I prefer Rance way more. He may be an asshole, but he's a charismatic one who doesn't pretend he's anything else. He acts like what his environment shaped him to be- a spontaneous, short-sighted, womanizing mercenary... and I couldn't want anything else.
Could be because I'm tired of the pure good guy or pure bad guy in anime. Give me someone with personality and flair, even if said character is an asshole.
Meh, I feel that liking something because you rarely see it doesn't make much sense.
I mean, I rarely see gay protagonists, but that doesn't mean I'd like one. I rarely see ugly protags but that doesn't mean I'd like one.
You don't have to be an asshole to be spontaneous, short-sighted and womanizing.
If Rance existed in the world of Evenicle he'd become an outlaw in about a day, and get decimated by a zero knight.
They started fixing Rance up a bit after the female writer took him on at Rance 7? I think it was Rance 7. B4 that though he was pretty much garbage. Legit dumb as a brick getting NTR'd pretty often cause his personality was so terrible even the heroines didn't want to be with him. Living through situations through pure luck, not talent or ability like legit everyone else in the cast. Constantly sexually assaulting girls cause he has such a shit personality, he couldn't make them like him in any other way.
Aster's got all the good parts w/o any of the shitty parts of Rance.
Upfront about his sexual desire (check)
Opens up the heroines to their own lewdness (check)
Straightforward about what he wants and how he'll do it (check)
Is willing to dom and sub giving viewers a variety of content to see (check)
Alicesoft can actually write good morally gray protags like the hero of Big Bang Beat and shit, so I never got the respect Rance got. I've played all of them since Rance 3. Machine translated for quite a few, and while I admit I never finish the games, I always see the respect Rance gets as well as the game's production values and keep falling for it.
I've regretted it literally every single time.
At least Evenicle's got me invested. I've got 20 hours into the game in like 2 days and I'm pretty sure it'll be a game I'll finish.