Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra :: It's really been awhile since I've been this irritated with a game.

[quote name="Worm"]I recently downloaded <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=142369710">Long Live the Queen</a> to see if I liked it and because it wasn't available on Steam quite yet, and let me say I am fucking glad I didn't buy it. At first it seems like a fun simulation game in the style of Princess Maker 2, but you quickly realize it has nothing on a never released localization of a Japanese game from 1993. The entire skill building system is okay at first until you get to the awful mood system which effects how quickly you gain these skills. Generally you'd have skills(or jobs) which would in turn build stats that would make you better at those same skills. Instead in this you farm up your skills to pass various checks throughout the game(barely any of which really matter except the few death flag events) the whole time having your princess go totally bipolar to aid those skill gains. The game becomes completely motherfucking irritating beyond belief when you realize you have to literally write down every event that occurs and associated skill check to play it right. I guess you could blindly traipse through it or use a walkthrough, but there's absolutely no right way to play the game other than to memorize what moods increase gain on what skills and then memorize in what order you want to raise those skills. Beyond scrapping the entire mood system, I don't know what they could have done with this. Adding some randomness to the game would have helped, but that probably would have made it even more fucking frustrating. Altogether this reminds me a lot of FTL, a really poorly thought out concept that looks good enough to compel you to play it up until the point where you realize it has barely anything going on for it. Oddly enough the makers of both games felt the need to include a 'You're going to die <b>a lot</b>' line, like if you make a game where the player dies a lot it somehow shields someone criticizing the mechanics for being lacking.[/quote]