The reign of Galaxy Princess Zorana was unhappy and unproductive. Fortunately, it was also short—ended in its infancy when Her Imperial Highness took a javelin straight through the skull in some kind of space-football game organised by the Pope. The people of her interplanetary demesne were presumably quite relieved, once they’d recovered from the initial shock of seeing her brainstem kebabbed on live television.
Galaxy Princess Zorana is a distant sequel to Long Live The Queen, the 2013 choose-your-own visual novel that I very much enjoyed back in the day. Like its forebear, Zorana puts you in the shoes of, uh, Zorana, the heir to an empire whose previous ruler, your dad, has suddenly (perhaps suspiciously) carked it. She’s young, naive, unprepared, surrounded by snakes, and all she can do about any of it is go to school.
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My screen was a parade of failures. My first big event—a gala welcome where a series of important political figures—was one humiliation after another. A minister makes a historical reference? I don’t understand it. Someone wants to chat economics? I can barely do long division.
Skill check failures popped up and scrolled off my screen as I failed, failed, and failed again to meet their requirements in talents like Etiquette, Empathy, or Science. If this were Baldur’s Gate 3, I’d have been rerolling my character. But damn, if I wanted to do some skulduggery against any of those people, I’d probably have nailed it.
This is how I ended up in a sports game organised by the Pope. Having completely failed to make an impression on my soon-to-be vassals, I tried to win the approval of the church. Of course, I sucked at interacting with Her Holiness just as much as anyone else, so after an incredibly awkward first encounter, she shipped me off to Space Old Trafford to participate in a game for her favour.
And then, well, you know how that went. Next time, I’ll focus a little more on Interaction and a little less on Spycraft.
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