Kichikuou Rance

About

Kichikuou Rance is a 1996 PC game blending visual novel storytelling with strategy gameplay. You follow Rance, a bandit leader who seizes control of the kingdom of Leazas and descends into tyrannical world conquest. The story mixes absurd humor with strategic territory battles, as Rance balances ruling an army, navigating political intrigue, and his own moral decay. Gameplay alternates between turn-based map campaigns and dialogue scenes packed with over-the-top character interactions. The game introduced Alicesoft’s SYSTEM 35 engine and territory conquest mechanics that defined later entries in the Rance series. Its reputation leans heavily on fanservice, chaotic plotting, and a protagonist who embraces villainy with gleeful abandon. While dated by modern standards, long-time followers highlight its role in shaping the series’ signature mix of satire and strategy. The story’s unhinged tone and Rance’s transformation from antihero to unhinged king still resonate with cult audiences.

Storyline

The game begins at the start of LP0003 some time after the events of Rance 4.2. The warrior Rance, accompanied as always by his faithful slave Sill Plain, has been living as the leader of a group of bandits in northern Helman after killing their previous leader as part of a job given to him by the Keith Guild. While Rance greatly enjoys the raping and pillaging that comes with being a bandit leader, the guilt-ridden Sill believes that he is in danger of losing what remains of his conscience and genuinely becoming a villain. After attacking the city of Golak, Rance's group alerts the attention of Ruberan Tser, commander of the Helman volunteer army, who launches a counterstrike on them during their second attempt at pillaging the city. Unable to fight against a genuine army, the bandits are quickly destroyed, Sill is captured by the Helman Army and Rance is forced to flee for his life. Rance evades the Helman army for several days, with both his equipment and health steadily declining all the while, before he finally passes out from fatigue along the Leazas/Helman border. He is found on the verge of death by Kentou Kanami, the personal ninja of Leazas' queen and Rance's longtime admirer Lia Parapara Leazas, who brings him to Leazas castle. After three days of recovery, Rance finally regains consciousness and, completely humiliated by his defeat at Helman's hands and desperate to rescue Sill, demands that Lia give him the Leazas Army to destroy the enemy nation. Finally seeing an opportunity to have Rance to herself, Lia agrees on the condition that he first marry her, which Rance reluctantly accepts. Rance, his mind already corrupted by his time as a bandit leader and his morals even more flexible in Sill's absence, becomes drunk on power almost immediately after becoming king of Leazas, causing him to expand his goal from simply destroying Helman and rescuing Sill to conquering the entire world for himself. On the day of his coronation, rather than read the pre-written speech given to him by Lia's advisor Maris Amaryllis, Rance makes the bold declaration that all of the country's people are required to throw their lives away for the sake of his ambitions, causing him to be instantly deemed a tyrant. The very next day, Ex Banquet, general of the Leazas White Corps, forms a rebel army composed of nearly half of the nation's forces, with the explicit goal of removing Rance from power. His dreams of world conquest momentarily halted by the sudden rebel uprising, Rance vows to destroy the opposing army without hesitation. So begins the era of the man who would go down in history as the brutal king...