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"The first targets are within range! Time to show them what I'm capable of!"
―Lance, Epic Battle Fantasy 5

Lance is a character in the Epic Battle Fantasy series. First appearing as the second player in the 2 Player mode of Brawl Royale, he acts as the final boss as well as the main antagonist of Epic Battle Fantasy 2 before joining the party as a playable character in Epic Battle Fantasy 3 and following games.

Appearance[]

Lance

Lance's "Profile" from the EBF3 intro.

Lance is depicted as an adult (though age factor is highly debatable in the EBF world) with spiky auburn hair. When he first appeared in Brawl Royale, he wore a red jacket over a white shirt bearing a star insignia with the word "Epic" written on it. In this appearance, he wielded the Silver Blade, which appears later in Matt's arsenal of swords.

When Lance appeared in EBF2, he donned an SS Nazi uniform, with the Nazi swastika on the armband reversed (making it a sign of peace and less controversial), with an eyepatch covering his right eye. His main weapon was a black gunblade, which is a single-edged sword with a large long-barreled revolver built into it, and he piloted the massive Valkyrie Tank.

In EBF3, his default costume is a green army helmet, a matching green jacket and pants, and a bandolier of ammunition. In addition to his gunblade, he could now choose from a variety of massive guns to carry on his back, which were used for some of his special attacks.

In EBF4, Lance has resumed wearing his officer-stylized gear as his default outfit. However, the swastikas have been replaced by Iron Crosses (as they were in EBF3).

In EBF5, he replaces his gunblade with a more traditional revolver that changes color/design depending on his currently equipped gun. As in EBF4, his default loadout appears to be the Officer's Hat, the Officer's Coat, and the Shadow Blaster.

Personality[]

Even after joining the other characters, Lance is known to be at times rather rude and can be unpleasant to others. He doesn't like the fact that Matt is stronger and more popular than him (because he was defeated by him), his hatred for cats makes him dislike NoLegs, and his dislike and disregard of nature often causes him to quarrel with Anna.

The only party member that Lance seem to be 'pleasant' to is Natalie, but that's just because he likes her looks, sometimes fantasizing about her as his girlfriend. This makes him act like a pervert around her, something that Natalie really dislikes. As shown in one of the endings in Epic Battle Fantasy 5, he's even willing to do things he won't normally do just to get a chance to get Natalie to like him.

Lance loves modern weapons, such as firearms, bombs, and other weapons of war, in a contrast to Matt who loves swords and melee weapons. He is known to be really knowledgeable about technology and machinery as well, sometimes even going into rambles that annoy the other party members. Despite his technical knowledge, he can be just as reckless as Matt, especially when it comes to using destructive weapons to blow everything up.

Epic Battle Fantasy 2-4[]

In EBF2, Lance is initially presented as a conqueror with the simple goal of claiming the world for his own through incredible firepower. He has very little screen time, and as such is barely fleshed out.

After the events of EBF2, Lance joined the party. He is remarkably perverted, socially awkward at best, and fond of guns, military vehicles, and other powerful weapons. While he clashes with Natalie sometimes, he has a better relationship with Matt.

Based on Lance's quotes in EBF4, Lance appears to have had a rough childhood with an abusive father. (He has a few quotes when receiving minor damage on how his "father had slapped me harder than that when I was a baby").

Epic Battle Fantasy 5[]

In EBF5, Lance is the antagonist of the first arc of the game, with a more complex motivation and personality. His pervertedness (especially towards Natalie) has been somewhat toned down with his aloofness towards humanity becoming a stronger point.

Prior to the beginning of the game, he was among the first in the world to discover the threat the Cosmic Monoliths posed. Finding clues of an otherworldly invasion looming ahead, he tried to warn everyone but was simply scoffed at and dismissed as an empty claim. Believing he had no other choice, he took it upon himself to build an army to prepare against the alien threat, though at the expense of the forests and the environments of the west side of Greenwood Village, resulting in him and his army being branded as "fascists".

After running Matt and his party over with the Neon Valkyrie as they arrived in No Man's Land, he captured Natalie and several other young women for his plan to repopulate the world after the Monoliths were dealt with. When Matt and his allies rescued her and defeated him, Lance was forced to join the party as their traveling "prisoner", although he was allowed to contribute in combat due to necessity. He defends his viewpoints initially, but slowly realizes the errors in his methods, prompting him to eventually apologize for kidnapping Natalie and waging war on Anna's hometown, calling them by their names for the first time. However, he brushes off NoLegs and Matt's complaints, claiming they deserved to be roadkill after they invaded his base. Regardless, Matt chose to forgive Lance for that action, even when Lance insisted he did nothing wrong towards Matt (read: Self Defense).

By the end of the game, Lance is on far better terms with the team; while he is still at odds with Natalie from time to time, his relationship with the party is far closer to previous games. Feeling the path of the hero has grown on him as being better than that of the villain, Lance becomes a willing party member who helps fight against the threat he saw when the game began (although he does take the time to gloat about being right when his theories of an alien invasion are proved correct).

Through Lance's quotes after visiting Anna's family in Greenwood Village and while the party is in Redpine Town, his backstory is significantly more fleshed out than in previous games. In particular, it is shown that Lance spent most of his childhood in an orphanage at Redpine Town (where it's now a Steroid Shop); he never got to know his mother, and his father died to an experimental explosion while he was still young. Lance himself does not express much grief over their death, as his father was abusive and did not care much for him (in fact, his father may have tried to hang him under the pretext that it would "make [Lance] taller"). The orphanage he went to was not particularly pleasant either, with Lance specifically stating that it was "where my hatred of humanity began"[1]. While not all of his childhood was atrocious - for instance, Lance has fond memories of going hunting with his father - it had a traumatic effect on Lance and nurtured most of his negative traits.

Role[]

Brawl Royale[]

Lance didn't have any significance to the plot in Brawl Royale, but he did serve as the second player character in the multiplayer. It can be assumed that this match was a preliminary to the actual tournament.

Epic Battle Fantasy 2[]

In EBF2, Lance is the main antagonist and final boss of the game. After Matt and Natalie killed Roku, the world was nearly destroyed by the newly-formed mutants (as a result of the radiation due to the destruction of Roku). In this chaos, Lance attempted to take over the Earth, apparently believing that order could only be restored to the world through its complete destruction. After taking down Lance in the end, Matt recognized Lance's fighting spirit and they became friends. Lance later proceeds to join Matt, becoming a party member.

Epic Battle Fantasy 3[]

Lance, for one who recently served as a final boss, usually gets along well with Natalie and Matt, joking, swimming, and fighting with them. Natalie cautiously keeps other girls away from him, as seen when he talks to Hikari, an NPC from The Town. He is unique in the sense that he is the only one able to add foes to the Bestiary, via his scanning ability. In his free time (idle animation) he talks about weapons, money and tanks, sometimes via his radio, as well as reading different magazines, including an erotic one.

Adventure Story[]

For information about his battle appearances, see Lance (Adventure Story).

Reprising his role as the main antagonist, Lance kidnaps Natalie and takes off with an unnamed tank in the intro cutscene, creating the conflict of the game. Matt goes to rescue her, fighting Lance twice in the game. The first battle against Lance takes place in a forest area, in which Lance attacks Matt while riding atop a giant Green Bush and lobbing bombs. After this first encounter, Lance isn't seen again until the game's last level, in which he fights Matt in his tank and attempts to destroy the hero using the tank's weaponry along with some of the fire-themed monsters native to the area.

Lance is shown wearing an outfit similar to that of the officer's uniform and doesn't appear to use any weapons other than his tank.

Bullet Heaven[]

Lance is one of the unlockable characters in Bullet Heaven. His attack consists of firing large bullets. His main weapon fires large, fast moving bullets that will spread out once a "Sword" powerup is picked up. His sub-weapon fires up to 4 large pieces of shrapnel that explode into tiny bullets that spread out, damaging enemies. His Bomb attack, Hyper Beam, fires a large energy beam directly forward for a few seconds and can deflect enemy bullets.

Epic Battle Fantasy 4[]

Lance is the final member of the party to join Anna's quest, having gone into hiding when she attacked Matt — according to the latter, Lance is a master of stealth who is impossible to find unless he wants to show himself. Sure enough, the gunner only appears at the entrance of the Crystal Caverns, berating Matt for failing to protect Natalie before reluctantly joining Anna on her journey.

Lance now shows more skill with technology (such as "reprogramming" the Praetorian, for instance), and has almost tripled his magazine supply. He is more perverted than in the last game (in Waste Disposal Plant, he says he has hidden cameras on his clothes so he doesn't have to look directly at Natalie), and gets along better with Matt than Natalie. He also shows a dislike for Anna, calling her the girl that "ran around killing random people" and a "crazy person" (when she tries to explain Godcat to them) and questioning her leadership of the party.

Epic Battle Fantasy 5[]

Once more the final party member, Lance is initially an antagonist in this game. The head of the Iron Fortress, Lance kidnaps Natalie and fights against the party. As the party traverses the Iron Fortress, they run into Lance and fight him. Fleeing the battle, Lance retreats to get his hovertank, the Neon Valkyrie. He makes a last stand at the entrance to the Iron Fortress, where he fights alongside the Neon Valkyrie against the party. After his defeat, Lance begrudgingly joins the party (as a "prisoner"), and fights alongside them as they continue their journey to reach the site of the meteor impact.

Lance still has a focus on magic and technology, but has more prowess with physical skills. His perversion is toned down in exchange for a general pragmatic hatred of existence. He gets along reasonably well with Matt, but gets off to a very rough start with Natalie and Anna.

Bullet Heaven 2[]

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Lance is a playable character in Bullet Heaven 2. His primary weapon barely has any charge meter, but when it's full, he'll shoot a powerful shot that deals a lot of damage and pierce some enemies, making him some sort of a 'single tap' character. If fired continuously, his bullets are much weaker.

Like in the main games, Lance shows his dislike on nature and cats, but is shown to be really knowledgeable on technology and machines, even getting excited at robots. He also seem to know about space travelling.

Abilities[]

Lance is a "Gunner" character that excels in neither close-quarter combat or traditional magic, but compensates with an array of high-tech devices and air support. He has a mix of physical and magical skills, favoring the latter in most games. His main weapons are his gunblade from EBF2 and a variety of massive guns he uses when executing special attacks. Most of these guns have elemental properties which carry onto his gunblade as well. He also has a field radio he uses to call for backup, typically in the form of airstrikes and medical supply drops.

Lance usually specializes in Fire, Thunder, and Dark skills, but he's also notable as the party's premiere source of Bomb damage, being the only character to naturally learn skills of that element until EBF5. On the other hand, he needs shared skills or elemental weapons to access Ice, Water, Earth, Wind, and Holy damage; additionally, his natural ability to inflict Bio damage is limited to the weak Poison Gas.

Lance's first signature Limit Break is Oblivion (a homage to Dio Brando's "Road Roller" move in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) wherein he drops down onto the targets on top of his Valkyrie Tank, shoots through it several times, and finally detonates it with a spectacular explosion, dealing massive physical Bomb damage (as well as some Earth damage in EBF3). The second is Nuke, which drops a massive nuclear bomb onto the battlefield, dealing extreme magical Fire damage to enemies and hitting all combatants with a debilitating effect that varies between games (Poison in EBF3, Burn in EBF4, Radiation weather in EBF5). This Limit Break is dangerous to use, though nowhere as volatile as Black Hole. He is also strongly associated with Ion Cannon, a giant laser fired from an orbital satellite in order to inflict massive non-elemental (EBF3) or Thunder (EBF4) damage to all foes; while it became a shared skill in later games, Lance is always one of the characters who can learn it.

Epic Battle Fantasy 3[]

Lance's physical skill set focuses on accurate, multi-strike attacks, while his magical skills focus on rapidly destroying large waves of enemies. He is the only party member to have Bomb skills - namely Air Strike - which allow him to capitalize on the element's effectiveness in EBF3. Additionally, he has some abilities to hinder foes (like Debilitate, that reduces Defence, or Bind, that reduces Evade), and support skills like Scan and Medipack. The execution of his Unleash attack varies depending on the gun; most weapons are shot in some way when unleashed, but some (like the Heavy Claw) are used to strike an enemy.

Epic Battle Fantasy 4[]

Lance's move set has been slightly modified in EBF4, mostly with the increased focus on shared skills. Some of his support abilities are no longer exclusive to him; the Scanbot is now a summon, and skills like Debilitate or Bind can be learned by multiple characters. On the other hand, he can access some skills previously exclusive to his allies. He's also gained a new natural skill: Hyper Beam, which hits all foes for massive magical weapon-elemental damage. Unfortunately, it requires a turn to Charge up, necessitating more strategic use unless he's using the Premium-exclusive Accelerator.

Epic Battle Fantasy 5[]

Lance uses a revolver instead of a gunblade in this game, but this is a purely aesthetic change. Heavy magical artillery (literal or otherwise) remains his primary offensive focus, but his physical capabilities have been improved via buffs to his natural skills and access to a more diverse array of shared physical skills. His support capabilities are mainly focused around stat debuffs; his three main attacks (Plasma Field, Bullet Hell and Antimatter Flux) each lower a stat on their victims, and he can learn all of the shared debuff skills except for Screamer. Combined with the introduction of equipment that improves debuffs, Lance can effectively cripple his foes by lowering whichever stats benefit his team the most.

With the removal of MP, Lance was saddled with more cooldown skills than any other player. Most of his attacks require between 1 to 3 turns before they can be used again, but M.O.A.B (the "Secret Weapon" from earlier games) requires a tremendous 10 turns in between uses. While he can make use of his Normal Attack or Double Shot to add some damage between cooldowns, it is usually best for Lance to pack a buff/debuff or two in order to have a skill to use in between castings of his main skills, or equip armor that gives him a second elemental boost. Doing the latter will allow him to simply alternate between his primary skills, keeping the damage output high and letting him repeatedly slam foes without needing to use shared skills. It also benefits Lance to have equipment that provides boosts while defending, as he can use his cooldown turns to buff himself. Later in the game, he can make great use of the Nano Machines Flair, which reduces many of his cooldowns to more manageable levels. Additionally, sources of Haste and Charge can help him spam his powerful Hyper Beam skill, which lacks a cooldown beyond its innate Charge gimmick.

By equipping the Flame Suit, the Captain's Hat, and the Spine Snapper, Lance can use a decent status build. Although he isn't quite as proficient or versatile as Anna in this regard, the Spine Snapper's innate ability to apply Instant Death can let him wipe out even moderately-resistant foes with his weapon-elemental skills (particularly Hyper Beam, which hits all foes with a boosted status chance). On the other hand, his healing and buffing abilities are subpar, being unable to learn most shared skills of those types and having Health Strike as his only natural healing/status-curing option.

Concept and Creation[]

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After creating One More Final Battle, Matt Roszak wanted to create a character to replace Lancelot, Lazarus' red-haired companion. After creating Lance, however, he realized that he looked completely different than Lancelot, so proceeded to make him a completely different character.

Gallery[]

Epic Battle Fantasy 5 Emotes[]

Idle Animation[]

Lance would occasionally pull out a different magazine (as seen below) in one of his idle animations.

Trivia[]

  • Lance originally wielded a sword in Brawl Royale; however, in all later appearances he uses guns, possibly to differentiate himself from Matt.
  • The Gunblade is a type of weapon in the Final Fantasy series, although whether or not it can be used as both a gun and a melee weapon varies between appearances.
  • Prior to EBF5, Lance is the only boss in the series that joins the party as a fully playable character, unlike previous and later ones that only join as either summons or random effects.
  • In EBF3, Lance claims to have stolen his scanner from a man with "a tail and a rough attitude". Although the validity of this claim is debatable, Lance seems to be referring to Vegeta, a character from Dragon Ball Z who wore a similar device in his first appearance. However, he could also just be referring to Saiyans in general, who have been shown to use scouters as a part of Frieza's army.
    • With Scanbot returning to the role of enemy scanning in EBF4 and Scan being a universal mechanic in EBF5, Lance only uses his scanner in Snipe and a few other animations (like Lock On).
  • Lance appears to have several traumatic experiences mining in a Minecraft-style scenario.
    • He is known to have a fear of Creepers, as shown in Whitefall Town when examining the Creeper snow statue near the equipment shop with Lance being the leader of the party.
    • In Crystal Caverns, he talks about a mining trip where something snuck up behind him and exploded.
    • While approaching the fourth world's boss in Bullet Heaven 2, Lance will mention that his father died in a "minecrafting accident".
    • While the Minecraft references still are abundant in EBF5, this is grounded slightly as Lance's father died in a mining incident in Redpine Town (which was apparently a mining town before the Great Impact). If his descriptions of the Neon Valhalla is any clue, his father also drove a "Giga Fortress-class" tunneling vehicle.
  • Based on his reaction to Screamer in EBF5, Lance is terrified of jump scares. Not only does he have the strongest reaction to Screamer, he is the only party member who can't learn it as a shared skill.
  • During the Rafflesia boss fight in EBF5, Lance reveals he has a pollen allergy as a "secret weakness". Fortunately for him, the simulation apparently doesn't have smelling support.

References[]

  1. Lance while exploring Redpine Town, Epic Battle Fantasy 5

Navigation[]

Playable Characters
Matt - Natalie - Lance - Anna - NoLegs
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