Popular games often have a thriving modding scene, and Alicesoft’s Sengoku Rance, first fan translated in 2009 and a decade later officially localized by MangaGamer in 2019, is no exception to that rule. In fact, there have been a plethora of modifications for this particular game developed in the past. Smaller modifications that change some values or add some new characters, plus other tools available to help you create your own personal journey, will be mentioned later in the article.
Of much more interest to us are the mods that add a huge wealth of content completely changing the experience of the original. Here it is important to preface that if you are concerned with upholding the authorial intent behind how the game was supposed to be experienced, you better not try any of these mods – as they are not designed for beginners or people experiencing the game for the first time. Instead, they are made to shake up the formula, offer additional challenges, and supply non-canon storylines/scenes to entice veterans. One of them even introduces additional game modes like Multiplayer to the game.
During our research on this topic, we came across three big Sengoku Rance extension mods, one of the three even officially condoned by Alicesoft and TADA, the director of the series. These are the DARKNESSHERO Rance Mod, The Ludo-Rathown Continent Version, and the Unofficial Expansion Mod. The impetus to write this article stemmed from us coming across the latter’s release on VNDB which was widely overlooked by other visual-novel-related news source outlets thus far.
Story
In the far east nation of Nippon, a plethora of feudal lords are fighting for supremacy in the 4th Sengoku Era. After doing immeasurable damage on the Continent, the brute known as Rance traveled with his slave, Sill, to the island country.
For a hot spring vacation, you ask?
Wrong. While they’ll go to some hot springs, Rance’s goal is to bang all of Nippon’s beautiful princesses, samurai, miko, ninjas, village girls, and more. In particular, he wants Kouhime of the prominent Oda Clan.
When Rance becomes the ruler of one of the feudal states, he charges head first toward uniting Nippon!
MangaGamer Website
I: The DARKNESSHERO Rance Mod
Firstly, we want to introduce you to the DARKNESSHERO Rance Mod (short: DHR). This modification was created by known /haniho/ (the 4chan/vg/-related Alicesoft media thread) community member toufu guy (pron: toughguy) who was also partly responsible for the programming and beta-testing work for the official localizations, and Steve [Monster]. This patch was the first one released all the way back in April/May 2017 and there is a website detailing everything you need to know about it.
There is also mention of another mod in the “Other Projects” section, but it seems to be on hiatus for the time being.
Original Thread (archive)
Website
What is this mod?
The version of the mod used here is Potat’s DHR Mod.
DARKNESSHERO Rance is a total overhaul of Sengoku Rance to create a new and unique experience with the materials provided by the base game. This mod offers a wide range of new mechanics and quality of life changes, which are listed below.
For more information on units that can be recruited from the ronin pool, units that appear in each faction, new challenge battles and edits made to existing challenge battles check the Factions and Extra pages.
For more information on the current and prior versions of the DARKNESSHERO Rance mod a changelog can be viewed here.
https://www.darknessherorance.com/about/about.html
An alternative version by Potat that’s not merged with the main branch, can be found on the Hanny Cult Discord.
Features
- New Map based on Kichikuou Rance
- Recruitment of Units from various Alicesoft properties
- Local Multiplayer with 18 Players
- New- and reworked challenge battles
- New events that necessitate having certain units beforehand
Example Video
II: Tsuchimod (Unofficial Expansion)
The chronologically second mod is actually the one that this article was supposed to center around. From inside the community, it was given the name Tsuchimod (because of its creator TsuchiNoKao). Tsuchimod had its first alpha release around 2020-2021 and kept progressing since. The current version at the time of writing is v0.4.5, which already boasts a massive changelog that will give the player an entirely different experience from the original. There are also brand new fan-made story additions, of which some might be seen as visualizations of scenes that were never shown before explicitly.
What is this mod?
Features
III: Sengoku Rance MOD Ludo-Rathowm Continent
The third mod is a rather recent project that was released on the 15th of December 2022. It’s known as the Sengoku Rance MOD Ludo-Rathowm Continent (Ｍｏｄ．戦国ランス－ルドラサウム大陸版－) and this one is a special case as it is a semi-condoned mod that is available for download on the hannylaboratory website, the home blog of Rance series director TADA. Apparently, this mod was created by a Japanese native (Pokkechan) who out of respect for how much Japanese devs loathe modding activity, sent the project exclusively to TADA for him to enjoy. (Here one must add that TADA himself releases patches for the games that introduce QoL features and reduce grinding among other things.) TADA then went to Alicesoft to get permission for the existence of the mod and has since offered it for download on his blog. Such a happy ending!
This modification
There is a small caveat though, there’s no English version of the patch in the works or released yet.
Example Video
IV: Sengoku Rance Conquest
The last fan project we came across is the Sengoku Rance Remaster Project which is spearheaded by a guy called Metagawa. It was first launched on the 31st of January 2023 on Twitter. At the beginning of the project, progress came fast, but abruptly updates stopped on the 22nd of February, 2023 stating that their real-life work situation keeps them too busy. Metagawa is active and can be contacted on Discord, so there’s hope this project will continue.
Features
- 16:9 Aspect Ratio update, 1080p graphics upscaling, toggleable,
- Quality of Life features of unnamed nature,
- Streamer-friendly due to collaboration with [Monster]’s SFW-Patch
Honorable Mentions
Lastly, let’s list a few patches and projects that community members have created:
SparrowMod (Mod for Kichikuou Rance, ask on the Hanny Cult Discord)
Tutorial how to add things to your Game
Classic Names Patch
RottenBlock’s Patches
Original Takajun fan translation
R10 Mod-System
Acknowledgments
The writer of this post, Hata, isn’t a real Rance-head, so special thanks go out to the Hanny Cult Discord members who helped with the research for this post:
Lemonov (For creating the VNDB entry that sparked this article)
Joacho, Beneblade, Niwa Nagahide (Answering all questions.)
Toufu Guy, [Monster], TsuchiNoKao, Pokkechan, Metagawa (Main Mod Creators)
JackSparrow, Potat, nunuhara (Smaller Mod Creators)
Takajun (Creating the western scene)
