Your Crown Is Mine

If the review could be neutral, I would pick it, with a note that it's probably better to wait for a sale or any possible update for the game's disappointing second half (EDIT: We already got one somewhat major update, so I remain optimistic). The proper playtime is around 5 hours, as I rushed through most of the Act 1 content that I've played in the demo. Don't really expect any major political simulation, you're here for trashy villainess webtoon-inspired shenanigans. The protagonist, Lucena, finds herself in a stock (affectionately) situation where the grim Duke of the North publicly dumps her for the heroine beloved by the public. Her revenge plan is simple: beat him in the upcoming election for the throne despite having a thoroughly negative reputation. Act 1, or the first half of the game, is about that, with you having to plan out her schedule day by day between building her stats, improving her overall popularity, and getting to know better the four love interests. Some of the actions having their own little minigames and the scripted events every few days with a decent amount of dialogue choices make it maybe not the greatest raising sim out here, but at least a competent one. Acts 2 and 3 take a rather nasty step down. The amount of options you could do every weekday gets cut down. (EDIT: Post-launch update expanded the non-resting activities to 5, with two more useful ones being small logic minigames to keep them from being too repetitive.) There's also not much to say about the kingdom management - nearly all the proposals you get come from a very short list of random events, which will start repeating really quickly, so it's just a game of avoiding bad endings for any stat hitting 0 or checking the official walkthrough (which is a plus) to see what to raise for the ending you want. The plot is also not the best, with the two main mysteries happening and solving themselves mostly outside of Lucena's control with pretty much every character doing their own thing behind her back. What kept me playing were the love interests, who, while fairly simple in personality, were charming enough to carry the game to completion. In short, it's a short, Kickstarter-funded solo-dev vn that actually came out fully, even if somewhat disappointingly; that's still a major achievement. I'm simply hoping that the next, already announced project will be somewhat better polished.

TLDR: Came for the politics stayed for yuri. Its so peak. Generally pretty good. A solid 7 to 8 out of 10. If you're after the politics and looking for something like suzerain, then this probably isn't really for you. If your after a solid visual novel that has good art and isn't AI slop then this fits the bill pretty well I'd say. Also there is peak yuri in it. Maybe consider getting it on sale? Unless you can't get enough yuri. Then its so worth it. I love yuri.

While I appreciate the concept of the game, on the whole I feel I have to downvote it, as ultimately the game left me feeling frustrated more often than fulfilled. I enjoy how the game puts you in situations where you have to make choices without really knowing who you can trust, and all the behind-the-scenes schemes really emphasize that element of uncertainty. Where my passion for the game dries up is in the game mechanics themselves, as the game is *constantly* punishing you for the areas in which your stats or relationships are low, while conversely rewarding you very rarely for those stats in which you excel in. Developing relationships to any beneficial extent with a character often requires you to dedicate ALL of your focus on building that relationship to the exclusion of all others. And some kingdom stats require 1 - 2 weeks of focusing on them just to build them up one point, while having 2 - 3 events per week where points for that same stat must be spent in order to sustain the kingdom and/or avoid significant repercussions. This makes the game less about learning to balance your kingdom, and more about trying to prolong your kingdoms inevitable spiral towards destruction just long enough to actually reach the end of the game. It's also a little off-putting that something as simple as just running out of energy is apparently enough to trigger a game over. I suppose my character just literally works herself to death if I don't take time to rest once and a while.

A good game but repetitive, and lacking in dialogue choices or options especially for a price of $20 CAD.

[h3]What kind of villainess are you?[/h3] Your Crown Is Mine is a stat-raising visual novel where you take the place of Lucena, a woman who was branded publicly as a villainess and lose your engagement to the cold Duke, Edgar. It is your job to either redeem Lucena’s name and save the kingdom, or follow the path of villainess and drag everything down with you. The game is split into 3 different acts. In the first act, you are running for the crown against Edgar, your former fiancée, and must earn popularity to win. You’ll have to balance a range of activities. During the weekdays you can gain stats, earn money and popularity. During the weekend you cannot work - but you can visit others and build relationships. This pattern is rather consistent throughout the game but in act 2 and 3, you have a smaller variation of activities as it’s much more focused on balancing your own stats while running the kingdom. There is a large cast of characters, including four love interests. Two male, two female. - Rosalie, born as a commoner, took your place as Edgar’s fiancée. However she secretly idolizes Lucena, and simply wants to use her position to assist the people of Iriyn to live a better life. - Aeriselle is a mysterious woman from Atissia, a neighbouring kingdom. She’s sweet, but has hidden secrets and it’s up to you to decide whether she’s trustworthy or if she could become a very dangerous enemy. - Edgar is your former fiancée. He left Lucena due to her villainess role tainting his own name, and Rosalie being the complete opposite and loved - the perfect bride for the next king. But is there more to Edgar? Despite everything, he still cares dearly for the people. - Helius is the face of Bloom Media, a news empire and also originally from Atissia. He’s an invaluable asset and his tools can help Lucena get quite ahead of the opponent but also he’s sweet, and quite genuine on the surface. And if you don’t want any of the above, there are consort-less endings for those who want to run solo. Afterall, you’ve got plenty of other concerns being both your own people and neighbouring kingdoms who aren’t always going to be friendly. At first, my biggest concern with YCIM was the stats. I’ve played visual novels with stat building mechanics before, and the most important part is to balance them well. Some can be a tiring challenge to keep things balanced while also going for specific things for endings. For the most part, I had absolutely no issue with that. However, the one time I did, was when I tried to get Edgar as my consort and try to get his ending (which required specific stats at a high amount). After about 3 tries I had to give up and it was a shame. Everyone else was much easier, but due to the fact Edgar requires you to have 500 gold to visit him, and then you need 1000 gold every week to get a military stat for his specific ending. Then again, the majority of the endings are a bit trickier to build up specific stats for regardless. And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For all I know I am just absolutely terrible at managing them, but when I tried to get this specific ending I just couldn’t find a good balance of it all, even with getting extra money from other characters. I did, however, find the different activities and things like the counting meetings quite fun. It’s a nice, yet not overwhelming way of doing the stats. I did feel like I was reminded a little too often to make sure my stats didn’t reach 0, but I didn’t exactly track how often it was - it just felt a tad too frequent. I loved the hand-drawn art of YCIM. It’s unique and gives the game character. From the sprites to the background it all looked great, and I can only imagine it was a lot of work for a solo dev. I do wish there were some more CG with your partner-of-choice - but it’s much more about the stats and the kingdom first, before the romance, which you don’t get into until the end. The writing was also great, I personally did not spot any errors within the script, and enjoyed the range of options. If you really wanted you could play like a genuine villainess, or a misunderstood woman who really does want to see the kingdom thrive. I have to also point out that YCIM includes my favourite mechanic in visual novels where you can, while playing, skip back dialogue and retry options (mouse wheel on PC). Any VN having this immediately gets a bonus from me as I love being able to test out different options without having to go through the save and load progress, or if I accidentally skip a block or two ahead when clicking. Overall, I found YCIM to be a well done stat raiser. It is on the shorter side, and would take you 4-5 hours for a playthrough, but on top of multiple love interests there are 15 different endings without even including the bad ones, and it will take some time of learning the best way to manage certain stats in order to get them all - as the requirements vary drastically. Especially considering Lyyycaena is a solo-dev, I think the game is of great quality and it’s a fun story with lots of different endings to explore. There is always a demo to try out if you’re on the fence about a potential purchase here. I, personally, am very happy to support a solo dev who clearly puts a lot of time and effort into their work, and even better when I have a ton of good endings to explore - if you know me, you know that I cannot stand the bad ones… Just let me be happy with my pretty men! (And even women in this case!) Otome Lovers wishes to thank [i]Lyyycaena[/i] for providing a free review copy for this game. [quote]Please follow our curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/4680120/]Otome Lovers[/url], if you'd like to see more reviews like this one! [/quote]

Went through one playthrough so far and I enjoyed it. I did run into a bug or two though it didn’t tarnish the experience at all. I didn’t get a labeled ending with this playthrough so I’ll probably go through it a few more times. I look forward to both playing it more and the upcoming game! update: The bugs I ran into were fixed, thanks dev!

If you're familiar with villainess plots, you'll love this. I went into the game expecting to follow a hard "villainess" route, however as the love interests and supporting characters interacted with Lucena day by day, their care for the protagonist despite their self serving political interests was touching. I ended up following Rosalie's route, and her personal story with the protag endeared me to her. Each of the love interests have their own hidden sides and motives that don't begin to click into place until much later - I'm very invested in replaying for Aeriselle to figure out what her deal is!! A lot of love for the genre was clearly poured into this by the solo dev/artist and the artwork is stunning. I can't wait to play it again!

A 6 out of 10, well, the game starts very well but after the first chapter the game declines a lot and becomes very repetitive, and the art is good, the endings are cool.

I bought this specifically for the Yuri content and it delivered 100%. The art is stunning and fits the vibe perfectly. I love that it’s not just a simple visual novel; the way the game is structured gives it a lot of replay value. Lucena is exactly the kind of lead I wanted to play as and her chemistry with the other girls is peak. Easily the best GL experience I've had in a game lately.

Hate to say that for someone's first game but if you're looking for the "dating-Sim" and Romance elements, then this game is definitely not worth its price. Don't buy it unless it is on sale. I am a sucker for romance and stuff but this game completely missed it for me. Previous interactions simply does not matter and the progression does not feel there. Flirting with the characters doesn't change anything in the long-run. Even kissing is forgotten, i mean hello girl I am trying to romance you please show some reaction I am starving I played the game under the impression that I needed 70+ affection to get a wedding, but imagine my surprise when I found out that I was able to marry with 50? Then i saw that the minimum was around 20... bruh. Not only that but the epilogue wasn't even that long, less than 10 minute worth of content. Just a timeskip and a kiss very underwhelming romance by far.