Tag Archives: lore

Features, MoeGamer Awards 2017

The MoeGamer Awards: The “I Shouldn’t Have Hesitated” Award

6 Comments

The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

There are certain games and series whose reputation precedes them. Of course, there are those series that are legendarily excellent — which, to be honest, I tend to find often sets you up to be disappointed and underwhelmed when you finally try them — but there are also those that are known for… less salubrious reasons.

Today’s award looks at something which I had held off trying for a while because I wasn’t sure I’d be into it… but subsequently it turned out to be one of my favourite things ever. That is, as they say, the way game chasin’ go… wait, that’s something else, isn’t it?

And the winner is…

Continue reading The MoeGamer Awards: The “I Shouldn’t Have Hesitated” Award →

Cover Games, Rance 5D + VI

Rance: The “Discworld” of Eroge

12 Comments

cropped-rance-header-1-6620974This article is one chapter of a multi-part Cover Game feature!
<< First | < Previous | Next > | Latest >>

One of the most remarkable things about Alicesoft’s Rance series is quite how detailed its lore is.

This might not be something you expect to hear about a series of 18+ games with rather a lot of sexually explicit content, but just a few minutes with a Rance title will make it abundantly clear Alicesoft takes this franchise very seriously indeed. At least, so far as ensuring its lore is internally consistent; as a series with absurdist (and often black) humour at its heart, Rance is anything but “serious”.

This combination of a significant humorous component with deep, well-crafted lore established over a long cycle of individual works particularly brings to mind Terry Pratchett’s influential Discworld series. And if we look a little more deeply into that lore we can see a number of similarities along the way, particularly in terms of how things the audience will recognise from modern life are blended with the conventions of fantastic fiction.

NOTE: A hanny from /vg/ helpfully pointed out that the original version of this article used terminology from the original Japanese versions and fan translations. It’s now been updated with terminology from MangaGamer’s “official” translation to prevent confusion for series newcomers!

Continue reading Rance: The “Discworld” of Eroge →