Game Review: Long Live the Queen

Text based adventure games can be both fun and annoying. Fun in that all you do is click through text having to not worry about defeating enemies, but annoying in that most of these games involve building up stats and the choices that you make do ultimately affect the end outcome of the game. Such is the case with Long Live the Queen developed by Hanako Games. The story of this game has you play as 14-year-old Elodie whose mother unfortunately passed away. The thing is though you are a Duchess in the kingdom you live in and as such you have until your 15^th birthday to develop the necessary skills needed to be crowned Queen.

              A normal week consists of you being able to choose 2 classes, 1 for the morning and 1 at night. You are given a diverse selection of classes sorted into 4 main categories: Royalty, Physical, Intellect, and Mystical. These are then broken up into sub categories such as Conversation, Economics, Animal Handling, Weaponry, etc. And those are broken up into FURTHER categories such as Elegance, Accounting, Dogs, and Archery. How much those skills will grow depend on your mood.

What the screen looks like as you take your classes. Also shown is what looks like a military outfit you can unlock

After you select and go through your classes you’ll have a little scene depicting an event going on in the kingdom, how well you’re versed in certain skills can change how it’s dealt, for example one part has you on the way to a birthday party and your carriage is attacked by archers. If you’re skilled enough in Archery/Reflexes, you can avoid it, if not however you will be injured and possibly die (this happened to me on my 1^st play-through). After the scene, you are given choices to spend your weekend such as playing with your toys, visiting your mother’s grave, or sneaking out of the castle. Each of these actions affects your mood such as Anger, Cheerful, Lonely and a few others.

The graphic style/designs of the characters are close to what you would see in an anime. Based on all this information it’s clear that this is mainly geared towards females but I can understand the male appeal as well. One thing I liked about this game was the music. Each little bit fits with the scene going on and some just gave me goose bumps as to how beautiful they sounded. Throughout the game based on your skills you can have little pop ups that say whether or not the scenes you play through are handled well or failed. There are also pop ups, which can show a change in your mood, this setting can be turned off in the options menu if it proves to be bothersome.

There are also things included in the game such as the option to change outfits for Elodie if you unlock them and a checklist that lists certain things you can do/achieve in the game. This comes close to act as achievements in the game. The replay value in this game is pretty high as it encourages you to replay the game making different choices and experiencing different outcomes (both good and bad). All in all I found the game to be enjoyable and hopefully the next time I go through this, I won’t end up having her killed, she looks too cute to get killed.

How one scene can play out during the course of the game.

 Should you play this game?

If you're into text based adventures and enjoy the setting and plot then yes go for it but be warned it is difficult. If not feel free to skip it!