Kichikuou Rance

"King Rance of Leazas"

- giving his coronation speech.

About
Kichikuou Rance (literally translating to "Brutal King Rance") is the seventh game in Alicesoft's flagship Rance Series. It was released in Japan on December 19, 1996. It was the first Alicesoft game to be produced for Windows 95 operating systems, as well as the first game to use the company's SYSTEM 35 engine and the territory conquest strategy gameplay used in several of its future releases.

Kichikuou Rance depicts the title character becoming king of the Kingdom of Leazas in an effort to use its forces to rescue his captured slave Sill Plain from the clutches of the Helman Empire. Drunk on the pleasure and privilege that comes with being a king, he sets out on a path that could lead him to either global conquest or certain death.

While it was given the tentative name of "Rance 5" during early development, Kichikuou Rance is not considered to be a part of the official Rance universe timeline. Instead, it is viewed as a "What If" title that branches off from the events of Rance 4.2 into its own unique story. Despite this, however, it can be viewed as the final game in the "original" timeline of the series, as it directly follows the events presented in the games that preceded it, whereas from Rance 5D onward the setting follows a slightly altered version of the story that contradicts some of the information provided in the original games.

Kichikuou Rance is notable for its particularly dark tone in comparison to other games in the series. While still maintaining a substantial amount of the absurdist humor that the Rance series is known for, it features themes such as death, torture, betrayal, manipulation and general unhappiness much more prominently. Though the player is given a certain level of control over Rance's decision-making, he is overall portrayed as being far more prone to needless cruelty and outright villainy than he is in any other installment of the series. Additionally, the player is regularly required to sacrifice the happiness of one person to ensure the happiness of another, meaning that it is impossible to complete a playthrough with every single character obtaining a happy ending.

Development
Kichikuou Rance was developed around the concept of "What if Rance were to become a king?", with the goal of compiling all of the staff's ideas about the setting of The Continent and Rance's adventures throughout it into a single title. This was done to ensure that all of the staff's ideas for the Rance series would be able to see the light even if the company were to close its doors before it was able to complete it. As a result, it is much more expansive than any of its predecessors in terms of both setting information and scope, and marks the debut of several major locations and characters, most notably the nations of Zeth and JAPAN as well as the entirety of the Monster Realm. Because of this, much of its content is referenced or outright repeated in later games in the series, though often in wildly different ways that deliberately play off of the player's pre-existing knowledge of and expectations for how it will occur.

In order to accommodate the numerous ideas that the staff had, which frequently contradicted with each other, gameplay was made non-linear and open-ended, allowing for different events to occur depending on the way the player progresses through the game. Because of this, Kichikuou Rance contains a truly staggering number of events that require several playthroughs to see all of, giving it a large amount of replay value.

Upon its release, Kichikuou Rance proved to be a resounding success, with its surplus of content and high replayability attracting fans from even outside of the eroge community. It remained the top selling eroge for years after its initial release, allowing it to maintain its original price tag of 8,500 yen for nearly ten years and earning it the title of one of the most successful eroge of all time.

On September 1, 2006, Kichikuou Rance was made freeware as part of Alicesoft's "Distribution Free Declaration" policy and made available on the company's website for free download. On September 12, 2014, it was translated into English by Arunaru. The English translation can be found through this link: https://mega.nz/#!3VNF2CAJ!_3Uu_aH00RTddHHxmfaBLannikiUsCbBQVFIgEdRlKU

Gameplay
Kichikuou Rance is the first Alicesoft game to use the company's distinct territory conquest system that would later be reused and refined in the similarly popular Sengoku Rance, as well as the Dai Series.

All of the game takes place on a large map of the Continent, with each of the nations' territories marked by a national flag. The player is able to select either their own territories, which they can levy for additional income and items or explore to potentially encounter new characters, or the enemy territories that border their own, allowing them to either launch an attack to conquer them or send a Ninja to either sabotage or gain intel on enemy armies. Certain territories are bordered by dungeons, which the player can have a single unit explore in order to find the treasures that may be hidden within them.

The player is also given access to a menu, where they are able to have Rance meet with one of his commanders, who he can talk with or add soldiers to the personal unit of, or call one of the women that he has in his harem to his bedroom to have sex with him. In addition to this, Rance is also able to think about his current course of action, where he can remind the player of any events that are partially in progress, call the merchant Pluepet to buy special items, and request the construction of various buildings, which open up several new events that would otherwise be unavailable to the player. Outside of these few things, however, the focus of the game is almost entirely on conquest and story progression, with Rance leaving all other internal affairs in the hands of his head maid and advisor Maris Amaryllis.

Combat consists of a turn-based army battles. The player is allowed to pick up to four of their commanders to participate in battle, though only long-range units such as archers and mages are able to attack from the back two slots. Battles are fought simply by selecting the enemy unit that you desire to attack. Both enemy and player units can only be defeated when their commander's health reaches zero, with the rest of the army's troops merely acting as a cover for them. When a commander's health reaches zero, the army is defeated regardless of the number of troops they had remaining and, barring a few exceptions, the commander is permanently killed and no longer available for use.

Every commander has their own set of values that increase or decrease their performance when attacking, defending or exploring through a dungeon, and their abilities as a commander can increase as they fight in more battles. Certain characters, such as Rance and Rick Addison, possess special attacks that can be launched after charging them for a single turn. These special attacks can range from instantly dealing damage to an enemy commander's health or reducing a set number of their army's troops. Combat can take place either outside or inside of a territory's city, with the player given the choice between the two when defending their own territory. Armies take less damage when fighting within cities, meaning it is advantageous for the player to defend their territories from within their cities and to attack enemy territories outside of their cities.

After completing the tutorial, Rance is made king of Leazas, the country that takes up the northeastern corner of the Continent. After defeating the Leazas Rebel Army, the player is given complete control over whether they should attack the smaller southeastern nations of the Free Cities Alliance and JAPAN, the northwestern nation of Helman or the southwestern nation of Zeth. After all of the human territories have been conquered, the player is able to go to war with the Monster Realm, and, if certain conditions are met, even the forces of the Gods.

There are 14 endings that the player can potentially obtain depending on their actions throughout the game. Besides this, almost every female character has both a happy "fortune" and a tragic "misfortune" ending to their own personal stories, which are tallied at the end of every successful playthrough. Because of this, several playthroughs are required to obtain every single possible ending.

Story
The game begins at the start of LP0003 some time after the events of Rance 4.2. The warrior Rance, accompanied as always by his faithful slave Sill Plain, has been living as the leader of a group of bandits in northern Helman after killing their previous leader as part of a job given to him by the Keith Guild. While Rance greatly enjoys the raping and pillaging that comes with being a bandit leader, the guilt-ridden Sill believes that he is in danger of losing what remains of his conscience and genuinely becoming a villain.

After attacking the city of Golak, Rance's group alerts the attention of Ruberan Tser, commander of the Helman volunteer army, who launches a counterstrike on them during their second attempt at pillaging the city. Unable to fight against a genuine army, the bandits are quickly destroyed, Sill is captured by the Helman Army and Rance is forced to flee for his life.

Rance evades the Helman army for several days, with both his equipment and health steadily declining all the while, before he finally passes out from fatigue along the Leazas/Helman border. He is found on the verge of death by Kentou Kanami, the personal ninja of Leazas' queen and Rance's longtime admirer Lia Parapara Leazas, who brings him to Leazas castle. After three days of recovery, Rance finally regains consciousness and, completely humiliated by his defeat at Helman's hands and desperate to rescue Sill, demands that Lia give him the Leazas Army to destroy the enemy nation. Finally seeing an opportunity to have Rance to herself, Lia agrees on the condition that he first marry her, which Rance reluctantly accepts.

Rance, his mind already corrupted by his time as a bandit leader and his morals even more flexible in Sill's absence, becomes drunk on power almost immediately after becoming king of Leazas, causing him to expand his goal from simply destroying Helman and rescuing Sill to conquering the entire world for himself. On the day of his coronation, rather than read the pre-written speech given to him by Lia's advisor Maris Amaryllis, Rance makes the bold declaration that all of the country's people are required to throw their lives away for the sake of his ambitions, causing him to be instantly deemed a tyrant.

The very next day, Ex Banquet, general of the Leazas White Corps, forms a rebel army composed of nearly half of the nation's forces, with the explicit goal of removing Rance from power. His dreams of world conquest momentarily halted by the sudden rebel uprising, Rance vows to destroy the opposing army without hesitation.

So begins the era of the man who would go down in history as the brutal king...

Setting & Lore

 * The Continent
 * History of The Continent
 * Kingdom of Leazas
 * History of the Kingdom of Leazas
 * Leazas Army
 * Helman Empire
 * History of the Helman Empire
 * Helman Army
 * Magic Kingdom of Zeth
 * History of the Kingdom of Zeth
 * Zeth Army
 * Free Cities Alliance
 * JAPAN
 * History of JAPAN
 * Shangri-La
 * AL Church
 * Kalar
 * Ghosts
 * Monster Realm
 * Demon King
 * Dark Lords
 * Elite Dark Lords
 * Apostles
 * Monsters
 * Four Holy Gal Monsters
 * Gods
 * Angels
 * Souls
 * Levels
 * Level Cap
 * Skill Levels
 * Hero System
 * Kaiju
 * The Legendary Five
 * Arcy Julietta

Patches
The freeware English release by Aru Naru can be downloaded here.

Installing/Playing the Japanese Version
Alicesoft released the original Japanese version of Kichikuou Rance as freeware. However, since the game was released a long time ago, you would need to perform several patches to make it run. Using the patched system39 executable from the English release can make things easier. (Alternatively, you can also download the official System39 executable from Alicesoft and patch it yourself by following the instructions here, though it would be more complicated.)


 * 1) Ensure the English version runs normally. Run _inmm238 to install the DLL for sound, if you haven't done so yet.
 * 2) Download the Japanese release from http://retropc.net/alice/30.html
 * 3) Mount the image and run the installer
 * 4) Copy the files system39, System39.org, System39.ain, stretch.dll, _inmm, and the bgm folder from the English version to the Japanese version's installation folder
 * 5) Optionally, download an unofficial patch listed on the Japanese wiki which would fix various miscellaneous bugs. The patch alice0803 seems to be the latest one as of the time of the writing. Copy the files and overwrite the originals in the installation folder.
 * 6) The game should now run normally via system39.exe.

Alternatively, somebody ported the whole System35 engine to WASM and made all the freeware Alicesoft games playable via a web interface at https://kichikuou.github.io/web/. All you need to do is to download the Japanese release and select the image files from any browser, even on a mobile device. It also includes quality-of-life improvements such as message log.