If you’re like me, you enjoy anachronisms, antitheses, and a bit of a dark humor. Long Live the Queen from Hanako Games is utterly adorable and tragic at the same time. Depending on which skills you learn and when, you could either lead the princess to her immediate doom or to a successful coronation. The dichotomy of cuteness and demented demise is a sweet treat.
Long Live the Queen is a 2D, text-driven game where you are Princess Elodie. As Elodie, you must learn a slew of skills, including Conversation, Weapons, Intrigue, History, Agility, and many more. Your emotions determine how successful your studying proves to be; if you’re afraid and depressed, you aren’t going to feel like carrying on any useful conversations to boost that skill.
Skills = Story
As you’re building Elodie’s skills, you move through a story and meet different, clearly shady, characters. Certain events depend on fleshed out skills, so if you have yet to develop her Archery skill, an event pertaining to Archery will “fail.” Additionally, you have the option to somewhat explore areas of your castle, boosting particular emotions and continuing the storyline.
The artwork is beautiful and polished. Though the game is simple, it’s visually appealing; the avatars switch expressions depending on the mood of their phrases, so details like that keep text-based games from getting too dry.
I’ve only played the demo, which ends at Week 10. I can’t really determine the quality of the storyline just yet, but I’m more interested in developing Elodie’s skills and unlocking costumes. Luckily, I’ve avoided death so far–I had a brief scuffle with a milk viper, but I’m sure there are gorier alternatives. Long Live the Queen is a blend of cuteness and morbidity, sort of like seeing an owl gorge on a rodent half its size.
You can find the free demo on Hanako Games’ website as well as the full purchase, which is $12.95. They are also on SteamGreenlight, so go and vote for it if you find Long Live the Queen to your liking.
