploring us to cancel our subscriptions since there will be no new content, but I think the least he could do is provide a coupon or discount for those who paid a certain amount of months for progress reports.
There is no other game I am hyped for anymore this year aside from this, until february next year I have nothing to wait for, and the entire next year probably only has like 3 games I even look forward to, one of which is a hentai game. I really really want this game now, haven't been as excited for a new hgame release since Rance X, the waiting is really annoying me so I am glad there is still stuff about it shown by the creator. Played the demo up and down already, nothing left to do there so I guess from here on out it is just waiting.
There is no other game I am hyped for anymore this year aside from this, until february next year I have nothing to wait for, and the entire next year probably only has like 3 games I even look forward to, one of which is a hentai game. I really really want this game now, haven't been as excited for a new hgame release since Rance X, the waiting is really annoying me so I am glad there is still stuff about it shown by the creator. Played the demo up and down already, nothing left to do there so I guess from here on out it is just waiting.
Does honestly not look too bad, a little cringy perhaps and looking somewhat like it tried to cobble its combat system together from several other games, but not something I wouldn't consider playing. I just don't like jumping into a game series in the middle, so I would have to play several time sinks before even getting to that game. Also, if someone who somehow does not like Rance thinks this game is good, there has to be something wrong with the game once you get deeper into it.
Does honestly not look too bad, a little cringy perhaps and looking somewhat like it tried to cobble its combat system together from several other games, but not something I wouldn't consider playing. I just don't like jumping into a game series in the middle, so I would have to play several time sinks before even getting to that game. Also, if someone who somehow does not like Rance thinks this game is good, there has to be something wrong with the game once you get deeper into it.
I think from a gameplay perspective,
Eternal usually does a better job than Alicesoft. Yumina the Ethereal is a really fun game, with interesting systems and fun growth.
Eushully usually does a better job than Alicesoft. Kamidori is more fun than most Rance titles, and Eushully doesn't fuck up on the gameplay. They only improve.
Xuse has some really good games as well. Aselia the eternal is absolutely fantastic.
Alicesoft for me is number 4 in quality of VN h-titles with gameplay. I'd put them behind Aquaplus but Aquaplus created Tears to Tiara 1 and that game was an abomination.
That's just from a gameplay analysis perspective.
Now for the controversial part:
From a story and character perspective, I think Rance is pretty bad. The scenario writers are decent. They did a FANTASTIC JOB with Evenicle, but that's because the lead of Evenicle is Asta who's superior to Rance in every way (objectively.)
Rance is the problem. Rance is just a terrible character imho. None of his heroines actually like him for his personality. Like legit a grand total of 0. The only one that come's close to liking him personally is Lia, a former villain who used to kidnap and torture young women, but even she doesn't like him for his personality. She likes him cause "he's got da good dick." (The most common trait of an eroge protag.)
Does anyone like him because he has any good traits?Selflessness? Lol no. Kindness? lol no. Competence? EVEN HERE IT'S A NO. Like for real the whole Urza situation is straight up aweful.
Rance... the titular character... is so shit as a protag that the girls he gets in the first 3 games are straight up Netorare'd from him or leave him because of his shit personality. The "ultimate cucking alpha dog" is in fact a cuck himself cause he has no decent personality traits to make it so the girls want to stay with him. Shizuka his "soulmate" hates his guts.
The writing improves once they hired female writers but it's really fucking hard to make shit shine. Probably why no one talks about early Rance games, unless they're weirdos who are into NTR.
I'm gonna be honest. I have no idea how you could possibly like an ExccessM game and enjoy the Rance series.
EDIT:
Oh shit, you didn't know what Trails of Cold Steel was. I thought since you played Japanese games to the point of even knowing what obscure games like Rance were you'd be a bit more familiar with good normal games too. My bad. I made an assumption.
I think from a gameplay perspective,
Eternal usually does a better job than Alicesoft. Yumina the Ethereal is a really fun game, with interesting systems and fun growth.
Eushully usually does a better job than Alicesoft. Kamidori is more fun than most Rance titles, and Eushully doesn't fuck up on the gameplay. They only improve.
Xuse has some really good games as well. Aselia the eternal is absolutely fantastic.
The only developer from this list that I played a game from is Eushully with Kamidori, and admittedly that game was fantastic, I would play more of that any day of the week. Gameplay was deep and addicting with its own ingame economy, characters were mostly decent, several story paths, great art. Scenes were a bit boring at times maybe, and a true borefest of a main character who had no unique quality to speak of aside from converting girls, even ancient ones with a deep grudge against the entire human race, with his dick. Developers on your list probably had very few games translated into english back when I actually was open for big games from new eroge developers, I know Eushully only had Kamidori back when I looked for more.
From a story and character perspective, I think Rance is pretty bad. The scenario writers are decent. They did a FANTASTIC JOB with Evenicle, but that's because the lead of Evenicle is Asta who's superior to Rance in every way (objectively.)
Rance is the problem. Rance is just a terrible character imho. None of his heroines actually like him for his personality. Like legit a grand total of 0. The only one that come's close to liking him personally is Lia, a former villain who used to kidnap and torture young women, but even she doesn't like him for his personality. She likes him cause "he's got da good dick." (The most common trait of an eroge protag.)
Does anyone like him because he has any good traits?Selflessness? Lol no. Kindness? lol no. Competence? EVEN HERE IT'S A NO. Like for real the whole Urza situation is straight up aweful.
Rance... the titular character... is so shit as a protag that the girls he gets in the first 3 games are straight up Netorare'd from him or leave him because of his shit personality. The "ultimate cucking alpha dog" is in fact a cuck himself cause he has no decent personality traits to make it so the girls want to stay with him. Shizuka his "soulmate" hates his guts.
The writing improves once they hired female writers but it's really fucking hard to make shit shine. Probably why no one talks about early Rance games, unless they're weirdos who are into NTR.
You think they did a bad job with Rance but praise EVENICLE? The game with the most boring, bland and vanilla protagonist in all of eroge history? I even have seen people who never played such a game before shitting on Evenicle in the steam review section because they thought Asta was like the worst protagonist they have ever seen, I think he was the biggest down of the game. A big reason was him basically getting all his wives because he has absolutely no criterias in choosing them and all of them insta fall for him because he is such a "nice" guy, like come on seriously, nothing objectively better about that, reads like the fantasies of a very lonely beta male. It makes more sense to me if characters don't immediately fall in love with each other after the first encounter, and btw there are a few characters who liked Rance for his character early on, like Sill who was fiercely loyal to him, or Menad, also characters like Maria who developed an early liking to him while others needed longer, sometimes several games, to warm up to him over several adventures.
Early Rance is a pretty shallow character with very little redeeming qualities, which I somewhat liked about him because it was a change of pace, he had no noble goals, historic bloodline, heroic destiny or shitty chosen one backstory, he was not a guy females would instantly fall in love with because he was super nice or was unnaturally handsome, no big lasting ambitions either, he was just a guy who became an adventurer because he was horny and needed money to get through life. He was not a total asshole either though, no demonic guy who killed everything and raped females to the point of actually injuring or killing them(Rance rape is more comedy rape than serious rape btw, you see the big difference in how his scenes are portrayed compared to someone like Xavier), he had a moral codex he sticked with for most of the series, even early he treated some girls well (like Menad) and over the course of the series he became a much more complex character with a lot of characters he genuinely cared about, and many characters, even Shizuka and Kanami who somewhat rightfully hated his guts despite him saving their lives multiple times, slowly warmed up to him later on. He was dependable enough for several characters to look at him for help and guidance, from the likes of Lia and Patton to even Shizuka, he has a few traits that get him through his early life, like confidence for example, being ruthless when needed, not giving up even against bad odds and a creative mind that served him pretty well at times.
I like the character development, Rance is like what, barely 18 or something in the first game? He grows a lot as a person, by the time of Rance 9 or 10 several years later he is hardly the same character anymore, and characters who know him longer even comment on that.
What I like about the series aside from the protagonist is the ton of unique characters, the scenes, how big and detailed the world is with centuries worth of backstory, how the story ties together with new and returning characters, how the gameplay changes every so often to keep it interesting and especially the dark Alicesoft humor. The biggest reason fewer people talk about the early Alicesoft games is because for the vast majority of people, me included, Sengoku Rance was the very first game of the series. The old games are REALLY old, like actually older than me, so they are pretty hard to get into, which is why many people did not bother. The remakes are not translated either, I could only play them because I have a very very basic understanding of the japanese language and knew most of the story already.
I'm gonna be honest. I have no idea how you could possibly like an ExccessM game and enjoy the Rance series.
EDIT:
Oh shit, you didn't know what Trails of Cold Steel was. I thought since you played Japanese games to the point of even knowing what obscure games like Rance were you'd be a bit more familiar with good normal games too. My bad. I made an assumption.
Ah here the discussion goes back to topic. Well you kinda have to explain to me how liking both ExcessM games and the Rance series is supposed to be mutually exclusive, like are you only into games that have every side character treat your main character like complete shit, or do you, like myself, have a more varied selection of games? I like many games for different reasons, I enjoy Alicesoft games like Rance or Daibanchou for the gameplay, story, world, characters, artstyle, dark humor and lewd stuff. I liked MGQ for its story and the developing relationship between characters, not as much for the scenes because most of them were awfully weird even for japanese standards, some even actively damaged crucial story developments happening just moments before (looking at you, Alice!). I liked the old Excessm games for their simplicity, animation and unique artstyle, as they had no real story, characters or world to speak of. I could make the scenes work for me at times, somewhat, but they were never the reason for me to play, really I think only hardcore masochistic weirdos could have liked the early Excessm games solely for scenes, because most were pretty much bullying stuff, not even really sexual acts.
Excessm in its early days was like eroge fast food for me, something different from juggernaut games like Sengoku Rance, a welcome diversion from story heavy and complex games. Parade Buster and Smashboy had a bit more of a story and deeper gameplay with a bit less lewd scenes each time, so I'd say they changed a lot over the years. The new game here looks like it continues that story trend, but also has a lot of scenes so I guess some of them have to be good, the quality of both the animation and the art also steadily improved, which is why I am looking forward to the game so much despite not being heavy into all that masochist stuff. Honestly its not a deal breaker for me if it keeps it somewhat low, the hardcore femdom "get smashed in the butthole by girls having dicks" stuff I just skip if it is in the game occasionally.
Seriously never heard of Cold Steel, but I am not that deep into non sexual JRPGs, they often are too weird for me, way too grindy, and they aren't privately played like Eroge so someone walking in on you playing some of them or looking it up after seeing it on your shelf is like committing social suicide, they also usually do not have the hentai content that makes up for the deep japanese weirdness that is also often found in eroge. I know some of them, I even played a select few, but no I am not too deep into it.
I think we should get back on topic, this is Rance discussion is getting out of hand and I really don't think anyone here wants the mods to come over her and lay down the law. So let's keep it civil and on topic.
I think we should get back on topic, this is Rance discussion is getting out of hand and I really don't think anyone here wants the mods to come over her and lay down the law. So let's keep it civil and on topic.
Nice design for the slimes I gotta say, but Slimes do absolutely nothing for me in any way, not entirely sure why. The demon on the cover reminded me of the antagonist demon from the very first game, crown and all, though I am not quite sure if he just likes that type of enemy design or if it was done with that intention in mind.
