Rance 2: 反逆の少女達！
Comments (17) Ah, that Rance…
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For those of you who have tried out Alice 2010 and played Rance 2, I applaud you, because I know what you’re playing it for, and that is good, clean, wholesome fun! Okay well it’s definitely neither CLEAN or WHOLESOME, but it is definitely goddamn fun.
One thing that’s definitely going to come as a shock for people who have played Sengoku Rance is the gameplay, which is in standard adventure RPG back in the days. It’s something that’s not completely new or bizarre to some people, but to others, it might take some getting used to. You go around and investigate or talk to characters via options, and then roam around dungeons navigating Rance (or Sill, depending on how far you are in the game) while fighting off monsters, checking every nook and cranny for items, and seeing what you have to do in order to fulfill a requirement to let the story progress.
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The story behind Rance 2 is, according to the AliceSoft wikia entry on the game, as follows:
Ten years ago in the town of Custard four young girls were appointed as disciples to old mage Ragithis. They were to be raised as mages and then to work as town’s guardians. But after the ten years of training due to unknown reason girls rebelled against Ragithis and killed him. During the harsh magic battle a whole town were entombed in the underground and a barrier spell was put on town preventing everyone from going out.
This is when Rance appears with Sill on his side, and taking a job of defeating magician maidens and saving the town. But after some research he finds out that actual evil guy was Ragithis himself, who put four magical rings on four maidens. That rings are giving a great boost of magical power to it’s bearers, but aslo able to steal magic power from virgin sorceresses and after collecting magic power of 40 maidens anyone could use these rings to obtain unlimited power. The leader of girls, Masou Shizuka, figured out Ragithis’s plan and rebelled against him but it was too late – cursed rings could not be removed and the curse started to dive maidens crazy. Now they are sheltered in the labirinth beneath the town abducting young girls from the town and killing everyone who tried to go into the labirinth and stop them. It seems that the only way to release them from the curse of the rings is to steal a virginity from them, and the only man up to this job is Rance.
Got that? Good. Now let me tell you firsthand that while a background story’s good in setting up events and story progressions, trust me when I say that you won’t have time to bother caring with the story. In my case, I was too busy laughing my ass off at the antics of both Rance and the other characters, as well as the absurdity and sheer hilarity of some of the events, that I was progressing the story not because I wanted to see how the plot would unfold but because of the need to see more of Rance and company’s crazy antics. AND WHAT CRAZY ANTICS THEY ARE.
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And they manage to make it hilarious while at the same time have the story retain some degree of weight! Reminds me of Chouko Sennin Haruka, only in that title, I firmly believe that AliceSoft didn’t manage to come up with the right mix of humor and seriousness (if you’re going down the Lawful routes that is, because let’s the face it, the Chaotic routes are all about torture and embarrassment for the heroines) unlike what you’ll find in Rance 2.
Dungeon exploration is pretty much composed of “roam around until you get stuck at something”, then “look for something” or “talk to everyone” in order to move forward, repeated ad infinitum. It’s not very complex, and most often than not you’ll be able to find the way forward through sheer, simple and multiple! trial and error. For the combat system, you can choose to either do a simple attack, use Rance’s hissatsu attack which consumes much more SP, badmouth the enemy (LOL), rest a bit, or run away. Once you get to controlling Sill, the first option will then lead to you picking which spell of hers to use, with the physical attack option set as the second option. You level up by calling the Level Goddess, who will boost your level depending on how much EXP points you have. For people who have played Toushin Toushi 3, it’s pretty much the same thing.
The game’s not as long as you might think, which might be why AliceSoft included it as part of a fandisc package. You can finish it in a few hours, or in one day, depending on how grindtastically happy you are. Despite that, the game’s pacing is set like a rollercoaster ride, only I’d equate the lull periods in the ride akin to the grinding that you would be investing in, and the peak periods with just about everything else that happens in game. Regarding the plot, most of the mysteries are revealed as you liberate the four witches from their rings’ influences, one by one, with a giant (though somewhat expected) plot twist at the very end of the game. I mean come on, you didn’t REALLY expect the whole thing to be over THAT easily, did you? Not when all the pieces in the puzzle were all conveniently set in place!
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Other things to note? Let’s see…the music sounds like your standard fare RPG music from bygone SNES days, which I found nostalgic but not noteworthy, and voice acting is…hahaha. What voice acting?
And to think I checked this out on a whim…then ended up laughing my ass off so hard at the beginning that I ended up getting hooked just to see what outrageous events comes next!
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And the end of it all, I’d say it was DAMN WELL WORTH IT. Now get to work and start playing Rance 2 you guys! Go go go! MUCH ABSURDITY AND AMOUR AWAITS!
PS. The trailer for the upcoming third “Dai” title is FREAKING AWESOME.
DAITEIKOKU. IN SPACE! Holy shit, AliceSoft must be so happy, finally an opportunity to cram as much Gundam references and homages as they can without even trying!
Themocracy