The Dark Queen of Mortholme

The game is short. There is a bunch of dialog options that are interesting, but that ultimately don't really lead anywhere that I could discern in the 3-4 playthroughs I had. Everything converges to the same ending pretty much. The hero has some AI improvements after each loss, but it also feels like she cheats getting immunity to certain hits towards the end which feels like a cop out somewhat. I read online that there is a way to 'win', but I found the villain's fighting arsenal too rigid (she has long follow-throughs, plus the hit window to cause damage to the hero with various moves gets very small and finicky) and the scene between battles (you must walk to the hero's body and then back to your throne and then wait a bit for the hero to come back) too long to be worth my while. Storywise, the hero raises a valid point about the need to evolve and change (in contrast with the queen's static nature), but I think the moral stance of the hero is cheapened by two things: - The hero fails to recognize that her philosophy of constantly improving until she makes it only works in her particular situation because she cannot die. It gets a little annoying that she performs so much moral posturing about the superiority of her outlook when in fact her success is attributable to that supernatural ability to begin with. - By insisting that they both need to fight until the very end no matter what, the heroes is actually not living up to her own philosophy in the most meaningful way possible. She changes and adapts only within the confines of her rigid outlook. Regardless, the perspective playing the final boss was interesting and the dialog interesting to follow for a bit even if the ultimate takeaways felt a bit flat for me. The action was intriguing at first if ultimately a bit stiff for my liking. I would have loved seen an acceleration to the body/throne walk + hero return scene between fights too. Overall, worthwhile experience for the novelty, but get it on sale.

It's about a half hour long. It's an interesting commentary on the challenge of videogames and eventually, overcoming the final boss. The Dark Queen is the protagonist here. Well worth it.

Interesting take on player vs boss and the roles we play in the grand scheme of things. It's really cool, however the game is too short but maybe there is more to it than I know so I'll have to play it again.