Bad times in Angelique.
Perhaps I should explain the game's premise in brief, just in case: You're taking a hands-on exam to be Queen of the Universe and are competing with one other candidate to develop a continent on a planet below. Each of you cultivates your tribe of people from opposite ends of the landmass, and when one candidate reaches the central island, the game is over and a victor declared (and presumably Populous-like Armageddon declared, I don't know). The larger your population down below, the closer you are to your goal. Anyhow, after asking my godly would-be boyfriends to give my land a few hits of magic, I glanced at my population totals and saw that I had 14 people on my continent, whereas my rival Rosalia had 105. Now, each Guardian's powers spurs different aspects of physical or cultural growth on your lands, and the people will usually tell you, via a priest, what their current problems are so you can target your efforts, and the initial problem was that the people had a hard time "increasing their numbers" or something along those lines. There being no Guardian of Infertility, I interpreted this as an issue within the realm of Green - the power that literally rules over vegetation but is seen as more as ruling over the realm of nature in general - and asked its young Guardian Marcel from some Green power. Since my people still weren't multiplying, I concluded that this had been the wrong choice. I noted that Rosalia had asked for Light, which governs pride but is also a sort of general active yang-type force, so I hit Julious up for some of his power. The next day...I had 19 people, and she had *200*. Subsequent rounds seem to indicate that it doesn't matter which Sacrea for which you ask to multiply your population, you just need to pump a lot of any one power in and you'll get results, but Rosalia still seems to be getting results that I'm not.
The thought crossed my mind, then, that since my queen's exam was going badly, perhaps I should be planning on a romance ending instead. Well, my first personal meeting with a Guardian was with Luva, who stopped by my room to chat about how he hated to eat fried chicken since it was all greasy and "got all on his hands." Bless you, Luva. Once the weekend rolled around and I got the chance to ask a Guardian out, I naturally headed for Luva's. I know that Luva is a homebody, but since our last chat was in my room, I invited him to the park for a change, remembering promo art depicting him fishing there. He turned me down, saying he "didn't feel like it," and the look on Limoges's face was hilarious:
I have to say, by the way, that the Angelique heroines come off much better in the games I've played that they do in other media. Elsewhere, Limoges is aggravatingly vacuous; here, she's relatably energetic and earthy.
So I went to see Zephel, who also visited me earlier in the week, and he promptly came out from behind his desk and sat on it, like this:
So I asked _him_ to the park, and _he_ turned me down. Not only that, he started taunting me from his desk in some ridiculous monkey-like way that I should've screencapped but was too upset to do so.
Next Saturday, I asked Lumiale to the park, and he _agreed_, but we came upon a couple seated upon a bench, and Lumi suddenly asked if I were "envious" of them. I answered "yes," which turned him off and prematurely ended the date on a sour note. Even _Lumi_ is a fussy jerk. Smallney is looking better and better, guys.
The game so far is more cute than romantic. It's unexpectedly difficult, but it's also rather small - on weekdays, you're usually only asking for Sacrea or chatting in your room, and on weekends, you're either zooming around your continent checking it out or on a date with a Guardian in one of three locales, which'll probably get cut short by one of their snit fits. The graphics are very charming, vibrant, and, giant foreheads aside, well done. (The music, on the other hand, is not that great. Zephel and Lumiale's themes suit their subjects, but for the Guardian of Beauty, Olivie's is pretty awful.)
Incidental note: Each Guardian has a little animation for when they activate their powers over the land. Zephel's is the best; to distribute the power of Steel, which governs technology, he throws a bunch of hammers all over the screen.
.
The thought crossed my mind, then, that since my queen's exam was going badly, perhaps I should be planning on a romance ending instead. Well, my first personal meeting with a Guardian was with Luva, who stopped by my room to chat about how he hated to eat fried chicken since it was all greasy and "got all on his hands." Bless you, Luva. Once the weekend rolled around and I got the chance to ask a Guardian out, I naturally headed for Luva's. I know that Luva is a homebody, but since our last chat was in my room, I invited him to the park for a change, remembering promo art depicting him fishing there. He turned me down, saying he "didn't feel like it," and the look on Limoges's face was hilarious:
I have to say, by the way, that the Angelique heroines come off much better in the games I've played that they do in other media. Elsewhere, Limoges is aggravatingly vacuous; here, she's relatably energetic and earthy.
So I went to see Zephel, who also visited me earlier in the week, and he promptly came out from behind his desk and sat on it, like this:
So I asked _him_ to the park, and _he_ turned me down. Not only that, he started taunting me from his desk in some ridiculous monkey-like way that I should've screencapped but was too upset to do so.
Next Saturday, I asked Lumiale to the park, and he _agreed_, but we came upon a couple seated upon a bench, and Lumi suddenly asked if I were "envious" of them. I answered "yes," which turned him off and prematurely ended the date on a sour note. Even _Lumi_ is a fussy jerk. Smallney is looking better and better, guys.
The game so far is more cute than romantic. It's unexpectedly difficult, but it's also rather small - on weekdays, you're usually only asking for Sacrea or chatting in your room, and on weekends, you're either zooming around your continent checking it out or on a date with a Guardian in one of three locales, which'll probably get cut short by one of their snit fits. The graphics are very charming, vibrant, and, giant foreheads aside, well done. (The music, on the other hand, is not that great. Zephel and Lumiale's themes suit their subjects, but for the Guardian of Beauty, Olivie's is pretty awful.)
Incidental note: Each Guardian has a little animation for when they activate their powers over the land. Zephel's is the best; to distribute the power of Steel, which governs technology, he throws a bunch of hammers all over the screen.
.