Rance 03 — Tester’s Corner Vol 2 – MangaGamer Staff Blog

Hi all, the name’s dubjay. It’s my first time here at the Tester’s Corner, and today I’m gonna be telling you all about Alicesoft’s Rance 03, available now on MangaGamer.com. 

First, a little bit about myself. Those of you who attend conventions might have already met me in person, as the dude tucked off in the corner with the piles of Rance-related merchandise, singing the high praises of this wonderful series to any passers-by who are willing to listen. It’s safe to say I’m a pretty big fan of the Rance series in general, and as such, when I was offered the chance to work on Rance 03, a game that was already one of my favorite entries in the series,I was over the moon. 

Now, the first question that a lot of returning fans might be asking goes something like: “Well, I already played the original version of Rance III from 1991, is there any point in playing the remake?” That question has a simple answer: You’d honestly be doing yourself a disservice not to. While the rough plot outline of 03 follows the same beats as the original version, the story and gameplay are both so massively expanded that it’s honestly difficult to even call them the same game.

Let’s start with some of the most obvious stuff. Of course, the art has been completely redone from the ground up. The game uses the same visual style as Rance 01, with the amazingly talented Gyokai returning as the lead artist. Gyokai’s art strikes a perfect balance between cute and erotic, with every character rendered in loving detail, staying faithful to the original designs while simultaneously updating them for the modern era.

This is a glow-up for the history books.

Of course, those of you who are here for the H-scenes will not be disappointed. Rance 03 has them in droves, each one featuring voice acting, and the uncensored art you’ve come to expect from a MangaGamer release. There’s a great variety of girls, scenarios, and fetishes here, so regardless of your tastes, you’ll definitely find something that you like.

We’ve got the H-scenes that’ll get you horn-y.

Speaking of updates for the modern era, the story has been modified from the original version of the game to better fit into the modern Rance series canon. Rance 03 released between Rance IX (which you can purchase here) and Rance X (coming soon) meaning that Alicesoft was able to take a bird’s-eye view of the overall series, and make sure that the events of 03 would properly fill in some of the holes and inconsistencies left over by the original version of the game. In addition, players who have caught up to the English releases will be delighted to discover all of the fun references and subtle foreshadowing to later games. 

The gameplay of Rance 03 is a “perfected” version of Rance 01’s chip-based combat and card-based navigation. As 03 uses a party system, the simultaneous action of 01 has been replaced with an ordered system of actions that encourages planning ahead to deal out damage most efficiently.The dungeons are bigger, more complex, and more dangerous than ever before, including some optional areas that will really put your skills to the test. 

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this guy before. Probably just another nobody.

If I had to pick my personal favorite addition to the remake, I’d definitely have to say it’s the voice acting. While the voice acting is a first for the series, it fits so naturally into the game that you would be forgiven for thinking it’s been a staple of the series since its inception. Every character is fully voiced, with the exception of Rance himself, who has combat voice lines. The casting choices here are perfect, with every character’s voice being exactly what you’ve likely imagined for them in other series entries. I’m particularly partial to Himekawa Airi’s performance as the ex-6th-class devil Feliss, who is understandably pretty fed up with Rance’s shenanigans for the entire runtime of the game.

Maria decided she would help us out with the testing process. How nice of her!

Now, it wouldn’t be a Tester’s Corner without some fun bug screenshots from the actual test, right? Here’s a few that I found pretty funny while we were going through the beta process.

“Well guys, we found the Archfiend. Turns out she was working for the Hornet faction the whole time. Problem solved, series over.” – Satella, probably

This one was a simple case of a transcription error from the translation sheet when creating the image asset for Topaz’s name tag. It does make for a fun what-if sort of thing if you want to imagine how the series would play out if this was canon, though.

Kanami can’t catch a break, even when she’s getting stronger.

In the initial beta build, there was a really fun bug where every character portrait was replaced with an image of Rance getting electrocuted. This image was supposed to be used for when Rance steps on a certain type of trap in a dungeon, but some reference errors caused it to be used in every single event popup that would otherwise have a portrait. I was almost sad to see this one get fixed, it was always a good laugh.

Anyways, I think that just about does it for this installment of Tester’s Corner. I hope it helped shed some light on what this game has to offer. Rance 03 is out right now and you can grab it here. I can’t wait for you all to get your hands on this one. We here at MangaGamer have poured our hearts and souls into getting you the best version of this game we could possibly create, and I think it’s gonna show in the final product. I hope to see you all again when it’s time for the next one. Until then, this is dubjay, signing off.