Rance Series

[tppcrpg]

Please elaborate.

SPOILERS for just about the entire game seriously don't read this if you ever want to play TT2.

Spoiler

The main character (Cid) isn't a Rance-like dude, basically he's pretty Beta nice guy and he wants to marry the daughter of a fighting gym dojo, but ol girlfriend's dad isn't going to give up his daughter to a pussy so he makes a condition: win the generic RPG tournament and he'll prove that he's strong enough.

So dad isn't going to send his daughter in as Cid's collateral, after all, he doesn't want his daughter to get banged by the 1st fat ugly jerk Cid loses to. Instead his aunt goes with him as collateral and his girlfriend goes with another dude that's the current strongest guy at the gym.

Whenever you win a fight, you get the choice of whether to just let the collateral girls go and... uh, be a Rance-like gentlemen. Guess which choice will bite you in the ass later!

Of course this is an RPG so you know the main character is going to win and what a concidence, it turns out the guy who's entering with his girlfriend is the last guy he has to beat! After that they have sex and they're all like "ok, time to go home and get married, you go first but I got to collect the prize money"

And here is the big plot twist of the game: As it turns out, the owner of the tournament has a ulterior motive for holding the tournament. Every "winner" gets poisoned with an addictive drug by her and requires constant supply and raping of innocent victims or they'll go berserk and die. The girl that enters with the winner is held hostage and used for that purpose, as logic dictates that only someone who really trusts the guy would be willing to risk themselves to be entered as collateral that way and thus make good hostages. The owner sends the "winners" off to fight down in a deep dungeon to free her sealed demon boyfriend (or something like that), if they die, tough luck, new suckers every year. Once again there are a bunch of moral choices on whether you should just give in to your urges or try your best to fight it as you're forced into this shitty situation.

As another plot twist, eventually you play as Cid's girlfriend, who isn't stupid and realized that he didn't decide to disappear off the planet for fun. She manages to defeat the villianess's plan but Cid is still poisoned. This is where the moral choices that you made earlier in the game kicks in. If you're pure of heart throughout the game he manages to purge the poison from himself with the help of his girlfriend. Otherwise get ready for a bad ending.

So they go home and get married and the dojo people are like "AH HA, actually it was my plan to turn you from a beta wuss into a super strong dude after all! Except for the whole kidnap and hostage part, that was unintentional."

 

[laclongquan]

It is a twist if you are expecting a Rance game, which I am. That simply half-deflate my desire to try it.

 

[TigerKnee]

Eh, Alicesoft makes tons of things other than Rance, back in the days I would say their Rance games was the outlier for them, not the norm really.

I guess in the year 2013 companies are just defined by their most popular franchise.

edit: TT2's considered a classic from the company, although I just spoiled the whole thing so whee.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

crpgaddict just reviewed Rance 1... and hated it more than anything he's ever played before, it seems: http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2013/07/game-104-rance-quest-for-hikari-1989.html

In all fairness, he's been on a tear completing CRPGs lately, and the early Rance games aren't very good except to build upon the game lore. Too bad he's turned off on the whole series, though, because I still think Sengoku Rance is one of the best CRPGs I ever played.

CRPGAddict also hopes something bad happens to Rance sometime in the series so he understands the pain he caused...

 

[TheEntitledOne]

What a load of bullshit.

 

[Average Manatee]

Meh, Rance 1 is a pretty bad game.

 

[Grinolf]

In all fairness, he's been on a tear completing CRPGs lately, and the early Rance games aren't very good except to build upon the game lore.

In all fairness, he use as main example of rape one of the very few consensual relationship in whole series, which is very hilarious. His rant about why its ok be evil in some games but not ok in another have several logical mistakes. And claim, that you need to approve rape in order to enjoy series is also false.
Yes, Rance games very specific and many people will not enjoy it. Its pretty normal. Personally, I doubted, that I will enjoy it, when I started it, because I knew that it consist of some of the most disgusting things existing in modern Japan.
But it don't justify stupid claims or not understanding subject you write long article about.

because I still think Sengoku Rance is one of the best CRPGs I ever played.

What? Yes, SR is good game. But it is good strategy game, not RPG.

 

[TheEntitledOne]

Thing is that rance games are actually quite tame when it comes to Rance's sexual exploits (and good thing he avoids the loli abominations), you need to go to the bad guys to see the really vile stuff.

"The game tries to have it both ways, with Rance expressing horror at the actions of the queen. But since he does so much worse in the course of solving the quest, we're left with the impression that he's just horrified at the thought of lesbianism."

The actions of the queen include sexually torturing girls in her basement until she gets bored of them. Several of them have dissapeared permanently, and there is a ghost around. Yet Rance is way worse.

The justification that the author uses for why some rape lite in this games is so much worse than all the genocide you can do in other games is also retarded as fuck. Let's overanalyze the hell out of it, why not! Let's ignore all the rapefanfic written by women (The writing of the Rance games was greatly made by a woman too, no surprises, specially on the part of Rance&Sill relationship).
If only he blamed the white western neckbearded patriarchy! (Lesi's blog at least is fun).

Rance 1 is first and foremost a barebones (most of the content is lulzy placeholder made in a few months with a small team) parody of the regular jRPG with H on it. Not something intended to be remotely serious (Comedy rape and all that).
If it wasn't a parody the porn would be consensual. Sill wouldn't be a slave neither. And the MC would be the Avatar of the eight virtues and what not. And the gameplay would be mostly identical. (Except for the Assault option, but unlike what the author tries to tell you, you always have that option, and not only when dealing with the scantily female NPC, and most of the time the option only gives lulzy text, but let's not ask actual facts).

If this game is the vilest thing this guys has seen I envy him. When ITZ comes and the macheterapegangs knock on his door he will know about vile.

 

[TheEntitledOne]

Leaving decline and inanity aside, Rance IV is 40% translated (around 10% this week)

 

[SCO]

How does it feel to have a putrid moral character?

 

[Grinolf]

How does it feel to have a putrid moral character?

Sorry, I have very limited english skills, so I don't understand, was it simple curiosity or try to moralize. But I consider all possibilities.
These games not require from the player to sympathize, associate or approve main character. And that character pretty charismatic and have solid personality.
So it is not that different from any game with good villain, which you can like. Except now you play that villain and he have a role of occasional hero in the stories, when most (all?) games have much more evil characters as antagonists.

 

[TigerKnee]

I think (hope) he was being sarcastic.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Thing is that rance games are actually quite tame when it comes to Rance's sexual exploits (and good thing he avoids the loli abominations), you need to go to the bad guys to see the really vile stuff.

"The game tries to have it both ways, with Rance expressing horror at the actions of the queen. But since he does so much worse in the course of solving the quest, we're left with the impression that he's just horrified at the thought of lesbianism."

The actions of the queen include sexually torturing girls in her basement until she gets bored of them. Several of them have dissapeared permanently, and there is a ghost around. Yet Rance is way worse.

The justification that the author uses for why some rape lite in this games is so much worse than all the genocide you can do in other games is also retarded as fuck. Let's overanalyze the hell out of it, why not! Let's ignore all the rapefanfic written by women (The writing of the Rance games was greatly made by a woman too, no surprises, specially on the part of Rance&Sill relationship).
If only he blamed the white western neckbearded patriarchy! (Lesi's blog at least is fun).

Rance 1 is first and foremost a barebones (most of the content is lulzy placeholder made in a few months with a small team) parody of the regular jRPG with H on it. Not something intended to be remotely serious (Comedy rape and all that).
If it wasn't a parody the porn would be consensual. Sill wouldn't be a slave neither. And the MC would be the Avatar of the eight virtues and what not. And the gameplay would be mostly identical. (Except for the Assault option, but unlike what the author tries to tell you, you always have that option, and not only when dealing with the scantily female NPC, and most of the time the option only gives lulzy text, but let's not ask actual facts).

If this game is the vilest thing this guys has seen I envy him. When ITZ comes and the macheterapegangs knock on his door he will know about vile.

The whole contrast between Rance and his brand of tasteful rape and the kind of rape all the bad guys do is actually a pretty strong point in Sengoku Rance.

How does it feel to have a putrid moral character?

Sorry, I have very limited english skills, so I don't understand, was it simple curiosity or try to moralize. But I consider all possibilities.
These games not require from the player to sympathize, associate or approve main character. And that character pretty charismatic and have solid personality.
So it is not that different from any game with good villain, which you can like. Except now you play that villain and he have a role of occasional hero in the stories, when most (all?) games have much more evil characters as antagonists.

Rance isn't really even that evil to begin with. He's just selfish, conniving and mischievous majority of the time. I don't remember him coming across as genuinely malicious at any time in the numerous LPs we've had. And you know, he can be a bit of a dork too:

 

[TigerKnee]

Rance in Sengoku is ridiculously mellow compared to his character portrayal in earlier games, where he's frankly quite a huge douche. The nuance that makes him likable just isn't there in the earlier games if you simply played it stand alone with no context at all.

People seem to put a very high value on rape being unredeemably evil though, while ignoring the amount of armed robbery and murder you commit in just about every RPG.

 

[Tehdagah]

How does it feel to have a putrid moral character?

Fun as hell.

 

[abnaxus]

crpgaddict just reviewed Rance 1... and hated it more than anything he's ever played before, it seems: http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2013/07/game-104-rance-quest-for-hikari-1989.html

Granted, I haven't visited that blog in ages, but I seemed to remember he made it a rule not to play Wapanese stuff?

 

[TigerKnee]

He had a change of mind recently at exactly the wrong time.

Plus he actually already played a couple of localized JRPGs without knowing them: Ys and Sorcerian by Falcom. Granted, those aren't exactly "traditional" JRPGs per say...

 

[tppcrpg]

Rance in Sengoku is ridiculously mellow compared to his character portrayal in earlier games, where he's frankly quite a huge douche.

How early are you talking about? Yes, in the first two he was quite a douche but I found him quite funny in III. To be fair crpgaddict is right about the first game being bad it only started to get good after III but all that social justice annoys me.

 

[TigerKnee]

I was talking mainly about 1 and 2 I guess.

My memory on 3 is pretty flaky, maybe I should revisit the LP, but "I'm going to ragequit the rebellion leaving your guys to your death because I didn't get sex with Shizuka!" is kind of douchey for him.

4 is the only Rance I've haven't played. No comments there.

Kichikuou is like Sengoku in which you can make a good portion of choices where Rance isn't a douche, so that's the game where I would say he starts becoming likable (in absence of knowledge from 4).

Also I guess he can still be funny WHILE being a douche, but Rance in 1 and 2 doesn't fit the criteria for me.

And yeah, the SOCIAL JUSTICE essay sucks.

 

[Grinolf]

all that social justice annoys me.

Well, question about morality of video games are very interesting in itself. But it isn't something, that person can pull, after playing some 20 years old hentai game and having the bout of graphorrhea. It is very fast road to look stupid. There isn't any clear borderline of acceptable now and it is unlikely, that they will be exist in near future. So such simple answers as in that article are very funny. Personally, I wouldn't want to take this subject and I feel myself pretty comfortable in all that moral questions.

 

[abnaxus]

The comparison with Timur is interesting, considering

 

[TigerKnee]

So in a huge concidence, Alicesoft is going to remake Rance 1.

Announcement: http://blog.alicesoft.com/archives/3832954.html

Official Site: http://www.alicesoft.com/rance01/ (You'll need a Proxy for this)

It'll be released on 9/27/2013 in case you couldn't get enough Rance before Rance 9. Maybe it'll be translated fast too considering it's a remake.

 

[Average Manatee]

Someone tell crpgaddict to email Alicesoft his suggestions for the remake.

 

[TheEntitledOne]

LOL.

TADA also said he wanted to reremake Rance 02

Seems to be quite advanced too (01), nice surprise.

 

[TheEntitledOne]

Character redesign.

KAWAII!!!


New interface:

And the new combat seems to be some card based experiment.

Seems like the made many gameplay changes.


I'm hyped. Even if it's probably a very short game.