Rance: The Quest for Hikari


 * This article is for the 1989 original, the first game of the Rance series. For the 2013 remake, see Rance 01.

Story
Keith, the owner of Keith's Guild, offers Rance (18 years old) a request from the Bran family. Their daughter, a pretty young redhead named Hikari Mi Bran, has been kidnapped and he is tasked in finding and protecting her in exchange for a 20,000 gold reward. The kidnapping was witnesses by one of her classmates at her school, Paris college,   just outside Leazas castle and it was committed by two female ninjas. Helping him in his search is his Zeth-born caster slave Sill Plain (16 years old). She was also kidnapped from her rich family and sold to Rance in exchange for his life savings (15,000 gold) and had a mind control spell placed on her so she'd obey him. She is tasked with infiltrating the college and gathering up as much information about the abduction as she can while Rance does legwork in the city. Over the course of the investigation, he finds that the situation is much larger than the kidnapping case that he was given.

This game is an adventure game/RPG hybrid that pushed heavily on the adventure game side of the equation.

Characters
Rance - A warrior, adventurer, and detective. He isn't very wise or clever but is pretty strong and very perverted. However, the people that have played the later games of Rance will notice that the Rance in this game isn't that bad compared to the others and isn't thinking about perverted things all the time.

Sill - A slave of Rance who helps him in his adventures as a partner in battlefield and in bed. She was kidnapped by bandits and then sold to Rance, and since then she has been traveling together with him. Is very weak in terms of strength but is good at magic. Very devoted to Rance due to the spell of obedience cast on her by slavers. When Rance has sex with her, he can gain a magical ability such as healing or Magic Missile.

Hikari ("Light") - A girl who has mysteriously disappeared. It's her case that Rance has to solve in this game.

Lia - The princess of Leazas. Has a outwardly friendly appearance but is ruthless and planning, often treating other people as her personal playthings. She has all but usurped the thrown from her parents from a combination of how well she is perceived by her subjects and her schemes. Since the time she lost her virginity to Rance she has been obsessed with him.

Maris - The maid, secretary, childhood friend of Lia. Wise and tricky. Very devoted to Lia. She theoretically has a very low ranking but in practice occupies control over the actions of the army and helps in the planning of events on the national level.

Kanami - A personal ninja of Lia. Does all the dirty or secret jobs that Lia orders her to do. Doesn't like Rance at all.

Specs

 * Development team - Bacteria 88
 * Genre - Multi-selection Adventure game (it's really an RPG game built on an ADV engine)
 * Scenario - TADA etc
 * CG - Hakase ("Professor") etc
 * Music - Ichitaro
 * Graphics - more than 120
 * Text data - more than 70,000 Japanese characters
 * BGM - more than 5 songs

Trivia

 * The girl on the cover of Rance 1 is Tomato Puree, someone who doesn't even feature in the game. She makes her first appearance in Rance 2, its sequel.