Long Live the Queen! (game review)
Posted on: June 22, 2012
- In: gaming | Hanako Games | life-sim games
- 9 Comments
Long Live the Queen!
No, not that queen, this little queen!
She might be dressed like a school girl, but she’s royalty in the making, and through your decisions she can rise through the ranks, or get assassinated. Or poisoned. Or embarrassed. Or imprisoned. Or assassinated. Again.
A cross between a Choose your Own Adventure story and a visual novel, Long Live the Queen is the newest sim game from Hanako Games. This game may have a plucky and overly cute anime style and star a plucky and overly cute main character, but it’s much, much harder than it looks. Also, incredibly addictive.
You control the choices of teenaged Princess Elodie, whose royal mother has just passed away. She’s got to learn new skills, avoid dangerous neighbors, and win the hearts of the royal court. Every week you can choose two skills to advance in, but random events and interactions with other members of the royal court along with your social activities directly effect your mood and your skills bonuses. Did you spend your Saturday sneaking out of the castle? You gain some points towards willfullness, earning you a negative against earning skills in elegance, but giving you a healthy bonus towards learning magic.
As events such as royal balls, judgment against criminals, and interactions with other countries arise, you’ll face skill checks such as courtly manners, history, diplomacy, presence, economics, religion or even magic. If you’ve gained enough points in the needed skill, you pass the check and unlock additional events. If you fail, well, you might get assassinated. In fact, you’ll probably get assassinated. A lot.
With a bucket of stats to juggle and not enough time to do everything you need to do, Long Live the Queen is as addictive as it is adorable.
Oh, I didn’t mention yet how damn adorable this game is? I love kittens, but I usually hate cute. And I love this game. Granted, I’ve only played in a few times (and never gotten even close to winning), but I get so excited to see the new outfits and bonuses I’ve unlocked! Some events always happen in a certain order, and others seem random or triggered by other things. Just because you got poised in one game doesn’t mean that studying herbs and medicine in your next game will help, because that even may not trigger, due to something else that’s hidden. It’s mind-boggling to just think about the programming behind this game.
The graphics are simple yet effective, and an entire game takes just a few hours. You don’t need Steam, you don’t need an online handle, you don’t need a fancy computer. There’s even a forum if you need help, are stuck and need some hints, or just want to see what experiences and special events other players have managed to unlock. I’d been out of computer games for a long, long time. I’m not interested in shooters or MMORPGs. Long Live the Queen is exactly the fun little gaming escape I’ve been looking for!
5 years ago I’d never played a Euro-game.
4 years ago I’d never played an RPG video game
3 years ago I’d never played an RPG inspired board game.
and one week ago I’d never played an anime-inspired life sim game.
I wonder what I’ll do next week?
9 Responses to "Long Live the Queen! (game review)"
June 25, 2012 at 11:55 pm
There are other games besides Fable 2?
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June 27, 2012 at 10:40 pm
well, if you can’t kick chickens or shoot at gargoyles, it’s not a real game!
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July 5, 2012 at 9:28 am
Intriguing… I’ve never played an anime-inspired life sim game either, but that sounds really fun. I must try the demo!
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July 8, 2012 at 8:18 pm
if you try it, let me know what you think. at first, the game looks really silly and simple, but trust me, it’s neither of those things.
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July 10, 2012 at 12:18 pm
Many assassinations later… it was fun (I ended up buying the game)! I ended up spending most of that evening getting Elodie to her coronation :). I think it could have used a little more balancing of the skills– some of them seemed absolutely necessary, while others were almost never used. My successful Elodie was mostly focused in Royal Demeanor, Economics, Weapons, and Lumen(towards the end). Of course, it could have been because I just kept steering her down the same storyline paths accidentally!
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July 10, 2012 at 8:29 pm
awesome, I’m happy you enjoyed it!
you got to coronation? I am jealous!! I really need to put some time into weapons and economics, I always seem to skip those because i never have any bonuses in them due to mood. whatever storyline paths you managed to get seems to be the right ones.
Supposedly every skill has at least one skill check (depending on story choices, of course), but some of them don’t seem to matter.
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July 6, 2012 at 2:25 pm
I have this game and you’re right, it is addicting.
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July 8, 2012 at 8:18 pm
I tried a completely different strategy – putting time into magic, military and animals and staying willful and angry, and although I didn’t get close to winning, I got closer than I’ve ever gotten! I’m wishing I’d kept track of everything I did and AAR’d it on the forum.
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the Little Red Reviewer 
June 24, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Who knows you will be playing Final Fantasy and Kingdom of Hearts by the hours loads..lol. It looks like a great game. I will hae to check out this game.
I can imagine the programming in the scenes of this game. I made a Yahtzee in college..not that is crazy with all the what ifs and select case statements.
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