Suzerain

This is the only good visual novel. This is a very good strategy game. This is an incredibly flavourful political simulator. This is Suzerain, a game where you are the leader of a small country stuck between two world powers, and how you choose to negotiate that will dictate everything that happens in your presidency. You'll grow relationships with characters, falling back on the rich and easy to use codex to contextualize events as you go. The campaigns are short but the thoughts it leaves you with stick with you. This game does a really good job at approximating a ton of real historical events. Nothing's specifically any one country, but the people react like an amalgam of a lot of parallel situations from now, and from the Cold War era of Europe. You really can - if you choose to - get immersed in a rich world of political intrigue. This is what Democracy 4 should /feel/ like. This is what Civilization 6 should /feel/ like. But only Suzerain approaches a game about managing government and growing political power with the grace, competence, and mechanics that it does, and it leaves you with a truly unique experience. Not just the easiest 5 star I've ever given, but the only review I've actually bothered to write on GOG. One of my favourite experiences of all time.

So, first off... let's be clear about what kind of game this is: it is essesntially a choose your adventure book starting off as a guy who just won the presidency. So it you basically reading a book for 95% of the game. BUT it's a pretty good book (a political thriller) AND you get to make lots of different choices that change a complex set of variables that all have an influence on each other and have text written for just about any crazy set of choies you end up making... what I found most cool was that there were no no arbitary limits on what you could do and this is not a game that lectures or punishes you for making the non-politically correct woke choices... You can be a real bastard but as long as your choices make sense and are consistent (and you don't make too many enemies), you can win re-election from anywhere on the political spectrum. For example, in one of my playthroughs I denied basic human rights to women and minorities and won re-election by making my communist opponents "disappear" while the "Young Sords" guarded polling stations for me ... it was hilarious lol.

Really amazing game. It is really a text-based Choose Your Own Adventure type game, with mostly a story unfolding. I simply cannot put it down, it is very engaging and really well-presented. The interface is easy to navigate, the art is beautiful, and the story keeps engrossing you. You also really do "feel" like you are the President of this country and get fully immersed and invested in all the decisions you are making. It is very unique, does its job well, and the power is in the way every element is put together to immerse you into a fictional story that feels extremely real. I really recommend this game to anyone who likes story-based narratives, or wants to have an immersive experience of running a fictional country. The only warning is that it is a lot of reading... you are basically reading a novel of a game, but it's exciting as you see the outcome of decisions you made and wonder about what if you had made different decisions. I can't comment on the end, I'm still in the first playthrough, but this is one game I keep wanting to come back to whenever I find free time - including putting time off on everything else just to play the game more! Also, totally worth it for the price, especially if you catch it on sale!

Political decisions are yours to make... kinda. You are guided to choices that allow you to take multiple paths which apparently ultimately lead to something like eight endings. I wouldn't know though. I cruised through the game using what I thought was a conservative and wise strategy, and ended up being reelected. The supposed economic challenges which dogged me early in the game and for which my own actions appeared to do precious little, suddenly just got better midway through the game for no particular reason. So after finishing the game with the desired ending, I started to play back through the game determined to take a different strategy, but I forgot how laborious it is to read through so many conversations. Even when you want to make crappy decisions, your advisors wave the red flag. I threw in the towel early and I won't play it again. Before I come off sounding like an amazing gamer - I'd like to stress that I just made common-sense decisions. As this game is clearly based on real countries, it's not hard to piece together the right strategy.

The game is replayable and amazing. The user interface, however, is gooey-molasses style A text game should not be molasses-like. it should be quick, responsive, and fast-moving. But it's slow-gooey. The actual game though is deeply intruiging with multiple outcomes and a myriad of branches.