Queen At Arms

One of my very favorite western-style visual novels. Queen At Arms is a medium-complexity fantasy adventure otome, with optional (but fairly integral) romance. The art style you can see from the screenshots, but particularly worth noting on a technical level is the original sountrack - I've very rarely had game music a) get stuck in my head or b) get stuck in my head and NOT drive me ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, but this manages both. Writing-wise, the pacing is excellent - there is solid use of timed-choice events that lend urgency to battle scenes and other, smaller-scale conflicts. The major characters (i.e, the romanceable characters + the MC's brother) are almost all wonderfully-written, with clearly-differentiated personalities and voices. There is some unevenness to the writing quality overall, however; some parts of the game are more polished than others, which makes sense given that it was released in two editions, with quite a bit of new content added in the Deluxe edition. (The only full character storyline that obviously suffers from this is Head Archer Cesca's.) What really makes QaA stand out to me over other VNs of similar objective quality level is its handling of gender, sexuality, and general identity issues. The MC is female-bodied masquerading as male-bodied for most of the game, but can explicitly identify as male, female, or neither, and depending on the relationships (romantic and otherwise) they choose to pursue, in many cases has conversations about identity that both manage to reflect very different points of view via the NPCs and always handle the topic with thoughtfulness and nuance. The romances themselves also are EXTREMELY well-differentiated in terms of "flavor," which is something I see a lot less often in otome games than I'd like to. All in all, I wholeheartedly recommend QaA to anyone who enjoys VNs with a lot of meaningful choices involved and highly-divergent potential character paths. (It's probably not going to convert anyone who doesn't generally like VNs to lovers of the genre unless they've only ever played strongly-railroaded examples, but I don't consider that a negative.) (NB: I've played this game an enormous amount of time off of Steam; please pay no mind to the apparent inexperience in my stats here.)

This is a very narrow recommendation. This also contains spoilers. A few direct ones, others less so. If I could give it stars, it would be a 2.51/5. This is a story with a lot to say and for the most part it says it very well. It is concise, without overstaying on any one point or topic. It actually focuses so much on being direct and straightforward that sometimes you might wish it actually spent more time on certain topics. However, despite interesting and diverse characters, relevant, important and simply good topics and overall great quality in story telling, it is severely let down by a lack of main character agency, garish and caricature-styled art, and its price. The good is that, as I said, it tells its story very well and very concisely. There is no lack of understanding of where your character is, what you're doing and why you're doing it. It doesn't muddle its content and its characters are presented in a unique way to complement their uniqueness. Each one is diverse and for the most part present, none of them losing their grounding. Even the most over the top character (Bryce) manages to come off as a real person going through some very real issues. The decision system is made very well and has a good impact on the story. Coming from a history buff and someone who enjoys watching and reading about various historical battles and moments, the battles felt simple but good. There were no crazy decisions leading to a crazy victory but actual logical choices that made sense in the context of their situations. There are a few stretches here and there but the world does just enough of a good job to make them believable. The main character is a very interesting character to me. It is a character I have had no experience with playing or reading about and brought some very interesting points and moments and their inner monologue does a very good job of showing their struggle and insecurity without going overlong or getting repetitive. I never felt like I just wanted to click through to skip the conversation. The relationships with the other characters also develop in a good way, obviously putting more emphasis on the ones you choose to interact with or even romance and, at least for the romance I picked, I felt like their connection was real if a little rushed. Then again, making it through a harrowing campaign to come out the other side of the meatgrinder might have that effect. There are bugs however, or I hope they are bugs because at least they would be excusable. There are moments and certain lines that appear that don't have any connection to the actions you have taken and the current event, almost acting as if you made a different decision. There are also more than a few misspellings or just very cumbersome word choices that stand out. The story is short. Far too short. Especially given the price point. It took me 6.6 hours to do my first play-through with only a minor amount of replaying because I died the first time. It spends next to no time with its set up, instead preferring to reveal most of the background over the duration of the game. That is fine in this case because it's done fairly organically. You get the important information and some side information for good flavor as it is relevant. The problem comes with most, if not all of the setting of the game, being very poorly and inadequately explained. You are a citizen of an allied kingdom, currently fighting for a different king because of an old tradition of allowing your people to learn and train with your allies for everyone's benefit, but the current king is using your people for unjust and fake wars. The current king has also usurped his crown from the previous king who may have been a tyrant but the current king may also be a tyrant and his son may also be a psycopath. The problem with the setting alone is that it is simply just speculation, and this is the directly relevant setting. Things are very poorly explained, especially to or by a character that is supposed to be well aware of these things. To a degree you are supposed to make your own inferences but it's all so muddled that it feels more like trying to guess the color on a piece of paper in an almost pitch black room. While we're on the story, there are many many other issues. There is magic in this game and the game never bothers to explain who its main users are, what kind of training they go through or what its impact on the world is. There is a semi-modern level of technology too (at least by historical standards. I would say a mixture of 1400s and 1900s technology) where you have fairly modern looking troops and fairly lightly armored troops fighting in a medieval style. Gunpowder exists and exploding or shrapnel mines exist but no cannons or guns. There are constructions that hint to a bigger, more advanced world but the game doesn't even bother to gloss over that and promptly blows it up. It doesn't feel grounded in any way. Where the characters are present and real the setting is a mixture of a 6 year old-fantasies and equally well explained. There are many many many such cases. What are the clerics? Why are they clerics? What are the gods, how many are there, why is the important god important? Why do we meet her if we die? Why is she seemingly important but then we get to meet her? And so on. There are also multiple story ideas and threads that the game very boldly pulls up and then immediately drops completely unresolved. No explanation about a major magical ability of the archamges that can literally drain soul essence, or how the clearly possesed crown even came to be or what is happening to it, or how you, the person who spent the entire time proving to yourself that you can lead, actually tried to rule. The game makes you a queen and voila. Happily ever after (in my run) and end of story. The game also brings up current topics like gender identity but brushes it off as "it's all I ever knew so I'm comfortable". That is literally the opposite of gender identity understanding. I love that it made me think about these things but I hate how it went on about it. And finally, the game is $20 too expensive. The art style is bad. Very bad. The non-CG character screens are better quality than the CGs and they are caricatures to the point of being off-putting. If this ever goes on at least 80% sale, it would be worth it. The story is ridiculously short though I understand that there are choices. The problem is, one playthrough was enough to have enough. Ultimately this game is severely let down by a lack of grounding. The characters are good, the story brings very interesting moments and points to the table and it leaves them there to go instead and make fridge drawings.

"Fantastic!!!" But I like it so far. Interesting story and setting, alot of reading however with pretty lackluster CGI. But come on, its a VN, they aren't well know for great CGI and combat scenes. I consider it worth it, but then again I have to much free time on my hands...so take it as you wish.

Disclosure: Key Provided by Developer for Review Purposes. Queen at Arms is a godo visual novel that features a rich cast of characters and a solid story on the whole. While the art work and music isn't great it works and it helps the game overall. There is a good variety in the story here and a decent amount to digest - though for a single playthrough you're looking at about 5 hours or so with other options to go through and see all the other story options there's another 12 hours. Read the [url=http://techraptor.net/content/queen-at-arms-review]full review here[/url]

Достойная визуальная новелла. Приятный внешний вид и качественное музыкальное сопровождение. Персонажи не озвучены (за исключением ряда эмоциональных реплик). Из того, что успела увидеть - каждый из основных персонажей по-своему интересен. Как на мой вкус, сюжет достаточно глубокий (в сравнении с тонной школьных романтических новелл). Любителям интриг и военных походов должно понравиться. Поставлю положительную оценку, но вряд ли возьмусь за прохождение оставшихся сюжетных линий в ближайшее время. Причина - отсутсвие в игре галереи и/или списка концовок. О своем прогрессе можно вспоминать только по ачивкам в стиме, что не очень-то радует. Также в игре преступно мало артов (т.н. CG). Причем в демо-версии (первая глава) на них не поскупились. Лично у меня это создало ложное впечатление, что и дальше будет так же. В целом о покупке не жалею, игру рекомендую. Надеюсь, в дальнейшем разработчики исправят очевидные недочеты и законный палец вверх можно будет ставить без всяких оговорок.

I wanted to like this game, I really, really did. I've tried (and failed) twice now to play even one route, but I just can't. I just don't care (at all) about any of the characters. ANY of them. I just can't get into this.

Do you like choose your own adventure games? Do you like romancing adorable/hot people? Do you like leading an entire army and having the wieght of all of their lifes on your shoulder? At least two of those? THEN THIS GAME IS FOR YOU. Ok but guys. This game is amazing. 11/10 would go back and buy a second copy for full price. So mechanically? Very sound. Its got a ♥♥♥♥ ton of save files for you and if you immediately regret a disction just scroll back with your mouse. There's a few timed events were you have to pick what to do in like 20 seconds which feels refreshing cause its still enough time to read all the options and think but not so much time that you don't feel the importance of thinking quickly. The romance options? SUPER SOLID. I've only done 2 of the routes right now but hot diggity damn are they good. They've got girls and guys for you to seduce and they're all like super good??? Its got mystery and intrege and your gonna be like 'oh what the what??? What going on???' and then your gonna go 'oh daaaaammmm' No spoilers or nothing but i was very impressed by the writing of this story. And also like you thought this was just a choose your own adventure? NOPE ITS ALSO A CHOOSE YOUR OWN GENDER. Some of the characters are gender locked. And i do mean gender. Not sex. although you do get to choose who you sex. I love this game and i suspect you will too. Definitly worth the price.

I really like this game. I have only gotten two endings so far, and I am glad to say that (even with my limited experience) I don't regret spending my money. I have only one complaint(maybe two): there is no way outside of achievements to keep track of which endings you've gotten, and there is no CG gallery. While I can live without a CG gallery, the lack of ending gallery is quit annoying. I would like it if this was patched in, but I don't think that will happen. I don't have any complaints with the ''gameplay'' or with the story (so far), so I recommend this game to everyone who is looking for a good VN to read/play.