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Do you think Evenicle will be as famous as Rance?


Xykros

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I just finished Evenicle (that's one game removed from my looooooooong backlog) and I really loved it! I was totally invested in Kamidori Alchemy Meister before, but I love Evenicle a whole lot more. Evenicle's ending explicitly says that there will be more of our perverted protagonist, and I can't wait till that day comes! Granted, Evenicle's combat is far less complex than Kamidori, but I loved it nonetheless.

I've also played games from the Rance series before and I loved those, too. But I'm just not a fan of rape themes in eroge. True, I also play games that involve those, but I don't know... I would have loved Rance more if there were far less rape involved in his actions. I'm not exactly criticizing Rance as a character and as a series - I absolutely love it, too.

This thread isn't really much of a question, but more like hoping that Evenicle becomes as famous as Rance because I seriously want more. 

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short answer, no. long answer nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

 

 

not evenicles fault, rance just has a lot going for it and not just its main character. in order to get some context, lets go back in time to 1996. eddie murphy started wearing fat suits, the first mission impossible was released, super mario 64 came out, and then there was kichikuou rance which shook up the vn industry. alice soft was going under and they decided that their last game in their popular franchise would be kichikuou rance, a what if scenario with various ideas from the company thrown into the vn. stories they wanted to incorporate but couldnt are now possible in this what if to the universe. the vn came out to high praise and high sales, saving the company from bankrupt and solidifying rance as a household name. :sachi: 

 

 

....okay, maybe not that far. :rimu:

 

my point is that to this day the vn industry can still feel the light ripples that kichikuou started. even if it wasnt for this, rance probably might maybe be more popular. rance just has a ton going on based on the ones ive played. its simplistic but can lead to complex stuff. youre basically staring at a forum sheet for doing your taxes for rance with the amount of shit you can do on one screen but again, the simplicity of it allows for complex gameplay. you got your harem to attend to, building relationships, leveling up characters, exploring dungeons, gathering items, leveling rance up with h-scenes, all kinds of stuff. 

 

also theres rance. say what you will about him but he does leave an impression on you. i remember playing senki and just thinking how boring the mc was. he was so nice and always doing the right thing and, ugh! rance may have his evil moments but its more entertaining watching a hero being reluctantly good than one whos always good. 

 

evenicle isnt bad just there are times where it feels tedious with walking place to place. yeah, you unlock a teleporter pretty early on but still. just be happy you were able to enjoy evenicle as much as you did. :mare: 

Edited by mitchhamilton
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Rance was genre-defining.  It defined the 'kichiku VN/rpg' genre and single-handedly brought it into existence.  Evenicle is basically just another harem vn/rpg, of which there are dozens out there.

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There will never be another Rance. The reason is history. Rance is old, much older than most old games. To put this into perspective, you can be born 11 years after the first Rance release and still be old enough to buy adult VNs. When Rance 3 was released, the Soviet Union still existed. This means unless you are a Japanese in your 50s (or older), your first contact with Rance was not contact with a game. It was a series of games with a world building legacy. Rance kept getting new releases, which were updated for the modern era of the time, meaning Rance will most likely represent the era of when you started playing computer games regardless of how old you are. That is without being retro because it was new at the time.

You can make new VNs/games now and they can be well made. However regardless of how perfect they are made, they can't be made with the legacy from day one and with the high amount of releases today, odds are that any good releases now will not last multiple decades without being killed by competition. In other words Rance is big not just because what it has done, but also because of when it has done so.

Just think about it. Releasing unvoiced VNs today indicates low budget productions, possibly of questionable quality. Rance started before anything had voices and just didn't add them (remake of Rance 3 excepted), meaning Rance is likely the only VN today, which can make a AAA VN without voices. That's what legacy can do to a series. Also the size of the new Rance releases indicates a gigantic production budget, something which is only realistic due to a legacy, which will sell a lot on the name alone.

 

It's not uncommon for people to complain about Rance and how he isn't treating women nice. However remember that this style is decided back in the 80s. According to the ingame "behind the VN" in Rance 1, protagonists back then were all heroes. They wanted Rance to stand out and made him a jerk, somebody with an attitude and behavior you don't want to copy. This means people are right. Rance isn't a gentleman and it's completely intentional. However Rance is a hero and he is more comedy than dark themed. It's quite possible this hero and anti-hero in the same person, which have made Rance stand the test of time.

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Thank you for the history lesson, folks. Ah, sh*t. To be perfectly honest I never really knew anything you guys mentioned.

As I've said, don't get me wrong. I do love Rance, but I just have some reservations with his personality. Still a fun character though.

In the end, I guess Evenicle wont be as famous as Rance. However, I just wish they'll actually make a series out of it because I seriously love it.

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If you're talking about the west specifically, then I can actually see Evenicle becoming more popular here. At least until Rance X comes out. Japan, though? Definitely not. I wouldn't be shocked if Alicesoft makes a sequel some day but it's not about to become their new flagship franchise or anything.

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Evenicle was amazing though, just because Rance was the first of its genre doesn't automatically make it superior.

There's so much character depth in each and every heroine in Evenicle, the combat is simplistic and yet satisfying and quick, the setting and world making is so fleshed out and wondrous, and the MC really grows on you even despite how simplistic his nature is.

I do agree that Evenicle will never be nearly as popular or have as many sales, because most people today hold such a prejudiced view towards 18+ jrpgs (which is justified, many are just smut with no creativity or insightful content) that Evenicle will be a gem that's lost in a sea of garbage.

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1 hour ago, EXblaze21 said:

Evenicle was amazing though, just because Rance was the first of its genre doesn't automatically make it superior.

Eroge sales have been slowly declining year-over-year for, what, like ten years now?  So a series that started years ago will naturally have a wider appeal.  But also, a series that was a smash hit years ago will have sold many more copies than what passes for a smash hit today.  Kind of making it "more famous" by definition (which was the OP's question).

Also, you seem to have glossed over an important detail: it isn't just that Rance was the first of its genre.  It's that it was the first of its genre, and it's still around.    How many JRPG series, adult or not, make it to entry number ten?  Not many.  Not even Persona has made it that far (and now that the director of 3-5 has moved on, who knows what will happen).

So if these last 2 Rance titles really are the grand finale that AliceSoft is saying, and if Evenicle does start its own series, then in 20 years' time perhaps we will see the release of Evenicle 11.  But odds are good that we won't, simply because most series don't last that long.  And that doesnb't really even say anything about the quality of Evenicle.  It's just a fact.  Megahits are extremely rare.

Look at Moonstone Cherry: Imouto Paradise did well.  Not only is it their only game to get a sequel, it's got two.  But do you really think 2025 will bring Imouto Paradise 7?  Probably not.

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1 hour ago, Nandemonai said:

So if these last 2 Rance titles really are the grand finale that AliceSoft is saying, and if Evenicle does start its own series, then in 20 years' time perhaps we will see the release of Evenicle 11.  But odds are good that we won't, simply because most series don't last that long.  And that doesnb't really even say anything about the quality of Evenicle.  It's just a fact.  Megahits are extremely rare.

Haha once you put it that way that does sound pretty logical.

What do you think makes a game a megahit then, if not its quality? (I'm just curious about ur opinion not trying to be passive aggressive)

Sadly the only conclusion I can draw is that Rance's success was due to it starting the wave, and now that the wave is dying there won't be anything that can make a breakthrough in this genre in terms of both sales and raising the genre's overall popularity. That's bleak man :c

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8 hours ago, Nandemonai said:

Also, you seem to have glossed over an important detail: it isn't just that Rance was the first of its genre.  It's that it was the first of its genre, and it's still around.    How many JRPG series, adult or not, make it to entry number ten?  Not many.  Not even Persona has made it that far (and now that the director of 3-5 has moved on, who knows what will happen).

I would go one step further and ask this for games in general, not just JRPG. What comes to mind is Civilization from 1991. It's still around and is currently at Civilization 6. It used to be much better for reach release. However the leader resigned after Civilization 4 was released. It didn't show in the expansion packs, except perhaps the last, but once civ5 came out, it clearly showed it was made by new people. Long time fans point out a series of bad design decisions and stick to Civilization 4. Civilization 5 and 6 are apparently selling, but according to what people write online, it's because they managed to get a new fanbase rather than keeping the old one. It seems being experienced with 4 and then go to 5 and be happy about it is a minority.

 

In other words Rance doesn't just stand out for having many releases through the years, it's also because for the most parts if you like one Rance game, you will most likely like them all or close to all. This means if you get into Rance now, it seems like an endless list of releases to go through. Furthermore each release adds new characters and story, but none of them really removed between releases (generic characters excluded). As a result the character base is gigantic, the background lore about the various countries is better defined than most other storylines. Despite never really info dumping, the huge amount of lines through the years have managed to build an even more complete world than most info dumping titles will ever manage.

In other words it's not the age itself, which makes Rance stand out. I should have been more clear on that. It's because the huge number of releases have given the opportunity to make widespread world building. Another world building aspect is time. Many of the releases are a product of the time they came out. If you watch an anime from the 90s, you can tell that it's very different from modern ones and not just in drawing style. The same is true for all computer games and Rance is carrying on some relics, which were added in the 80s and 90s. One of them is Rance himself. It's clear his personality was well defined decades before #metoo and all that stuff. However unlike retro gaming or remakes, this is brought into new releases, which too are a product of the time they are produced in. This creates a hybrid between trends through the decades in a way I haven't seen anywhere else.

Last, but not least, before internet downloaded games became common, the production and distribution of boxes was such a financial issue that the concept of spraying out junk releases was less of an issue. Rance was well known and could live on the reputation alone when the internet started spamming new releases, most of rather questionable quality. If you release something today without a previous reputation, good luck on standing out.

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On 15.7.2018 at 12:53 PM, Decay said:

I wouldn't be shocked if Alicesoft makes a sequel some day but it's not about to become their new flagship franchise or anything.

Seems like that might be the Beat games. They released Ixseal last year, and are already working on a new one. Now that Rance is finished, maybe this will be their go to series.

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1 hour ago, Dergonu said:

Seems like that might be the Beat games. They released Ixseal last year, and are already working on a new one. Now that Rance is finished, maybe this will be their go to series.

But I think Evenicle is much better than Beat series :/ Sure, I wanna play Ixseal and I've already played Haruka and there both good but... I kinda just prefer Evenicle. 

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I wouldn't read too much into Rance's popularity just because it has lots of die hard fans in the west. Popularity is reflected in sales and if you take the Getchu sales ranking as a measurement then Rance doesn't really sell particularly better or worse than Alice Soft's other big titles in Japan.

Rance so far had its peak in Japan with Sengoku Rance which got 7th rank in 2006. Before that Rance 6 didn't even reach the top 30. After that Rance Quest still got into the top ten with an 8th rank but was comfortably beaten by their inhouse competitor Daiteikoku which got to 3rd place (and which is more popular on VNDB too btw). Rance 9 then didn't even make the top ten anymore and ended up on 17th place. Even Ixseal from last year did better with a 13th rank and that's pretty much just a nukige. And the Rance remakes didn't even appear in the top 50. So the trend isn't looking that good for the Rance series.

So, does Rance have a long history? Certainly yes!

Does it sell well for Alice Soft? Yup! Especially since they don't have to pay for voices.

Does it sell particularly better than their other big titles? Nope!

It did sell better than Evenicle though, which finished on 33th place 2015. But the gap isn't that big anymore and the fact that it got a fan disc is usually an indicator for success. And beating Rance certainly isn't an unreachable goal. Eushully does it pretty much every year, since they almost always finish in the top five.

It has yet to be seen how Rance 10 will do. Will the trend continue and it'll decline below the top 20, or will it fare better for a change? Ratings on VNDB are pretty good even if you subtract the Rance fanboy bonus, so I wouldn't be suprised if it would reach the top ten this year. It'll be beaten by Eushully like always though. Though considering that Fuukan no Grasesta has probably the worst character designs I've ever seen in an Eushully title, I wouldn't even be suprised if it would end up for once below Rance.

But while I could imagine Evenicle getting as popular as a series as Rance too, I don't think there will be any 'character hype' around the protagonist like in Rance's case. I didn't hear about anything that would make him stand out anyway.

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5 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

Does it sell particularly better than their other big titles? Nope!

5 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

And beating Rance certainly isn't an unreachable goal. Eushully does it pretty much every year, since they almost always finish in the top five.

Good valid arguments. However it reveals one giant flaw in this thread. How do we define "being as famous as Rance"? You made the connection that the more sales, the more famous. It's a decent metric, but it completely overlooks one very important aspect: everything in the Rance series have one thing in common: Rance. Most other titles have characters made for that release and then they are never reused. Rance is used again and again, meaning even if you played just 10% of the Rance games, you know Rance. If you play 10% of the Eushully, you know the characters in 10% of their titles.

The power of Rance's fame is that it doesn't rely on one big release. Sure there will always be one title, which sold more copies than any of the other ones, but even then you can take it away and Rance is still famous. You can remove top 5 and Rance will still be famous. Maybe not as much, but still far from gone. You can't do that with any other VN character. Most rely on fame from just a single release. In fact most exist in just a single release.

I feel like debating this is pointless, because I can't see a way where it won't just be an argument about how to define the word famous. Another issue is the definition of Rance. Is it the character himself or any VN where he is the protagonist?

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13 minutes ago, tymmur said:

Good valid arguments. However it reveals one giant flaw in this thread. How do we define "being as famous as Rance"? You made the connection that the more sales, the more famous. It's a decent metric, but it completely overlooks one very important aspect: everything in the Rance series have one thing in common: Rance. Most other titles have characters made for that release and then they are never reused. Rance is used again and again, meaning even if you played just 10% of the Rance games, you know Rance. If you play 10% of the Eushully, you know the characters in 10% of their titles.

The power of Rance's fame is that it doesn't rely on one big release. Sure there will always be one title, which sold more copies than any of the other ones, but even then you can take it away and Rance is still famous. You can remove top 5 and Rance will still be famous. Maybe not as much, but still far from gone. You can't do that with any other VN character. Most rely on fame from just a single release. In fact most exist in just a single release.

I feel like debating this is pointless, because I can't see a way where it won't just be an argument about how to define the word famous. Another issue is the definition of Rance. Is it the character himself or any VN where he is the protagonist?

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was referring to in my last sentence. But it isn't particular difficult to be a famous character if the title of the series is its name and the series started decades ago. That doesn't necessarily make the character particularly good. For example, one of the most 'famous' heroines of anime and eroge is Igawa Asagi from Lilith's infamous Taimanin Asagai series. But that popularity doesn't make her a particular deep or interesting character either.

Edited by ChaosRaven
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