Rance IV

• Main
• Wikipedia
• All Subpages
• Create New

Immediately following Archfiend Jill's defeat at the end of Rance III, Rance and Sill find themselves stranded on the floating island of Ylapu, near the town of Cassado, a literal Cloudcuckooland where the people have grown complacent due to the relative lack of danger compared to the mainland. As the island's dungeons have gone untouched by its people for generations, Rance and Sill decide to brave these dungeons, hoping to find a way home. But along the way, they must contend with agents of Helman who have come searching for the ancient superweapon known as Wargod Upsilon.

Rance IV: The Legacy of the Sect is the fourth game in the Rance series, released in 1993. It was one of the first computer games to come on a hard disk rather than a set of floppy disks, and was partially responsible for the computer gaming industry as a whole switching to hard disks. It, along with the rest of AliceSoft's pre-Windows library, went freeware in the early 2000s, and a fan translation can be downloaded here.

Tropes used in Rance IV include:

• Bag of Spilling: Invoked. By the end of Rance III, Rance was strong enough to kill multiple Fiends and even defeat an Archfiend, but because he angered the God of Light, he and Sill were stripped of all their equipment and had their levels reset when they were sent to Ylapu.
• Brawn Hilda: Despite her low level cap and being a simple chef/innkeeper, Freon is actually the strongest person in Cassado, though far from the most attractive.
• A Day in the Limelight: In chapter 3, you take control of Maria as she leads the Rance Rescue Squad.
• Deus Exit Machina: The Rance Rescue Squad formally join the party in chapter 4, but many of the puzzles in chapters 4 and 5 will require you to bench Rick for one reason or another, meaning you only really get a chance to use him in the final chapter.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Freak finds Misly after her battle with Dio, cradling her as she lay dying.
• Final Boss Preview: Upsilon is awakened at the end of chapter 5. You fight him, but after a few turns the party decides to flee. The entire final chapter is devoted to weakening him over the course of several battles.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Quite a few. The very first battle of the game is Freon wiping the floor with Rance when he tries to make Sill ditch her job at the diner. You are never able to properly defeat Dio Calmis, either, as each battle with him is interrupted in some way. Several times in the final chapter, you're forced to flee from Upsilon so the party can come up with a new strategy against him.
• Living Weapon: The Wargods were created by the Holy Magic Sect as a way to combat the Fiends. The game's intro even shows a flashback of a young Noce fighting a Wargod on even ground.
• Orochi: While the Okayu Fever is not exactly a snake, the role it plays is an obvious reference to the Orochi of Japanese myth, terrorizing Cassado by demanding a woman be sacrificed to it every few years.
• Only Sane Man: Freon is the only person in Cassado that takes anything seriously. She lampshades this when talking to Rance about the town's history.
• Physical God: Younashi, Cassado's patron deity, regularly appears in the church before its priestesses. He appears to be a sentient tree nut.
• Player Headquarters: The Yum Yum Diner also doubles as an inn, where you rest at the end of each day, and can switch your party members.
• Timed Mission: Subverted. The game keeps track of what day you're on, but this timer comes into play so rarely you'll often forget it's there. Downplayed for individual days, where you're forced to return to the diner at the end of each day, but Sill offers to mark your spot so you can return to it immediately the next day.
• Unskilled but Strong: Freon is the strongest person in Cassado and the first boss of the game, but her low level cap means she lacks anywhere close to the potential of some of the others, and Rance is easily able to defeat her after gaining only a few levels.
• Virgin Sacrifice: The only real danger the people of Cassado face is that an Okayu Fever from West Tower demands a woman to be offered to it as a love slave every few years. The first chapter ends with Rance slaying this Okayu Fever and rescuing its latest victim.
• Work Off the Debt: When Rance and Sill are first teleported to Ylapu with not even the clothes on their backs, it's Freon who buys them new equipment, in exchange for Sill helping her out at the diner. Only after Rance gets strong enough to defeat Freon in combat is Sill let go.