The Charming Empire

Genre: Visual Novel

Players: 1

.

Review:

The Charming Empire is a Visual Novel released on PC in 2017 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2018. More specifically, this is an Otome game that has players taking the role of a young princess living in the countryside who is recalled back to the Imperial Palace by her brother, the current leader of the nation. This game takes place in a version of Japan’s Taishō period, during the early 1900s after Japan had already seen some Western influences, just prior to Japan’s militaristic buildup leading into World War 2… although both the characters and events within the game itself are largely fictionalized.

While this being an Otome game means that a portion of the plot is devoted to the growing relationship between the princess and one of the men in her new life in the palace, this is in a way used as a lens to view the greater overall plot – one about the princess’s despair at being forced to move away from the place she had called home and to live in the stodgy and restrictive confines of the palace… and as the story goes on, her growing realization that the unrest and dissatisfaction with her brother’s leadership is perhaps more than the minor nuisance that it was initially made out to be.

Interestingly, where most otome games have you selecting which guy to pursue, here one of the options is the princess’s brother himself – not for romance (thankfully), but to try to heal the rift that time and the burdens of leadership have created between the two of them. It bears mention that the princess and her brother are some of the select few characters who appear in each story path, and most of the love interests do not even get a mention on a story path other than their own.

I really appreciated this game’s story and its mostly-likable characters, but I did feel like parts of it were either repetitive or took a bit long to progress. In some story paths, the princess is frustratingly naive about the important facts others try to tell her. And likewise in some story paths it’s frustrating how the other characters around her either can’t see or don’t care that she’s extremely unhappy, and that perhaps explaining things to her with just a little bit of empathy might help to get her to understand the reasons why she’s being told to do something she doesn’t care for.

Also, I feel like I need to mention that while many of the Otome games from Opera House and D3Publisher have a terrible localization, I didn’t have any major issue with that here – the writing is good, there didn’t seem any major or distracting errors. It’s not Shakespheare, but thankfully it doesn’t feel like the English version of the game was handled by someone who doesn’t speak English natively.

In terms of the presentation, this game uses beautiful anime-style art for its 2D character portraits, and some very nice-looking painted backgrounds. All of the characters are nicely voiced (in Japanese), and the game also has an interesting soundtrack of synthesized music that does a decent job of representing the stuffy atmosphere the princess finds herself in, and the game’s main theme is actually quite catchy, though it doesn’t quite seem to fit the game’s setting or story. Also, I should note that this game has good gamepad controls and good touchscreen controls – either works.

In the end, The Charming Empire is a good Otome game, albeit one that doesn’t really do anything to truly push the genre. I will say that the normal price of $25 seems steep for what’s on offer here. However, if you’re looking for an Otome game with a historical element to it, this game will likely satisfy you… as long as you get it on sale.

tl;dr – The Charming Empire is a Visual Novel and Otome game based loosely on Japan’s Taishō period. It stars a princess who is forced to move from her home to the palace, and as she adjusts to the transition, she slowly grows closer with someone she meets there. This game doesn’t do anything particularly outstanding or noteworthy within the genre, but it’s all-around decent, and Otome fans wanting something with a historical feel to it may find this game worth getting, although perhaps not at the full $25 price.

Grade: C+

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are MB, Andy Miller, Johannes, u/RamboFox, Exlene, Eli Goodman, Ilya Zverev, Stov, Connor Armstrong, and K.H. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}