Such a wonderful little game. My only complaint is there isn't more! A nice and relaxing achievement hunt, would highly recommend for a light heart, mildly historical dating sim :)

Possibly just not my cup of tea, but I will try to pose my more objective concerns in this review. Primarily, the game play is repetitive, and it often feels like the consequences of one's choices are arbitrary. I found myself constantly losing credibility in conversations without being able to determine my misstep. I could easily chalk this up to user error, but it feels more like the results are artificially generated. This game is much heavier into the political intrigue than the dating sim elements, which for me was a bummer because the end result is that the game is more focused on the complexities of the historical plot than on developing interesting characters. A little over 2 hours in (and I believe the typical play through is about 5 hours), I found myself clicking aimlessly through dialogue, bored and frustrated by my lack of progress. Every day of game play is the largely the same. There is an obvious pattern the various dialogue encounters, especially at the various parties, that can get tiresome. Perhaps, for me, the strategy element is simply beyond my grasp, but I just never felt like I was making progress.

All of that said, the production value is quite good for what is essentially a piece of interactive fiction. The character designs are same-y but the art is high quality. The music is lovely and despite how repetitive it is, it never becomes jarring. Sound effects a bit hit and miss but mostly appropriate to the setting. The plot writing is interesting and well done; you can tell some serious research went into this game.

I recommend getting this title on sale, if you do.

Warning for those thinking of buying this but only have access to a 5120 x 1440 or other super ultrawide monitors: there's no way to start the game that I've found because the UI to do so or change any settings is cut off. I've tried launch options on Steam and they didn't work. I can only play this on my laptop or Surface with a more normal aspect ratio. The actual gameplay otherwise seems fine so far.