Franchise/Rance (P5 only)

This is a general thread for the franchise. Sengoku Rance, the seventh game (or eighth, if you count a What If? side story), already got a pass.

Now, I've only played Sengoku, which is why I opened this thread. The general impression I've got is that while the rest are different gameplay genres, they're still in the mold of "Lots of deep and engaging gameplay and story + sex." Is that wrong?

I feel that if it has a story/gameplay that we can describe, it should be acceptable given the lack of pedophiliac materials. Quality aside.

Past that, I feel viewer discretion is enough. It doesn't take someone with a collage degree to find out that the game is weird as hell, and that the premise is a little messed up. Ultimately, viewer discretion is viewer discretion in this scenario.

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(Re-)pasting the crux of what I brought up in the ABC thread.

A critical question is whether or not Fast Eddie and company believe that this site should include coverage of an eroge series in which the protagonist is given the option to perpetrate rape and has rape rather prominently in his back-story? If protagonist-initiated rape is deemed to merit the "special kind of evil" label commonly applied to rape then cutting is almost certainly in order. Personally, I would elect to torch the entire Rance series with extreme prejudice.

The trope page doesn't really do the series any favors, either. "The Epic: The Rance Series is essentially one long heroic epic about rape."

edited 13th Jun '12 11:57:13 PM by ForlornDreamer

Speaking as an outside observer it looks like that line is using "epic" more along its original meaning rather than the modern interpretation.

edited 14th Jun '12 12:04:11 AM by Spirit

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While some of fight scene mechanics look interesting from a technical perspective, the game basically revolves around rape.

Really.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

I remember someone posting a play-through of what I think was Rance 2 earlier in a Rance-discussion. From what I could tell from the play-through, the whole story and gameplay for that one was all about raping and sometimes having consensual sex with girls along the way (although, there were some scenes that were merely Ecchi, I suppose).

The main plot, to note, was that three magical rings had been taken by three girls and turned them evil. The only way of retrieving said rings was to defeat the girls in battle and then rape them to relieve them of their virginity, as the evil powers only worked on virgins. Some of the sex-scenes were optional, if I understood the LPer correctly, but others were mandatory events to progress the game.

While good gameplay and well-done plot may be a good reason to keep an Eroge*

VN, I feel that becomes moot in the face of the plot being centred around porn and rape in particular. I'm hesitant to judge a whole series based on just the knowledge I have of the series, but I think the content in some warrants a closer look into this series.

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Though "Rance rapes everyone" certainly isn't making me like the series, I don't think it's a disqualifier unless it's rape PORN and not just rape.

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Discar: I think you basically have it right. Rance Quest is a direct sequel to Sengoku Rance and is thus probably just like it. I've actually played maybe a third of Rance 2 and I can say that the gameplay was a little dated but still probably the point of actually owning the game. The story was a little less there than Sengoku Rance as well, but then I seem to remember there was also less sex in the parts I actually played. Overall, I'd say to give both of those two games a pass and to allow Rance to pass as well with the same kind of conditions that Sengoku Rance had involving cleanup and monitoring.

I'll be honest: I was on the fence about Sengoku Rance already, and was under the impression that it was a side-thing that wasn't really representative of the main franchise.

However, if I was mistaken and the entire series of games revolves around these kinds of porn sequences, I'm inclined to vote to cut as well as reversing my decision on Sengoku. If the series is going to try this hard to push me off the fence, I don't see a reason to fight it unless some compelling reason for keeping it is brought forth.

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There was a Let's Play of Rance 2 linked in the last thread. I wondered how old the catgirl mooks were.

If someone could repost that here so that we've got the information in one thread, I would appreciate it.

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Rance very specifically isn't a pedophile. It's pretty much the one line he won't cross. (in Sengoku Rance as much as expressing interest in that regard gives you a Non-Standard Game Over)

Still, it is a game centered on rape. (and not as a plot element but as an *objective*) it's treated with very, very little seriousness (which... I'm not sure if it makes it better or worse) but it's still the main point. I say burn it. (even though it's a pretty darn addictive, and hard, game mechanics-wise)

"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent

The series is very weird when it comes to rape. All the good guys are distressed over Rance's actions, and all of the bad guy rapists are treated as Complete Monsters and usually get killed by Rance. Rape as Comedy When The Protagonist Does It?

Anyway, again, the question isn't whether or not the game glorifies rape. That's not on the list. It's whether it's pedo-pandering (very explicitly not) or porn (hard to say).

So, to those who have played other games in the franchise: Do they do the same thing as Sengoku, where the sex scenes are played for laughs?

here's a Rance 2 let's play It has a lot of images. The most NSFW ones are linked, but to be safe, don't read this at work.

Discar: Of the few that I remember from Rance 2, yeah, it wasn't treated seriously. For instance, the option to molest a girl you find in the dungeon until she gives you information or treating her injuries and letting her go.

I think the extreme content of these Rance games is supposed to titillate the viewer, thus making it pornography. And this wiki is not supposed to have pornography on it.

Not "pornography" but "nothing but pornography" to be exact.

But if the rape is there for titillation, then it probably goes.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

We're not cutting just anything meant to titillate. Any visual novel that contains a sex scene would go if that was the point. We're getting rid of stuff that has too much of that kind of thing. Whether or not Rance has too much is a matter for the P5 to decide.

That's a good point.

I don't know if this is with every Rance title, but the game(s) I've seen throw a lot of rape fetish titillation at you and when take that amount of titillation combined with the extreme fetish (rape), what you get is a pretty fucking disturbing franchise.

Hard to say without playing all the games in the series. Right now, I don't plan on playing Rance 1 (way too old to keep me interested, tbh) and I'm currently playing Rance 2, and so far I have only encountered one H-scene that is necessary to the plot to continue (Although I must say that I skipped the option to H a girl I found in the first dungeon and haven't used the option to do it with Sil).

The thing with this series is that is... veeery weird when it comes to rape, but my opinion on that is that is not supposed to be taken seriously as long as is done by Rance, and when is not done by him the standard rape drama applies. In fact, is almost impossible to find almost any H scene titillating when his theme song plays in the background.

Maybe we should play another game in the series to decide? (I'm planing to play Rance 6 when it's translated, but lord knows when that's going to be ready.)

Also when his penis is referred as his "Hyper-weapon".

"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent

So its Black Comedy Rape? Eww...

edited 14th Jun '12 8:29:15 PM by Roraborialis

Happens to be known as Walrus Jones in other circles.

...How often does it even have sex scenes in the first place? I think the focus on the rape issue would be a lot less "preaching to the choir" if they had proof that this shit were the main focus of the games.

...And yes, I know it's an eroge, that sex is a big point of these games. Still going by the standards for keeping for these sorts of games, if the other parts of the gameplay outweigh the sex by far.

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If memory serves right, the sex scenes happens almost every hour in the middle of the game (they aren't as common towards the endgame), depending on how you are playing the game (can be less if you actively seek for it, and only applies so far to Sengoku Rance and Rance II, the games I've played), but rape scenes are less when compared to the "normal" sex scenes (In Sengoku Rance it only happened with three or four characters, methinks. Can only think about Senhime, Yukihime, one of the twins and... can't remember her name xD, but basically all of them end up at least liking the character after a few events). But also take in mind that the latest games are "long", as in, easily 40-50 hours long for just the True Route.

Of course, it's been six+ months since I stopped playing it, so take it with a grain of salt

edited 14th Jun '12 9:24:01 PM by Marche90

How old do you think the women that Rance is raping look, BTW?

edited 14th Jun '12 11:25:20 PM by animeg3282