Ambition: A Minuet in Power
I almost fainted when I saw Ambition’s premise. A choose-your-own adventure? With political intrigue and love interests?! Taking place in the French Revolution!? It seemed perfect for me - and, oh, it was!
You play as Yvette Decaux, a woman who travels to Paris on the eve of the French Revolution to rendezvous with her fiance, a baron named Armand. But oh no! He’s missing! You have the option to try and find him, and/or abandon him for one or more of the five other love interests. Each of those love interests are part of a faction - the Crown, the Church, the Military, the Bourgeoisie, and the Revolution. To build your power, you must go to parties thrown by these factions to meet your romance options, collect gossip, and participate in a randomized and vast array of entertaining minor intrigues. The gossip you get can be sold for money (used to buy dresses, pay rent, bribe the authorities, and purchase coffee - the usual!) or bend the factions to your will. You can increase or decrease their power, or nudge the middle factions towards the Crown or Revolution.
– Real player with 146.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dating Sim Diplomacy Games.
First and foremost: this game gets my recommendation. Its content is deep, compelling, and interesting. Despite having limited hours to do so, I wanted to keep playing. The historical perspective seems incredibly well researched and founded (though I admit I am not a good source to weigh in on historical legitimacy), the characters were diverse, and the story was compelling.
That being said, I found numerous issues. The most frustrating being that many of the randomly generated interactions kept appearing “out of order” in such a way that the story felt massively interrupted and disjointed. I’m honestly not sure if it’s some strange series of choices I made to cause this, but I kept accidentally running into one of the main characters in the game in side missions at parties in which she would act as if we had some very contemptuous history, when in reality, I had never even seen her before let alone (to my knowledge) upset her before. As I found from playing the entire game, I believe she was destined to be an adversary, but I was SO confused when I was playing. There were several other instances in which I found that interactions I had already had with characters didn’t jive with interactions I went on to have with them subsequently, and honestly, this is my biggest issue with the game.
– Real player with 48.2 hrs in game
Cat President ~A More Purrfect Union~
It’s a really cute parody of American elections. But this game will be intersting even for those who are absolutely not into politics. I was so excited to play it being a great cat lover. We can hear those cats purring in the game which is so relaxing and enjoyable! Unfortunately I can’t say the same about barking sounds but even they helped to create a general nice atmosphere of the world ruled by cute animals because people became too corrupted. I find it so adorable that the photos of real cats are used. DJ Nibbles looks especially cute for me! Plus in every route there’re amazing cat pictures on the walls. It was a real pleasure for my eyes to play through this novel!
– Real player with 16.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dating Sim Politics Games.
Tries to be Catoful Boyfriend, but doesn’t quite get there. A big part of why Hatoful Boyfriend works so well is that it starts with a one-note joke, but gradually reveals a complex story structure and lore, ending with a (probably well-spoiled by now) plot twist and genre shift. Cat President starts with a one-note joke and never strays far from it, so if you don’t find the idea of talking cat politicians inherently funny, it’ll get old really fast.
It’s a visual novel with no gameplay, and the choice structure is very simple (pick a cat, make some choices along a linear plot and have a sound effect tell you if you chose correctly, then reach one of three endings based on how many correct choices you made). Your choices basically don’t affect anything but the ending, so replaying involves skipping a lot of text, and the correct choice indicator should have been optional, because although it takes some of the frustration out of finding the good endings, it takes some of the fun out of it, too.
– Real player with 7.3 hrs in game
Paper Shakespeare: To Date or Not To Date? 2
King Alexander XI is dead, and without heir.
Your parents want you to be that heir. Luckily for you, there’s totally an ancient tradition for electing a new ruler in times like these: simply lock eight children of royal blood (or the closest thing) in Castle Elsinore, complete with the ghosts of past rulers, and let them manipulate the living heck out of each other and the local population! Two shall rise above the rest: King and Queen (or Queen/Queen, King/King, King/Nobody, Queen/Nobody)! Everyone else that is still alive gets to go home! It’s a win-win for everyone (except those that died)!
Features
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Interact with eight different potential royal candidates! Sabotage or help them!
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Decide what skills you want to learn as a potential ruler!
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Part strategy, part dating sim, all royal bloodbath! This is more a dating sim than an election sim, though.
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A variety of paths to go down, depending on what you do in the game! Who do you romance? Who do you backstab? Who do you romance and then backstab?
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Invading armies? Political debates? It’s all in here!
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Direct continuation of the story started in Paper Shakespeare: To Date Or Not To Date?, but completely separate from Furry Shakespeare and Dinosaur Shakespeare! Telling you why would be spoilers. Also, just a perfectly good stand-alone story!
Read More: Best Dating Sim Strategy Games.
International Affairs
What can I say, this game is flamin hot! Pretty sure I almost p’d myself laughing, and the graphics are tight. Well f*****g done.
In conclusion, this fire game easily deserves 10 out of a possible 10 snacks on the snack-o-meter, and that’s a Chester McCheese guarantee.
– Real player with 104.4 hrs in game
Crude but hilarious
– Real player with 10.3 hrs in game
Palais de Reine
Played a bit more, and decided to add some new and fresh feelings. I definitely recommend this game, like 99 out of 100. Though lots of texts, even the opening took me like more than an hour (I’m a slow reader, though).
Highlight of the game, I think, is the way of building characters. Each character have distinct personalities and personal stories, for like 30-40 characters? It also built a pretty complete world, with reasonable explanation for all things I can think of.
This is a mixture of romance and strategy, like half-half. Yet I guess a reason why this game is not very popular is that neither is out-standing. I mean, both are great, but if compare each element to famous games like Civilization (famous strategy game) or 蝶の毒 華の鎖 (famous romance game), neither part stands out. I don’t play strategy games, so I only can speak romance-wise. The number of characters is both the tame’s highlight and weakness. With so many characters, it is just impossible to make everyone’s story equally impressive. Personally, only one character’s route made me feel like in love. All other romance route makes me feel average-good but not impressive (or maybe I’m too harsh). Though most non-romance routes are beautiful.
– Real player with 85.6 hrs in game
Highly recommended.
-Romance parts are optional and not required to finish or to enjoy the game!!!
-It has two difficulty settings, normal and difficult.
-You can’t just click your way through the game. If you fail the strategy part then that means game over.
-Has partial voice acting. The 7 “poster boy” knights are all voiced, while the 20 kights are not voiced. Some of the Lords are
voiced, as well as the Princess’ two aides.
-Don’t focus too much on voiced characters. The rest of the cast all have their own stories and the majority of the characters can
– Real player with 48.5 hrs in game
Pegasus: Broken Wings
yes
– Real player with 15.1 hrs in game
I played twice with it.
So for those who insist this part of the review included, up, left, right down arrows Enter and ESC controls and there you have it good.
The dev there got out of the classical soft 2D look toward a more 3D cold aesthetic where he both had more control and ownership of his characters and action. Since what happens globally, I guess it was his best bet to narrate a very complex story that casts an interesting foreshadowing into the future of our freedom, privacy and how much a government can use external events to their advantage to lock down a society and turn politics into plain accepted tyranny. It does into the same charms of the Incitement series, City of Chains and Outrage but in the Pegasus-5 mature universe. You got to check upon the morale of your crew members and have the option to romance most of them very inclusively, but without artificially changing them into your own likings and orientations, which makes them pretty realistic in the versimilitude of the game universe.
– Real player with 9.6 hrs in game
Love with Kadyrov
Love with Kadyrov is one of my favourite steam games. My friend bought it for me and I can’t be happier that she did. This game has brought so many tears to my eyes at the beautiful graphics and story telling. The story ends so abruptly making me hope for a part two to be released. I have fully completed the game, which I regret so much because my time with Kadyrov on our daily dates now no longer feels new and exciting. Kadyrov fills the void in my heart that could be filled with a much less important thing like a significant other. If I had the chance to meet Kadyrov in real like I would take it in a heartbeat if I could play the ancient highlander game of match three.
– Real player with 331.2 hrs in game
The way Kadyrov in real life is so against gay people, he is definitely a massive closet dweller and this game is 100% irrefutable proof that he is. The game is pretty good fun as well, so I recommend it.
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game
Primate Signal
Thought provoking, deep and twizted. Absolutely stunning graphics, audio and character development so much so that I actually was physically transported into the fucked up world of the minds of the Wainstop gang. This work, will replace the Bible in our churches. Thank you.
– Real player with 1.8 hrs in game
It’s not very often something comes along that is this unique. It has such a strong stylistic character that you feel transported to another world with the original artwork and music, not to mention the mind bending story. The time I spent in this world was totally bizarre in the best possible way. Nothing else like it.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
Vengeful Heart
Great cyberpunk VN with a heavy, HEAVY emphasis on the ‘punk’, Vengeful Heart was a brisk, thrilling read! The aesthetic was great, the music is great, the whole novel is criminally underrated. The plot is exactly what I was hoping for and even more pulse-pounding than I expected. It’s not perfect - a couple of the plot beats fell a little flat, like Little Jimmy and the two romantic options' jealousy - but overall it was a worthwhile read.
Don’t pass this one up!
– Real player with 40.0 hrs in game
What Am I in For?
Vengeful Heart (VH) is a visual novel set in a futuristic dystopian world. The game is purely a reading experience, with only one choice players make close to the very end of the game. Outside of megacities, life is very difficult due in large part to the lack of water and heavily polluted desert sands. Players follow the story of a hydraulics engineer turned activist leader by the name of Josephine Lace, formerly employed by Nepthys, the largest water company in an unnamed city. She ends up losing both her home and job, then soon after begins her crusade against the many injustices her former boss slowly enacted over the course of the story.
– Real player with 35.5 hrs in game
Imperial Grace
Imperial Grace is a visual novel / otome game, focusing on politics and romance in an imaginary medieval world. You play as the new Empress of Calidya, who must rule her country despite the hardships and precariousness of her position. During your reign, you will face many difficult choices, which can dramatically change the future of Calidya as well as your own destiny. You may even find love in difficult times, but be careful: love can equally help you overcome the perils you face and get in the way of your duty..
Imperial Grace has an optional management feature, if you wish to spice up the game and face ever more strategic and thornier choices.
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A customisable strong-willed, competent, and ambitious MC
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3 enticing love interests and a colourful cast of characters
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A lot of meaningful choices shaping the story and epilogues
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Beautiful graphics and music
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Accessibility feature (for dyslexic and colourblind people)
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Optional strategic resource management features
