Rance 5D:Game mechanics

Title Screen
There are 4 buttons on the screen.
 * Resume continues from where you left off (the game autosaves). This option does not appear if you don't have any save data.  There is no manual save in this game.
 * Start Over wipes the auto-save file, and start the game from the beginning.
 * Load Chapter will start the game in the middle. In each chapter, there will be five scenes. The game will create a bookmark-save each time you pass a scene in each chapter. You can resume the game from any of the five scenes for each chapter as long as you have cleared that scene. This is very useful because if you ever got stuck and don't want to replay the game from the begining again. You can resume the game a few scene back to fix the error you had made.
 * Alice's Cottage has some informational stuff. It is essentially a staff's corner. If you are reading this guide, you probably can't read japanese, then this button is of no use to you.

Adventure Mode
Adventure Mode is the screen when things happen. On the top you see the time meter. When the time meter is empty. It will be game over for you. In the upper left corner, you'll see a button 移動 that means "Move", ie, to leave this place (either to return to the town map or the roulette).

Next to the move button there is the sub-time clock. There are 5 units of sub-time in 1 bar of the time meter. Each unit of sub-time has 4 ticks.

Next to the clock is the background. Clicking on it makes the active character investigate the background. You usually have to investigate the background in major event to trigger something to happen.

If there are any items laying around (usually from investigation of background), they are displayed as square icons to the right of the background.

The left side of the screen are the party member character cards. The card in the forefront is the active character. You can click on any card in the party to make it active. Depending on the active character, different actions may be possible.

When there are any characters that are not in your party, their character card will be presented on the lower right. Clicking on those cards will make your active character talk to that character.

In the middle of the screen there are items of interest, such as treasure chests, machines, monsters. Click on it to make the active character search/investigate it, or drag an item card over it for special actions.

The bottom of the screen are item card slots, where items that can be used by the active character are displayed. To use a particular item, drag its card over to the character/ object/background you want it to be used on. In particular, each character will have his/her image as the first card in the item card slots. Using the character item card means to perform special action for that character:

Rance: punch Shiiru: Mind-reading Atena: sniff/smell Kobando: Fortune-Telling Firisu: Take soul

Often when performing actions (searching background, opening treasure, convince people, disarming traps, etc), there's a "chance to succeed". Some actions will have easier chance, and some characters performing the action may have a easier chance than others. The diffculty will be displayed in the first row of a 10-column chart. The number of red bars in the first row indicates the number of "hits" you need. Orange bars in the second row count the number of hits you have, which needs to match or exceed the red. The third row, consisting a bunch of O's and X's, are your attemps of hit/miss.

Bottom right button enters the camp mode.

Camp Mode
Camp mode allows your characters to rest, re-group, reorganize, and level up. Entering camp mode takes up one unit of sub-time. (1/5 of a unit of time)

On the left are the status of your three party members (the above picture doesn't have a full party). Clicking on them allows you to switch their order (right is front, left is back), which affects who'll be the target of melee attacks.

The three status bars for weapons indicate Attack Power(red), Chance to Hit(orange), and Durability(grey). If the durability of an equipment drops to zero, the equipment will only have 1/3 of its original effect.

Under the equipment, are the 6 battle commands for each character. You can switch their order by first clicking on one, then click on another (can't exchange between characters). The order affects which command is executed during the battle dice roll.

On the right hand side are items slots. You may drag items over character's faces to use them. If it's an equipment, drag-dropping equips the new equipment and put the old one in inventory. You can only have 23 items max at any time, so delete any unwanted items via the trash can (some items are undeletable).

On the bottom right there are four buttons. From left to right:
 * Rest - Takes up one unit of time, and recovers 1/3 HP for each character.
 * ST - Brings up the status screen.
 * LV - Summons the Level Goddess, who will perform level-up ceremony for characters who have enough experience points (you don't automatically level up from having experience).
 * Return - Takes you back to the previous screen.

Status Screen
The status button takes you to the status mode. In status mode, you can see the status of each character.

Italicized are selectable components:

Click on the different portraits to pick which character's status you want to view. To the right of name and HP are the buttons which can switch the class of the character. Each class will learn different skills. Picking the class won't affect which abilities you can use. It only affects which class you are gaining experience toward. The next two bars below in purple text shows the character's levels, experience, and how much needed to level up for each class.

The next 5 stats are Physical Attack, Magical Attack, Physical Defense, Magical Defense, and Evasion. The base stat comes from the character's level.

To the right is the weak point, showing which alignment the character is weak against. Rance is weak against Light (光), Shiiru is weak against Dark (闇). The other alignments are Fire (炎), Ice (氷), and Lightning (雷).

The bottom right button returns player to the previous screen.

Level Screen
For each character for each class at certain fixed levels, he/she will pick up new skills.

Clicking on one of the 6 current skills to replace it with the new skill. If you are clicking on a skill of the same type, then you get an upgraded skill. For example, adding Fire Arrow to itself upgrades to Flame Blast. Adding another Fire Arrow to Flame Blast will upgrade it to Fire Laser. Sometimes the upgrade changes the skill to make it multi-target, while the name will remain the same.

You can see the target range by the mark to the left side of the skill name: Hollow triangle: Target the first character Filled triangle: Target one character randomly Square: Target entire group Circle: Target self

The skill alignments is shown in the box on the right. Red = Fire, Blue = Ice, Yellow = Lightning, White = Light, Purple = Dark, Gray = None.

See Rance 5D:Skill List for detailed info on skilll progression.

Movement
Movement in dungeon is done by the roulette. There are three types of movements you can choose from in the middle lower part of the roulette:

* Normal Move - Takes one unit of time. Whichever node the roulette stops on, you get that type of encounter.

*** Slow Move - Takes two units of time. The roulette will end on three adjacent nodes, and you pick one of the three.

***** Careful Move - Takes three units of time. The roulette will end on 5 adjacent nodes, and you pick one of the five.

Node Types

 * Blue = Normal. Nothing extraordinary happens. In this encounter, you can use your character's action to search the background for some item. If you have a captured girl in your active party, you can power her up by clicking on her character's card. (Please be aware that this is the only way to power up any capture girls, because they can't gain experiences to level up).


 * Green = Major event. There are major events that are story-related. After five events, you move on to the next chapter. All green balls are labeled with a number which indicates how many more do you need to get.


 * Yellow = Treasure. You get a treasure chest, usually contain two items. You can either disarm the treasure chest with skill or use a key to open the treasure chest.


 * Orange = Monster. You will encounter monster in this event. You can either fight or run away from them.


 * Red = Trap. You can try to disarm the trap with your skill or use an anti-trap item on the trap to disarm it. Usually if you fail to disarm the trap a few time with your skill, the trap will go off and you will take the punishment from the trap.


 * Purple = Summoning Device. You can use this device to keep summoning monsters to fight. The device will usually get destroy after a few summoning, then you will get some nice loot after the device is destroy.


 * White = Special Event. Seems to give you relatively good treasures.


 * Black = Kurubisuton. Aliens. You can dump unwanted items here. Perhaps something good will happen if you dump the right item, or enough items here. (Sometimes there are trap that will give you an item that will hold one of your item slot, these item can't be trash with the normal trashcan. But you can dump that trap item here).

Increasing Odds
In general, the nodes on the roulette change color gradually as you play the game. The Normal Move has the greatest chance of adding green nodes in the roulette, which increases your chance of landing on them.

Clicking on the list of nodes on the upper right will randomly replace a node on the roulette with the node of color of your choice, but takes away one unit of time.

If you have an "Event Panel" (green) or "Treasure Panel" (yellow) By using it, you'll be guarenteed to land on a event/treasure node.

Bonus
When you do normal move, the color of the ball you landed on is added to the center counter. If you get three balls of the same color (land on the same color three times in a row via normal mode), "good" things happen. (Sometimes you fight a special monster that give you lots of experiences point, or you will get some valuable treasure).

Combat Mode
Battles are completely automatic. A dice is rolled, and the value of the dice dictates which of the six battle commands to perform for everyone (friend + foe). Arrange your commands well within your party so party members supplement each other.

The order of commands that goes first is: non-fighting commands (Grey), then assisting magic (Yellow), then weapon attack (Red), and finally magic attack (Purple).

There exist items that, by keeping it in your inventory, it'll increase the chanse of rolling a particular value. Utilize those items to your maximum benifit.