Getting ahead of the game

Since Fate/stay night's coverage ended up being so close to the wire (I was still finishing off Heaven's Feel right up until the end of the month!) I decided to get started on next month's games nice and early so I'd be able to write about them in plenty of time. (This is also why I chose the Ridge Racer series for this month's coverage — aside from the fact I love it, it's also rather less time-consuming to revise, research and write about!)

As I've noted a couple of times previously, I decided to cover MangaGamer's recent(ish) release of Rance 5D and Rance VI next month. Rance is a series that I have previously only had a passing familiarity with. I never played any of the old Japanese versions or fan translations, and my only real contact with it was with a friend I used to podcast with mentioning Sengoku Rance a few years back, and him having a lot of very positive things to say about it.

I'll delve a bit more into what Rance is all about next month for those who are unfamiliar with it, but suffice to say for now that it's a particularly interesting series to examine because it's actually one of the longest-running series of PC games out there, especially from Japanese developers. Beginning in 1989 on NEC's PC-98 platform and later moving to Windows-based systems, Rance is nearly as old as Square's venerable Final Fantasy series, and has seen as much if not more "reinvention" over the years, taking in adventure games with RPG elements, dungeon crawlers, top-down RPGs, grand strategy games and even installments that defy easy description such as Rance 5D.

Rance is noteworthy for having a protagonist who defies pretty much every JRPG hero convention there is. He's selfish, arrogant, generally only in things for his own benefit (or at least he takes great pains to put that impression across) and rather prone to treating people around him in a less than gentlemanly manner, even going so far as to sexually assault enemies and allies alike should the opportunity arise — but he also steps up to the plate when needed, and will use his considerable strength for others' benefit if there's something in it for him. In D&D terms he's hovering somewhere around the Chaotic Neutral mark; he certainly does things that are indisputably "evil", but likewise it's clear that there's good in him too. Sometimes.

In other words, he's a deeply fascinating character, even if he is absolutely morally repugnant on paper. (In practice, I must confess he and the characters around him are written with such wit that it's hard to truly dislike him even as he gets up to his most questionable activities.) As such, I'm greatly looking forward to exploring him and his games in detail.

I already beat Rance 5D and was so struck with how much I enjoyed the experience that I've already composed my article on the subject for next month. Now I'm delving into the much more substantial Rance VI and having a great time with it. I was expecting what you often get with Japanese PC games, which was a visual novel with some lightweight RPG elements, but no; this is a full-on, super-deep dungeon-crawling RPG with really interesting and creative mechanics, great characters, cool level design and some badass music.

I can't wait to share my thoughts with you in more detail — and I will also most certainly be preordering both Sengoku Rance and Rance Quest Magnum when MangaGamer make them available!