It’s Wednesday, and you know what that means!

Guess what else it is?  It’s the first week of RANCE MONTH!

This week, we’re taking a look at the game that started it all: Rance -The Quest For Hikari-

Rance – The Quest For Hikari- was made by AliceSoft for the MSX and Sharp X68000, and while it’s far from the earliest eroge (by about 7 years), it is one of the most influential, kicking off a franchise that is still relevant today.

Rance follows a mercenary warrior named, well, Rance, and his slave magician, Sill Plain.  Everything you need to know about these two is kinda buried in the manual, which is kinda how games rolled back then.  Basically, Sill was a noble that somehow got sold into slavery.  He was bought by Rance, and now… she’s still serving Rance.  As for Rance himself… there’s not much to say.  He’s strong, he’s a pervert, he’s lazy, he’s irresponsible, and he’s quite possibly the most lovable rapist ever.

We start the game out with good old fashioned nudity!  We see a red-haired girl taking a shower, then a ninja breaks in and kidnaps her.  In the prologue, we have Rance accepting a job to find and recover the girl, Hikari, for a prize of 20,000 gold.

Rance and Sill go to Nodd, the capital city of Leazas, to investigate.  Sill goes undercover in Paris College, while Rance… mostly wanders around and hits the pub.  He does learn that Hikari is the latest in a long string of serial kidnappings of young girls though.

The first thing you probably want to do is visit Sill in the college and hit her up for money.  You can also rape her any time you want; since she’s Rance’s slave, she has no choice.  Interestingly, the actions you perform while raping her can grant (or revoke from) Rance a magic spell.  He can only have one spell active at a time, and hey, he’s got MP, so why not?  His only other options are to use items and attack.  Honestly, all Rance really needs is to attack, but his health eventually does get low.  Might as well pick up the healing spell.

Speaking of battle, it’s simplistic, the art is crude, and it makes grinding a breeze.  It’s perfect for this game.

The field map is the best place to grind because at the very top of the menu is an option to “look for monsters,” which automatically starts a battle.  In battle, the top option is “Attack.”  All you need to do is keep clicking the same spot to kill enemies, then stop when health gets too low.  Once Zone 1 enemies fall to one hit, move on to Zone 2, then move on to Zone 3 ASAP because Hannys can randomly pull off a spell that ignores defense and can oneshot Rance at low levels.

Once you build up some money, you can get get items and equipment from the nice shop girls you mostly can’t have sex with.  Which is a shame because I love Milly, the creepy Weapon Shop girl.  There is a sidequest to have sex with the Item Shop girl though.

Speaking of buying things, there is no confirmation.  As soon as you click on an item name in the Buy menu, you buy it.  Hilariously, if you select “Buy,” then “Just Looking,” it results in you purchasing an item called “Just Looking.”

By the way, one of the charms of this game is how you can interact with everything in an inconsistent manner.  You almost never get every option available, but you can choose to Talk, Ask, Take, and Assault things, among other options, and you often have the ability to use those options with random-ass things in the room, often resulting in Rance commenting on how stupid he looks attempting to perform the action.  For example: Take the Floor results in Rance attempting to pick up the floor like a dumbass.

After wandering around, learning practically nothing and triggering an event where you may or may not find a lost wallet for a girl, Rance learns that the daughter of the bartender at the pub was kidnapped by thieves.  After getting the bartender to agree to give him a Castle Pass as a reward, Rance goes to their hideout… after first unlocking the Info Shop and paying to find out where the hideout is and how to enter the front door… which is more than a little silly.  There is a giant brain attached to a magical computer, and there is an operator that sells information from it.

Inside the Thieves’ Lair, there is a man in a horrific floor trap (he seems to be trapped in it like a conscious Han Solo in carbonite deal).  Since there is no reward for saving him, Rance ignores him.

There’s a girl about to be raped by thieves and Rance can choose to save her or rape her (and get a game over).  Across from her room is a female thief that Rance has to answer three questions to rape.

In the deepest part of the lair is the pub girl.  Rance has to fight the bandit leader to save her… and it doesn’t really take much more effort than other monsters.  It’s possible to actually rape her with no consequences (and that’s exactly what Rance does in the OVA).

Hikari isn’t in the lair, but Rance at least gets the Castle Pass for his efforts.  Now he can enter the castle and investigate.

Rance’s investigation proves to be absurdly roundabout and involves finding a maid stealing bread and both raping her and not raping her (raping her is automatic; return after and ask about the arena champion to learn how to beat her, and she’ll give you a key to the dungeon if you leave without raping her).

Use the dungeon key to enter the dungeon and learn that a prisoner there is named Yuki Deru.  It seems she attempted to kill the princess, but she seems pretty harmless.

Go back to the casino and talk to the dealer, who’s named Aki Deru.  Rance learns the two are sisters, and Aki gives him a pendant.  Give the pendant to Yuki, and Yuki gives him a straw.  Give the straw to the cleaning maid in one of the castle rooms and she’ll give Rance a mandarin.  The mandarin is useless for now.

Go to the arena and Yuran Illusion will challenge you to a fight.  Rance turns her down until he negotiates that she become his woman if he wins.  He goes to the King and receives a coupon to participate in the arena, then goes to fight in the tournament, easily beating everyone and having sex with Yuran.  After leaving, he meets Maris, the assistant to Princess Lia.

Lia offers to give information about Hikari in exchange for entering the haunted mansion and recovering a ring.  But the mansion is locked.  In order to unlock it, he goes to the Info Store and gives the operator… the mandarin from earlier.  Yeah.

The mood shifts dramatically upon entering the mansion, starting with the depressing music.  A shitload of wandering around and examining follows.  Long story short, Rance sees a ghost girl and learns that she’s been held in the mansion and tortured.   Her torturer was Princess Lia, who is behind the serial kidnappings at Paris College.  She offers Rance the ring if he takes revenge on Lia.

Meanwhile, Sill has been captured as Lia’s next victim.

Rance confronts Lia, who reveals she has Hikari.  She won’t give her up and demands Rance give her the ring if he wants to live.  Rance just says screw it and tries to take her back by force, but a ninja stops him.  Sill saves Rance from the ninja (it seems she escaped quite easily).  Sill stays behind to look after Hikari, and Rance pursues Lia.

Rance is stopped by the ninja again, but she is easily overpowered and interrogated.

After some torture, the ninja tells Rance that Lia escaped via a hidden passage.  Rance pursues and is stopped by Maris, who distracts him with sexy (and also attempts to get him sympathetic towards Lia with a sob story).

Maris tries the old dagger in the back while getting it on trick, but Rance is too smart for that (surprisingly) and gets her to give up where Lia is.

BTW, the translation for this program refers to Lia as a Queen even though she’s only a princess, and her parents (the King and Queen) are both alive and supporting characters.

Rance corners her and punishes her in the only way Rance knows.

Presumably, Rance fucks her so hard, she becomes a good person.

So, all is well in the country of Leazas, and Rance gets his 20,000 Gold reward.  What does he do with that reward?

However, Rance and Sill are forced to leave his riches behind when he receives a letter from Lia saying she’s coming to marry him.

And that’s Rance 1.  Amazing for its time and still highly amusing now.  The graphics are a little dated, but the music is amazing and catchy.  Every track in this first game is reused in later games because they’re practically iconic and just that damned good.  An updated remake was made in 2011, and I definitely look forward to playing that someday.  There’s also an OVA based on this game currently being produced.  I’ve watched the first episode, which pretty much ends with the pub girl being raped & rescued, and I’m looking forward to the rest.  Good gawd do I want a Milly H scene.  I really, desperately, want one.  But I will settle for Maris & Lia.