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.
No, really. Like LLTQ, the meat of Galaxy Princess Zorana is choosing a build for your Infanta. The game is divided into turns, and each turn gives you a precious two lesson slots to dedicate to any of 45 different skills, ranging from things like your princess’ knowledge of spaceship innards to her ability to conduct diplomatic intrigue to her ability to kill people with her bare hands.
You aren’t really expected to make it through your first run unscathed. Or at all. It’s a game about picking a build and seeing what happens, only unlocking the full story of what’s going on with your empire over the course of several playthroughs. I had no idea what skills would be immediately important on my first run, so I just specced into whatever skills I would get bonus progress for (Zorana has moods, and certain moods will enhance lessons in certain skills and make others slower, or prevent them entirely).
I ended up with an empress-to-be who was an absolute goddamn whizz at espionage but somewhat less good at, you know, actually talking to people. Or acting appropriately in delicate high-society events. Or who could even tell if the people she met liked her or not.
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 A minister makes a historical reference?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.
