(In short: It's a decent read if you have the will to put up with trial and error. The story deserves no praise, yet it motivated enough to keep trying to 'save my people'.)


This game caught me off guard. The mechanics of the game put you both in charge of what to study, somewhat like a teacher, and what to do. The results of your actions are not simply based upon which flags (past choices) you have gotten, but also 'points' in various skills, gained by studying, which determine whether or not certain choices are available, and which ones succeed or fail. The point system common in most western games (implemented very well in Cinders), but this is the first time I've seen it applied like this.

It works well once you get used to it, but at times it lead to disconnects between me and the character. Part of the game becomes you trying to teach Elodie (the queen to be) what she needs to get past some event. Fortunately, there are many ways to overcome these events, like learning bad omens from divination ...or sheer knowledge. It lets the game branch out a bit more organically than specific routes, but at the cost of being able to replay it easily.

I wouldn't say the artwork is bad, I mean it gets the job done... but it does nothing for me. It's cute and inoffensive at best, and bland yet inoffensive at worst. You can gain various outfits for Elodie to wear throughout the game, and they all grant bonuses to a group of stats when you use them. The 'magical girl' outfit irks me as unfitting. The concept of magic in the artwork is easily the weakest part of the aesthetics.

Writing is..decent. The story itself is decent but sometimes I question whether I'm playing as an idiot. Elodie has her own personality which is greatly shown in scenes where you don't have a choice. Apparently she's a young go-getter girl with a strong will, but I have trouble understanding how this young 14 year old *sheltered-all-her-life princess* could say, after witnessing a killing in front eyes, "Clean this up." (With an angry puffed out manga-style expression, at that!) While on another scene she'd think to herself "I don't know how to deal with handsome older men paying me compliments!". I think my main complaint about the writing is that age-wise it's inconsistent.

I finished this within 4.4 hours, that is to say, I've gotten to a 'good if bittersweet' end after 10 or so bad ends. The replay value, I'm not too sure. That depends on how many possible routes I missed, which I didn't check too thorougly as I was too focused getting through my current route correctly. I will go back to it sometime.

Despite all its faults and shortcomings, I enjoyed and recommend Long Live The Queen. Not without caution, though. If you are interested, I suggest you to try the demo as this may be too 'mechanically unique' for your liking.