Lance's "Profile" from the EBF3 intro
Lance is a character in the Epic Battle Fantasy series. First appearing as the second player in 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 Characters in Epic Battle Fantasy 3 and following games.
Appearance
Lance is depicted as a teenage boy 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 Matts arsenal of swords.
When Lance appeared in EBF2, he donned an SS Nazi uniform, with the Nazi swastika on the armband reversed, with an eyepatch covering his right eye. His main weapon was a black gunblade, which is a sword with a 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's gear as his default outfit. However, the swastikas have been replaced by Iron Crosses.(as they were in EBF3)
Personality
In EBF2, Lance was a character who believed the world would be better off under his rule. After his defeat at Matt and Natalie's hand, he no longer seems to try taking over the world, though his army is still around and he still occasionally wears Nazi-esque uniforms. Lance has a socially awkward attitude around women and has a fondness of military weapons, vehicles, and arnaments. Despite being even more lecherous than Matt (in the forest, he "accidentally" lifts Natz's skirt, in the desert, he tries to get her to take her top off, and imagined her naked in EBF4 in Goldenbrick Resort), he can be quite intelligent, as shown in EBF3 when he explains The Rift to Matt and Natalie in accurate context. His perverted attitude is sometimes discouraged by Matt (in EBF4, Matt explained to Lance that Natalie would probably stop hating him if he didn't stare at her 24/7).
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. Kupo707, however, hasn't confirmed if this was canon or not.
Epic Battle Fantasy 2
In EBF2, Lance is the main antagonist and final boss of the game. After Matt and Natalie killed Zombie Goku, the world was nearly destroyed by the newly-formed mutants (as a result of the radiation due to the destruction of Zombie Goku). 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 an important party member in their fight against Akron in EBF3.
Epic Battle Fantasy 3
Lance, for one who recently served as a final boss, gets along well with Natalie and Matt, joking, swimming, and fighting with them. Natalie jealously keeps other girls away from him, example being 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 a pornographic magazine.
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 shrapnels 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). He is more perverted than in the last game (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 small dislike for Anna, calling her the girl that "ran around killing random people" and '"crazy person" (when she tries to explain Godcat to them) and questioning her leadership of the party.
In one of his idle animations, he is shown reading a newspaper instead of a porn magazine. The rest of his idle animations are the same as the previous game.
Abilities
Lance is a "Gunner" character that excels in neither close-quarter combat or magic, but compensates with an array of high-tech devices and air support. As his main weapons, he uses 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 summon backup.
Lance's physical skill set focuses on accurate, multi-strike attacks, while his magical skills focus on rapidly destroying large waves of enemies. His signature element is the Bomb element, with skills like Air Strike and Tank Guns. 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.
Lance's move set has been changed around a little in EBF4. For instance, the Scanbot is no longer exclusive to him, and neither are some other skills like Bind or Debilitate. On the other hand, he can access some skills previously exclusive to his allies.
Lance's first signature Limit Break is Oblivion (a homage to Dio Brando's "The World" move in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure) wherein he drops down onto the targets on top of his Valkyrie Tank, smashes the tank onto them several times, and finally proceeds to detonate it with a spectacular explosion, dealing Earth and Bomb damage (just Bomb in EBF4). The second is Nuke, which drops a massive nuclear bomb onto the battlefield, dealing extreme Fire damage to enemies and poisoning (burning in EBF4) both enemies and players. This Limit Break is dangerous to use, though nowhere as much as Black Hole. He also can use Ion Cannon, which fires a giant laser from a satellite in the skies (though Matt can also learn this move in EBF4).
Concept and Creation
After creating One More Final Battle, Kupo707 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.
Trivia
- Lance originally wielded a sword in Brawl Royale; however, in all later appearances, he uses his Gunblade (possibly to differentiate himself from Matt).
- The Gunblade is a Final Fantasy reference.
- In EBF2 and EBF4, Lance wears an SS Nazi uniform. In the original EBF, Matt is seen wearing one in the Concept Art gallery.
- 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 veracity 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.
- With Scanbot returning to the role of enemy scanning in EBF4, Lance only uses his scanner in his Snipe animation.
- It is possible that the Ninja Pirate of No Name is also an earlier version of this character.
- When left idle for a while, he may chat on the phone talking about different things, such as BIG FAT CASH, or read a comic.
- He has a known crush on Natalie, although the love is just toward lust and her sexual attractiveness.
- He is also known to have a fear of Creepers.
- While approaching the second world's boss in Bullet Heaven 2, Lance will mention that his father died in a mining accident.
| Playable Characters |
|---|
| Matt - Natalie - Lance - Anna - NoLegs |