loading . . . The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily Review Be Gay, Commit Bloody Insurrection
My adventures with The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily began with trying to get it to start. My official working laptop is a refurbished clunker that couldn't make it past the initial loading screen. My other laptop, the one that honestly should have broken down completely years ago, can run it generally well, despite being temperamental, unstable, and prone to overheating. Those traits apparently jived with the game's first titular protagonist, allowing both hardware and software to get along well enough for me to enjoy the game.
The events of the game begin with a bang, as the folk of the Imperial capital prepare for the big announcement of the Crown Prince's engagement to the vivacious Lady Elizabeth "Scarlet" Penrose. Then, with a much more literal bang, a fire bomb takes out the city center, along with His Imperial Majesty. Those first on the scene are quick to blame Scarlet—a fact which seems well supported by 1) how she is ranting about the inherent truth and freedom to be found in acts of pure violence, and 2) how she is not at all metaphorically on fire at the time. By dramatic accident, the head engineer of a camera crew from the neighboring Republic that was hired to broadcast the event, Lily by name, is also implicated as Scarlet and her now-former betrothed battle it out in the center of the capital. In the interests of not getting summarily executed, Lily uses the capture stream function of her broadcasting equipment to restrain Scarlet and talk her out of committing fiancé-cide on live television. They then skip out to the far end of the Empire, looking for folks who are following Lily's livestream and who might also be interested in Scarlet's idea of a fun time, i.e. violent overthrow of the Imperial regime.
[caption id="attachment_172792" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Scarlet sweeps Lily off her feet early in the story.[/caption]
When the dual protagonists of the game are a fantasy world YouTube livestreamer and a literal avatar of random violence doing the video game equivalent of a Thelma & Louise, things blow out of proportion fairly quickly. With the semi-villainous Scarlet kept on a short leash (and possibly enjoying it a little too much), it's up to Lily to strategize their way out of trouble and into the hearts of thousands upon thousands of followers on their stream. True to its title, The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily puts everything on its titular, star-crossed heroines. If either of them is defeated in battle, then it's a quick date with the guillotine and a game over, to be followed by a moment of Dead End Theater, wherein Scarlet and Lily discuss just what went wrong this time, why it's bloody annoying, and possibly give the player some strategy tips for success. The game's auto-save function is also helpful, in that it allows the player to go back up to five strategy rounds into the past if an error is made, or else set things back to the start or mid-point of an act when things are truly screwed for the heroines. This makes strategic errors easier to recover from and reduces the amount of time lost due to bad decisions.
The entire game plays out on a unified map of the Empire, subdivided into four rough regions. Bases, battlefields, and the routes linking them can and will shift over the course of the game as new surprises enter the fray, and the player must be careful with where and how the allied units are placed in regards to imminent threats and the all-important supply line. All but one of the named characters is technically a unit leader in charge of a group of fighters, with HP in this instance being short for Horde Points. The HP of a unit indicates fighting power in both the sense of how hard they can attack and how much longer they can go without getting knocked out. Named characters also come with their own passive abilities and special skills, most of which cost points off a gauge that fills as the three waves of a combat skirmish play out.
[caption id="attachment_172795" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Lily always gets the girl.[/caption]
There's a basic triad of weakness with cavalry, artillery, and riflery groups, as well as the occasional odd duck type with special rules. Striking on a weakness obviously does extra damage, while striking against type (e.g. riflery attacking artillery) runs the risk of triggering a counterattack. These types are also used, in conjunction with experience level, to calculate the outcomes of victory when a battle is presented. The player may choose to accept the predicted outcome by delegating the battle, or they may opt to take charge and see how things play out. Given that the pre-battle calculation does not take into account many specifics of passive abilities and skills, the outcomes can vary wildly from the prediction. This can be good, in that apparent blow-outs may be turned to fair successes with some finessing, while also allowing the player to skip past otherwise trivial battles against generic units. When presented with some exceptionally unbalanced match-ups later in the game, the player needs to grab all the advantages available. Thankfully, when non-protagonist characters are knocked out, they return to the field after three strategic turns have passed.
The two ladies are the only necessary characters in the game, though it is highly recommended to make full use of Lily's capture stream to take enemy generals captive. When done properly, the captives will eventually agree to support Scarlet's chaotic ambitions and join as new units. It's also possible to summarily execute generals rather than capture them, which grants Scarlet a hefty stat bonus. Two of the game's three endgame scenarios hinge on either recruiting everybody possible or going full murder-death-kill on the entire cast. The choice is up to the player, though the true final boss is only available on the potential Happy Ever After for Everyone route. That final act is also quite nasty in difficulty.
[caption id="attachment_172793" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Scarlet's dad is NOT happy to see her again, if it wasn't obvious.[/caption]
Any given named character has a friendship ranking with two other named characters, which increases as they win battles together. Ranking up gives the player access to side scenes, most of which are silly fluff that help flesh out their personalities. But once the rank is maxed, the two characters can perform powerful union attacks, which is far more useful.
One other benefit of sparing generals is that many of the major ones, the bosses of their various plot segments, will be coerced by Scarlet and Lily into providing their own services for the livestream mechanic. Lily's airship can broadcast different streams over varying ranges, and to various effect. Her own specific livestream allows the capture of generals, while Scarlet's fiery speeches enthrall any enemy unit within its radius and prevents them from going anywhere. Other livestreams gained over the course of the game can prevent enemy troops from resupplying, increase the movement speed of allies, or draw attention to specific locations, all for the cost of one bar of energy per round, with a maximum of three bars. The airship can only continue broadcasting while it has energy, and must take a full round break to recover if it goes over. The last two livestreams, which can forcibly convert map spaces to allied status or make enemy units flee, are considerably more powerful and require two bars per use, so it's up to the player to manage when and how the airship is deployed each strategic round.
[caption id="attachment_172798" align="aligncenter" width="640"] The power of militarized media.[/caption]
For the most part, the battle backdrops are limited to a handful of pixel-art land- or cityscapes, with the units done in semi-chibi sprite work, but the special attacks will occasionally pull out more polygonal 3D models to provide extra firepower. Character portraits in The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily appear to be strongly influenced by modern shoujo manga. The outlines, the color palettes, the poses, the way eyes are done with stars or other shapes in the irises, it all points to a specific lineage within Japanese manga, and the general plot of the game follows many of the tropes associated with it as well. This is a game that embraces modern shoujo, especially in its inclusion of queer themes. Many character pairs are in implied or explicit relationships, and none more so than the dual protagonists themselves when Scarlet's stated reason for revolution changes from "I'm bored and want to break stuff" to "Current Imperial law won't let me marry my girlfriend, so let's overthrow the government and get married anyway."
The game's soundtrack doesn't have too many tracks, but it does well with the ones it has. There's a lot of piano concerto involved. The battle noises are a good match to the graphics as well. All voice-overs remain in Japanese, but the voice-actors are experienced and expressive, conveying the feeling of the scenes in ways that reflect the text. All in all, it feels like a well done game from the late PlayStation or early PlayStation 2 eras.
[caption id="attachment_172797" align="aligncenter" width="640"] The game does like to stack the deck against the player at the least opportune of moments.[/caption]
Unfortunately, that assessment extends to the quality of the localization, which can be hit or miss. The main body of text presents no issues, with care taken for idioms and turns of phrase, but lots of minor errors crop up in the side material, in particular the comments on the in-game livestream feed, which sometimes forget how certain characters' names are spelled, or how honorifics and titles work in English. It's a minor gripe, but considering how quickly the comments cycle through in certain acts, it's something the player is going to notice.
The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily can be rough going at times, and especially in the final act of the "Happy Ever After" path, but it's also an entertaining adventure with plenty of strategic twists all the way through. It's colorful in more than one sense, as well as modern in its themes and mechanics, and the overall package is cuter than the wrapping on a birthday pipe-bomb. It's still just as explosive, though. RPGamers interested in giving more strategy-oriented titles a try will have some fun with this one.
Disclosure: This review is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.
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