Who it Caters to (Use RM #1)
Have you ever wanted to rule a kingdom as a proud queen? Now is your chance in Reigns: Her Majesty from developer Nerial. Make tough decisions all with the swipe of a mouse and see the consequences of your actions. Will you gain new allies and make your kingdom strong or will the people come to hate you and try to usurp you? It’s time to test your ruling prowess in Reigns: Her Majesty.

Reigns: Her Majesty throws players into the role of a queen as try to satisfy the public and their kingdom through a simple card based system. Each choice has two options but these choices have various consequences both good and bad. You could help farmers in need and have your popularity rise but your kingdom’s money drop. Each choice has lasting repercussions and the future queen may have to learn from your failings. Lead your people into prosperity or demise in Reigns: Her Majesty.

In Reigns: Your Majesty, you have just married the king and have become the new queen of the land. Now you must make decisions that will have impact on your kingdom and you. Rise to be the queen everyone loves or the queen everyone fears, the choice is ultimately up to you. Just note that how you are seen will change your fate and lead to a quick reign or one that last for decades. It’s time to become the queen you were destined to be in Reigns: Your Majesty.

Last year—which was 2016—Reigns released to the world and was a simple swipe left or right game where you played as King ruling his land. Now in 2017, developer Nerial—the same ones who made Reigns—have come back again with a reverse take on Reigns in the form of Reigns: Her Majesty. Instead of being a King, you now take the role of Queen and once more swipe left and right to make choices that should be a bit more complicated than few word responses. However, does this simple gameplay make for a fun game? Let’s find out in our review of Reigns: Her Majesty.

When you begin Reigns: Her Majesty, you won’t find a tutorial or a start up menu. Instead, you’re immediately dropped into the game which can be a bit jarring. However, you’ll realize that no tutorial is needed for Reigns: Her Majesty. Literally all you have to do to make choices is use either the mouse or controller to left or right and choose one of the two options associated with a character portrait. It seems extremely simple if that’s all Reigns: Her Majesty was but there’s more to it than meets the eye.

You see every time you make decisions in Reigns: Her Majesty, you advance several factors such as 4 icons above and a timer in the right corner. The 4 icons represent things like religion, popularity with the kingdom, battle focus and currency. Decisions impact each of those 4 by raising them up or lowering them depending on who you’re talking to and what they are asking for you to do or not do. These choices impact the fate of the Queen and will affect cards gained and also various story events and items. Those items gained can then change the paths you can get and even give you powers to rewind time if you meet an untimely death.

Really, the main idea behind Reigns: Her Majesty is to learn from past mistakes and avoid them as the next Queen. Helping you do this is a quest-like system that shows what goals you should be aiming for as the current reigning queen. These can be things like discover a new world, save a specific person and/or find a specific item just to name a few. The quests themselves don’t have to be followed specifically and/or accomplished all in one shot mind you, but it does help unlock new paths to take. As we said, Reigns: Her Majesty is a simple but deep game and that is what will keep most players invested and wanting to see what they can accomplish every cycle as the new queen.

Another element we absolutely adored about Reigns: Her Majesty is the simple but cute visuals. Characters are very simple looking but it helps create this adorable theme even when some of the cards contain dark images of your current Queen burning and or being decapitated via the guillotine. The same can be said of the voice work which is just a fake Simolean-like language. Add to all of this, a nice background soundtrack and you’ll find Reigns: Her Majesty just works both visually and audibly.

If we had to complain about anything in Reigns: Her Majesty, then we’d say we dislike two elements of Reigns: Her Majesty. The first is the vague item system which comes off more random than practical and the fact that at times, Reigns: Her Majesty is too random, in general. Items seemed to be specifically made for certain characters you’ll meet in Reigns: Her Majesty, but it’s more so a guessing game as to who benefits from them and when is the optimal time to use them. We also felt that often deaths with the current queen came at random even when we were doing a great job micromanaging the 4 stats above and executing the quests in order. Ultimately, Reigns: Her Majesty can feel too random but it’s not enough to make it any less fun and that’s all that matters.

While Reigns: Her Majesty might utilize a Tinder-like method of making choices, that doesn’t mean those choices have simple results. We loved how Reigns: Her Majesty made every silly choice matter and how different queens in the following line would benefit from smart choices you made in the previous reign. Even after playing for several hours, we continued to notice new things in Reigns: Her Majesty which kept each run as a new Queen fun and exciting. For the extremely low price of $2.99, Reigns: Her Majesty will offer up players a ton of hours of content and we know many of you will love that. We 100% recommend picking up Reigns: Her Majesty when you can if you loved the original Reigns and/or just want a simple game that offers up lots of comedy and some truly intriguing choice based mechanics.

While Reigns: Your Majesty might not be an overly complicated simulation title with complex controls and tons of gameplay mechanics, what it does offer is a fun game with some surprising depth. Each choice you make as Queen feels as if there is some consequence to be had and sometimes, that can lead to some very deep narrative moments. At such a low price of admission, we thoroughly loved Reigns: Her Majesty and know those who like easy pick-up-and-play titles will love it, too. With that being said, our review of Reigns: Her Majesty comes to an end but we hope we convinced you of how awesome this title is. If we did a good job, comment down below to let us know. For more video game articles and reviews, stay stuck to our hive here at Honey’s Anime!