Long Live the Queen

Ana Mardoll did a Let's Play of Long Live the Queen by Hanako games.  Her thread on it can be found here, and that obviously leads to the youtube video.  Of interest to people like me who don't always have reliable internet and reliable sound at the same time is that in the comments are links by which the video can be downloaded (now I just need to move the file to the computer with sound.)

Without seeing the video, Ana talking about it intrigued me enough that I ended up buying the game (it's not expensive, currently less than ten US dollars.)

I'm going to be making a series of posts about the game, by which I mean in preparation for a time when I have limited internet access I've already made a series of posts about the game (actually I would have made them anyway) and they're all about things I think could have been better.

This might leave one with the impression that I don't like the game.  That is the opposite of true.  I think the game is great, and that's saying something because I'm usually a first person shooter kind of person.

Before I get into what I think could have been better, I'd like to talk about what I liked but there's a problem.  I'm not good at that.  When I like something I tend to be, "I like it."  When I don't like something I tend to have more to say.

I like choice and consequences, I like that you can do things and have them send the narrative spiraling off in another direction.  I, for example, completely avoided any civil wars.  You might not.  I like that.  I like that the story conforms to fit your choices.  I wish we saw that more in games.

The only downside for me is that I like games where, if you play just right (usually constantly skating on the edge of disaster) you can get an all around good ending.  Not get everything, see everything, or do everything, that would be silly and would kill replay value, but get to a happy ending rather than, "This was good, but that sucked."  The example of this game forcing between "This is good and that sucks," or, "This sucks and that is good," is why "Unfortunate Implications" is to be the first of my posts on where I think the game went wrong.

But where I think it went right is all over the place.

I was looking into the game while on the phone with someone and reading over the achievements from the steam version basically convinced them that they're interested in it.  I think it was something like this, "saved the world with song, fought a tentacle monster?, PREFORMED A HUMAN SACRIFICE?"

Yes, all that and more is in fact in the game.  And makes sense in context.  Though you can't save the world with song and preform a human sacrifice in the same playthrough.

The upcoming posts will be:
Unfortunate Implications (Spoilers)
Inconsistency (Spoilers)
Lack of Flavor Convos
An inability to do the obvious. (Spoilers)

When they're posted and I have the chance I'll turn that into links.