The Rance series, by Alice Soft, is one of the oldest on-goingH-Game franchises and one of the oldest series of the Eastern RPG genre (released in 1989). It is notable for having one continuous story among the main series of games (with a few If Routes and Spin-Off games on the side) despite the age of the series.Unlike most Heroic Fantasy protagonists, the main goal of Rance is to screw as many hot women as physically possible with the help of his faithful slaveSill. If he needs to slay some random Big Bad or Demon Overlord and save entire countries to do so, he'll gladly do it, since the forces of evil will probably have some hot women to rape anyways.It should be noted that despite the protagonist's dubious motivation, he actually does save and improve the lives of many of the Loads and Loads of Characters he meets along the way and is actually good for the Crapsaccharine World. In a world so full of cynicism, the idealistic (yet Ambiguious Innocent) Hedonist with a penchant for Brutal Honesty can actually be the good guy.
Affectionate Parody: Of Ys. It's painfully obvious when you take note of when each game came out, and the fact Rance even rapes the girlfriends of his world's "Red headed hero" at one point.
Rance Quest is a painfully obvious parody of Dragon Quest IX, right down to the logo.
At times, the Rance series is so affectionate, that it ends up being a straight example.
All There in the Manual: The Ranceverse is a surprisingly well-detailed place. Most of the extra details, like Rance's backstory and the world timeline, are from Alicesoft's official magazine Hanihon.
Art Evolution: In the earlier games, Rance was a bishonen who went Gonk when he had perverted thoughts (which was often). Later games improved the art and the look of the character, making his looks more accurately reflect his personality The evolution is made much more apparent when comparing Rance II to its remake.
As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Justified since the game takes place in a different universe, but some of the names can get ridiculous.
Aerith and Bob: We have names like Alex and Rick, and Japanese names like Kanami and Shizuka alongside names like Ragnarockark Super Gandhi.
Back Story: Immense!, especially when compared to contemporary Role Playing Games. Much of it can be found here. The Eternal Heroes are especially important.
Broad Strokes: Later games in the series borrow many events from the non-canon Kichikuou Rance, but the details are changed around a bit.
One example of this can be seen in the difference between Oda Nobunaga in Kichikuou Rance and him in Sengoku Rance. In Sengoku, Nobunaga gets taken over by a demon. In Kichikuou, Nobunaga is the demon.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Most of the really strong people in the series (i.e. people with at least a Level 2 in something) have some sort of odd quirk.
God and Satan Are Both Jerks: The Whale God wants the world to suffer for its amusement. The Devil King wants to take the Whale God's place by stealing the souls in the world. No matter who wins, the world will still suck.
Grandfather Clause: Every single game in this series is unvoiced for this reason, which would be quite odd if it were any other H-game series.
Also the reason why the some games have people under the age of 20 having sex.
The hyper weapon was probably a way to get around censorship at the time, but it stuck, considering how in-character it was for Rance.
Guide Dang It: Good luck trying to play without a walkthrough.
Eventually justified by her actually being from JAPAN.
Invincible Hero: An interesting variation. Rance himself is not this, but the Hero character chosen by the Guardian Hero of the World System is. He is capable of killing even the three Supreme Gods but has a Power Limiter based on the current population of the Rance World.
Jerkass Gods: The Whale God, Ludo-Rathowm, the creator of the Ranceverse and where all souls originate from, is childish and loves chaos, so he created flaws within humanity for its own amusement. The Three Supreme Gods created by the Whale God are not much better.
If the Rance World is ever united under a single leader and the Balance Between Good and Evil is broken, like in Kichikou Rance, they will destroy the current Main Character Race and demons and replace them with a new one. This is how Dragons got replaced by humans.
Long Runner: Only two years younger than Final Fantasy. And the original storyline is still on-going.
Love Can Make You Gonk: Rance turns ugly in the earlier games whenever he thinks about sex. (Later games give him a fixed appearance that's a hybrid of his two earlier looks.)
Magitek: There is a rare and highly difficult form of magic called Information Magic, wich emulates a computer. However, you still need some brainpower in the form of actual monster brains.
The Magocracy: Zeth. Slightly less so after The Fall of Zeth (aka Rance VI), but it is still mainly ruled by magic-users.
Meaningful Name: The Maginot Line in Zeth. It even has the same shape as the real-life Maginot Line◊, albeit with the invading and defending sides switched. Like its namesake, it was built to be near-impenetrable against strong invading forces, but was still taken over anyways.
Fortunately, there is an ongoing project by the Fan Translation group HGTP to translate the older Rance games to English. As of this time, Rance, Rance II, and Sengoku Rance (by Yandere Translations) have been translated.
That being said, Alice Soft is obviously aware of Sengoku Rance's popularity among the US visual novel community, if the questionaire at the end of the Rance Quest demo is any indication.
Obviously Evil: Many demons, but Kayblis takes the cake. His six claws, four horns, and monster-like body already make it obvious, but since this is a H-Game Franchise, he has eight of "that" type of appendage.
Our Dragons Are Different: The King Dragon is a cat! Before humans, dragons were the Main Character Race. They were wiped out by the Whale God once they had defeated the demons and achieved world peace since he is a Jerkass God who is bored by peace.
Our Elves Are Different: The Kalar, an all-female race of blue-haired elves. According to a memo from the chief staff, one of the members really liked elves, and another hated traditional fantasy creatures, so they reached a compromise using Insistent Terminology.
Kalar can become angels or devils when they die. One Kalar even became a (male) demon.
Precursors: Two different groups! The Round Ones were first, but they got effectively wiped out by the Demon King in about 200 years. The Dragons managed to seal their Demon King, but got hunted down by the angels since the Whale God thinks that peace is boring. While both of them still have living members, their status as the Main Character Race in the world has been taken over by humans.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: The only aversion was Lia's father, but he was forced to retire and make Lia the queen of Leazus. He and his wife even lampshaded their incompetence.
Not to mention the muskets in the Jidai Geki setting of JAPAN were actually based off of bazookas.
Shout Out: We'd be here for a very long while if we listed every single Shout Out this series has ever used. From anime to baseball to World War II, Alicesoft certainly liked their references.
Spell My Name with an S: Averted with Rance, but played straight with almost every other character.
Spin-Off: The series itself was spun-off from two games starring Kentarou and Miki called Little Princess and Little Vampire. Spin-offs of this series include the Toushin Toshi series and Galzoo Island.
Vestigial Empire: Helman, which Rance 9 will take place in. It used to be a rather large country, until its more fertile region past the mountains split from it and became Leazas. Now the people are in poverty while the Deadly Decadent Court hold on to their massive fortune.
Visual Novel: While vndb.org considers them as such and the series uses many Visual Novel Tropes, the games of this series are more like other types of Video Games than Visual Novels even if they still do have a lot of text. Many people who don't like Visual Novels like the Rance series for this reason.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: If someone becomes a Demon King, they tend to go evil and berserk to better fulfill his duty to cause chaos and entertain the Whale God. This happens to a lesser extent if one becomes a demon, but it is more of a release of inhibitions than obligatory evil.
This also happens when one tries to wield Chaos for too long. Rance is immune to his effects, however.
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