It’s Week 2 of Rance Month!

So, remember how I said the classic Rance games got remade?  For some reason, the same site I got the other Rance games on only had the remake of the second one.  And I have to say… Rance moderns up VERY well.

This time, Rance gets a job to liberate the underground town of Kathtom/Custom (it’s translated differently between 02 and 3; we’ll stick with Custom for now) from four voluptuous women.  Sounds like something right up his alley.

Custom was protected by the wizard Ragishss and his four apprentices.  However, the girls turned against their master, stole his four magic rings, killed him, and sank the town underground.  Further underground is a series of mazes created by the four girls, each girl a master of their own maze.  Monsters regularly come out of the maze and threaten the people of Custom.  So, it’s up to Rance to enter the labyrinth and teach those girls a thing or two.

Rance accepts the job from Custom’s mayor after haggling his fee up to 50,000 Gold and maybe vowing to himself to get a little extra reward later.

Rance goes around gathering information about the maze, and we meet all the lovely ladies that run the shops in Custom.

Rance also enters Ragishss’ mansion to do what he does best: bully Sil.

Turns out the mansion IS haunted by the old wizard, and he gives valuable information about the maze and the girls.

Ragishss says that the Phil Rings the girls stole exponentially increase the magic power of the bearer, so the girls are not to be underestimated.

The four apprentices are: Maria Castard, the engineer and water magic adept; Mill Yorks, the spirit summoner; Elenoa Ran, the illusionary swordswoman; and Shizuka Masou, the master of all magic.

Now it’s time to talk about the battle system.  It runs on a stamina system, so every attack requires a certain amount of stamina that can be restored in small bits by resting during battle, or completely restored by camping on the map.  Outside of attacking and using items, Rance also has the “Badmouth” ability, in which he hurls insults at his enemy.  It’s mostly useless, as there are only about 3-4 enemies in the game that are affected by it.

Rance and Sil enter the maze and quickly encounter the first girl, Maria, in her lab.  She easily defeats the two and locks up her lab.  On their way out of the maze, they encounter a wounded adventurer named Nay.

The story has a tiny branch here depending on whether or not Rance rapes her.  If Rance helps her out, she’ll return to the pub, where she asks Rance to find an earring she dropped.  In exchange for the earring, she tells Rance about the carrot key that opens the locked door in the south of the maze (also, no gratitude sex).  If Rance rapes her, you get a sex scene and Nay tells Rance about the key without having to worry about the earring.  Clearly, rape is the best course of action here.  Oh, the life lessons we learn from video games.

Anyway, the carrot key was lost in the underground lake.  It’s too difficult to find, so the two go back to buy an “evaporation fruit” to just dry up the lake.  Because that’s a thing you can just get.

Tomato sold the last Evaporation Fruit to the bartender at the pub, but the bartender lost it while cooking.  After buying one of the dishes at the pub, Sil notices the Evaporation Fruit is in it, so they bring it back to the underground lake, dry it up, find the key, and open the southern door, break the statues to open up the final door, and FINALLY do battle with Maria.

Maria says the Phil Ring won’t come off and remains defiant, so Rance resorts to the only thing that comes to mind and rapes her.  Apparently, losing her virginity breaks the spell of the ring, and it comes off.  Maria then reveals the true nature of the rings: It warps the bearers’ minds, and their true purpose is to drain the bearers of magic.  The person who wears all four rings that have drained the magic of 10 people will be granted infinite power.  And the four apprentices were to be the tenth for all four rings.  Yep, seems it was all a ploy by Ragishss to become an all-powerful magician.  Now that Maria’s snapped out of it, she joins Rance’s party just as they lose Sil to a teleportation spell.

And that’s just the first chapter.  Time to fast forward through, otherwise this thing’s going to be crazy long.

Cith’s gone missing.

But there’s no way to find her.  She eventually just pops up later.

Rance and Maria enter the second maze and meet up with Milli Yorks, the older sister of Mill Yorks.  She’s also a skilled swordsman and has a sex drive that rivals Rance’s.

Meanwhile, Sil wakes up in the third-level maze and meets Bird, an adventurer that entered the maze along with Nay and a couple others.

Together, they navigate through the maze and free some prisoners who were being tortured and raped, but they end up getting trapped in another prison by Elenoa Ran.

After a lengthy, annoying puzzle, Rance’s team navigates Mill’s maze.  But not before Rance encounters a demon that grants three wishes before reaping a soul.

Rance wishes to have sex with her, then wishes for a key item they need to proceed, and then wishes that she forget about reaping his soul.  Rance is the man.

Eventually, the group learns how to combat Mill’s Phantom Beasts.  However, Mill can summon an infinite number of Phantom Beasts.  Rance figures out Mill still cares about her sister, so he does what a hero does: he finds a way to win.

And with that, Mill is defeated and forced to submit herself to Rance’s raging superweapon.

And so, Mill loses her virginity, the Phil Ring drops, and… all her magic is lost, revealing her true form.  Turns out she’s actually much younger and used her magic to look older.  I actually took a cap, did a cheesecake edit and was about to upload it… but then I decided not to take the chance.

Now it’s on to Elenoa Ran’s maze!  Buuuut… well, Bird and Sil are already on the case.  It seems Kyouko from the Info Store went in to look for Bird, but instead fell prey to Elenoa’s illusions.

Kyouko drops a magical mirror that shows the real path to Ran, and Sil and Bird proceed for the fight.  Ran has mesmerizing eyes, so Bird tells Sil to close her eyes.  Bird also does this.  It’s a fucking stupid plan.

Bird is easily dispatched because Ran is also a skilled swordsman, and that was stupid.  Sil opens her eyes and gets mesmerized by Ran’s eyes and becomes powerless while Ran has her way with Sil.  Until Rance arrives to save the day.

Rance and Ran have a duel, and Rance easily defeats her without even entering an actual battle state.

After Ran is subdued, Bird (with his arm missing) decides to have some choice words with Rance to fight for Sil.  Rance shames him into defeat with words, saying Sil doesn’t love him, and even if she did, it was Rance who saved her, not Bird.  Rance proceeds to return to Custom and have sex with Sil for three days.  In the meantime, the seal around the city has been lifted, and three of the four apprentices have gone to work supporting the city and trying to find a way to bring the city back into the sun.

There’s only one girl left: Masou Shizuka.

Before he enters the maze one last time, Rance receives the strongest armor and weapon from Princess Lia, who pursued Rance this far to get him to marry her.

Shizuka has been draining the energy of several female villagers to power her Time Portal.  So, Rance and Sil go back in time to put an end to her madness.

I have to say, I’m now a huge fan of Shizuka, and I loved that she showed up again for Rance 3.  I would buy a figurine of her if it weren’t so expensive.

Shizuka is actually affected by Badmouth, though in this case it just lowers her attack power.

We learn that Shizuka came to the past to give her ring to her father so he won’t die against his arch-nemesis.  But so much for that.

With all the Phil Rings taken and the girls reverted to their innocent selves, all is well, and a party is held in Rance’s honor.  Cith even invites him to her room.

But it turns out Cith was possessed by Ragishss when she went missing, and she was used by him to retrieve the Phil Rings.

Rance and the girls gather up for an adventure to put an end to Ragishss plans.  In a dramatic three-stage battle, Ragishss evolves and seems about to destroy our heroes, but it seems pushing him to his limits resulted in the magician being destroyed from the inside out from power he couldn’t completely control.  The spirits of the magicians the Phil Rings drained appear before Rance, congratulating him and asking if there’s anything he desires.

Rance answers with delight: A harem ending 41-some.

41-SOME.

Seriously, this may be a remake, so it looks and handles better, but the essence of this game was made in 1990.  The simple fact that we had hentai games this good 20 years ago is remarkable enough, but that a group that makes hentai games is still around 20 years later to do a remake?  That’s mind-blowing.

Bless you, Alicesoft.  The world is a better place because of your games.