I looked it up and the character designs look nice, but not Rance nice. The new games are 3D and you walk around fighting with your armies, building cities etc to control the world. It's got the largest universe so to speak that I've seen in a visual novel and it's pretty damn hard for a character to go irrelevant.
I love Rance (no homo). It's got everything a good game needs
1) Characters! It's got Rance! MOTHERFUCKING RANCE! He's the king of all characters. He's my favorite fictional character. NOBODY beats this guy. My waifu Shinobu? Nope. That spot is for my lord and savior Rance. I would worship him as a deity if he was real.
2) Gameplay! It's got a variety of gameplaying styles from the dungeon crawler to a TRPG, it's awesome.
3) Soundtrack! Oh man, it's got some notable ones here. Like My Glorious Days or better known as the rapist song. It's a masterpiece of masterpieces.
4) Artwork! This is undoubtely the most important part about a visual novel (imo) and Rance delivers well on this. The character designs easily rival your so called 'best graphics in a VN'.
5) I probably forgot something but Rance is the epitome of it!