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sorry classmates + professor, this one is pretty long from the images, feel free to read just the intro/conclusion
Long Live The Queen is one of my favorite games, and has been since my brother introduced me to it sometime back in 2017/2018. Simply explained, it is a “Medieval Anime Politics Game”, but the official website has a better description:
"Being a Princess is not an easy job. Being a Queen is even harder. Especially when you're only fourteen years old, and the reason you've inherited the throne is that your royal mother has just met an untimely end. Now power is up for grabs. You may be the official heir, but much of the country's nobility would love to steal the throne for themselves. Aggressive neighbors will take advantage of any weakness to enlarge their borders at your expense. And that's not even mentioning the magical dangers which are lying in wait...Can you survive long enough to reach your coronation?"
The game mechanics work like this: The player can, at the beginning of each week, pick two classes for Elodie to take. These classes will boost her skill points in those subjects, which allows her to pass certain skill checks in the game, unlocking new options, dialogue, endings, etc. You can also get bonuses or penalties to skill categories depending on Elodie’s mood, which is affected by events during the week or by selecting weekend activities, helping her gain skills faster or penalizing certain categories. So, players have to balance her mood well, in order to build up her skills efficiently. Here's an example, since it’s a bit hard to explain
If you want to use this skill bonus for the Animal Handling class, you could study Horses, Dogs, or Falcons and gain 15 points towards that skill. Here, I studied “Dogs” for my first class, and gained 15 points:
After the classes are over, you go on to that week's events, and afterwards get to choose a weekend activity for Elodie, all of which can affect her mood. Some of these change as well, such as the “Visit Dungeons” activity, that can grant different stats depending on many factors. On this day with Elodie's current mood, it had no effect.
In my example, I had Elodie talk to Charlotte, which granted her +1 to cheerfulness. This leveled out her mood so that Afraid and Depressed were the same value, although Afraid is the dominant value here (the chart reads left-to-right,) so it was what determined her mood.
Afraid gives a boost to the Agility class, so I had Elodie take two classes in Reflexes. This allowed for her to pass a Reflexes check, protecting herself and Charlotte from a snake attack. There are a few different outcomes for this event, depending on other skills and choices you’ve made, but this is one of the outcomes using the Reflexes skill.
Hopefully this makes the mechanics more clear, since we’re about to get a bit more nerdy with strategizing. I figured it would be fun to frame this post around trying to achieve a specific achievement, as a nice way to showcase the game and force me to actually do some achievement hunting. I picked this achievement since it wouldn't be too difficult, since the fleet is an unavoidable event and I figured I knew how to get this one anyway.
I did a bit of research on the games wikipedia site so I knew which skills I needed + the exact value I needed to pass, along with any additional information I might need to get to this event. I’ve highlighted the most important information here, but basically I needed at least 2 Lumen allies (Lumen = Magic) and a pretty high Lumen stat as well.
The main problem with this method is maintaining a decent noble standing (Which is a hidden stat that, If Elodie failed too many checks during the Grand Ball, would bring me into a different event that prevents me from speaking to Lucille) and leveling Elodie’s Lumen skill high enough before the ball, since Elodie can’t perform magic right away. To study Lumen, Elodie needs to first gain access to her Lumen Crystal from the treasury, either by passing skill checks in accounting, presence, or just waiting for Julianna to take it for her. However, there are ways to obtain the crystal quickly, which I discovered and followed (not by using the debugger console unfortunately, though it would have been efficient)
So the plan was pretty simple: Follow the above guide, focus on my Lumen skills to get them high enough for the ball while putting time into other stats so I don't lose too much noble standing, and then focus on not dying while leveling my Lumen to 300, just in case.
As I mentioned before with the Noble Standing stat, the game tracks some hidden stats, another being Cruelty. Elodie can raise this by being mean to her maids or others, and can unlock certain choices for her depending on how high her Cruelty is. This option comes up if Elodie fails a Reflexes check, and a maid runs into her with a pile of linens. By punishing the maid, you would raise her Cruelty stat.
Anyway, after this I gained the Lumen Crystal and focused on leveling my Lumen skills for the ball, along with some skills in Conversation to keep my noble standing high enough. Here is Elodie in her “Magical Girl” a.k.a Lumen outfit
Elodie then sensed Lucille's magic, but crucially fails the second, higher, Sense Magic check that allows us to believe her lie and appoint her as our Minister
Unfortunately, I failed to pay attention to the aftermath of the ritual, which summoned THE KRAKEN. Whoops. If I had focused on getting a high cruelty stat, Elodie could have chosen to sacrifice Charlotte, since she knew of her being a Lumen during this playthrough, but unfortunately I wasn’t mean enough, so my options were to sacrifice Elodie to stop the Kraken, or sending out Lumen to seal the monster every week for 7 years. Ultimately I decided on the latter, so we could keep Elodie alive to see her coronation scene.
There is a small, “post-credits” section with these stained-glass graphics depicting the fate of Nova or Elodie after non-death endings, and here we see a section about the Kracken.
…So, there you go! My favorite spreadsheet software! Just kidding, though I fully embrace the joke, something about this game is extremely captivating to me. I love the strategy behind balancing the skill sheet while controlling Elodie’s mood, all while seeing new events and dialogue from my choices. Many of these more interactive games fall into “the illusion of choice”, but Long Live the Queen truly feels like there are infinite possibilities for Elodie’s fate, with enough difficulty in the mechanics to be engaging and game-like.
Comments
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korvetar
even though it seems so complicated, honestly i'd play the game and i might look more into it now and see if i'd be able to play it :3 the art style looks so pretty too!! i also love the attention to details, especially with the stained glass window
Iida
I've never heard of this game and while it's not one I would play myself, it was really interesting reading your blog about it! It definitely sounds like a game you could sink hours upon hours into and not get repeat endings. Also the graphics of it are really cute!