Anne Boleyn really got a raw deal. I think that historians and everyone who doesn’t have to take the Pope seriously appreciate that her death was a focal point for the English Reformation, but that doesn’t mean it was a good thing overall. Some fat royal decides he wants to lay you, and forces you to wed him, but now YOU’RE the problem because you won’t pop out boys and so clearly you’ve committed treason. Ruddy great for everyone who remembers Anne in a positive light, but that doesn’t really help her with the execution. People long for healthy relationships at all levels, to be loved and cared for, and to understand when it’s okay to let go (just adopt, Henry!). But, as we see with My Lovely Empress, sometimes the pendulum swings the other way and it can be just as bad, if not worse, than poor Ms. Boleyn.

Emperor Hong, leader of the Crimson Empire, has a rough go at things. His mother and father were strong, important rulers who were beloved and, tragically, passed away some time ago. Hong is relatively new on the job when his own wife, who is bearing a child, becomes ill and ultimately passes away. Racked with sadness and grief, he strives a bargain with the yaoguai, demonic entities who offer services for a price. Though the yaoguai were ultimately banished due to consuming too many souls, they did offer amazing services to Hong’s father, and they promise the same to Hong: they can resurrect his dead wife. But the promise is not a cheap one, and now Hong must strike an impossible balance. Can he continue to rule with a strong hand and remain positive in the public eye while also feeding his subjects to the demons to save his empress?

She did, in fact, bite.

A turn-based simulation game, My Lovely Empress tracks the choices that Hong makes four seasons at a time, with the countdown clock sitting atop several instances. The main objective is to bring your wife back from the dead, which will be done through a sort of cosmic soul energy. Every season that passes, some energy is lost, so you can’t just ignore that imperative. Your wife’s return is dictated by either feeding her soul the souls of citizens OR the souls of the yaoguai. Citizen souls are harvested through calamities that the yaoguai can summon, and the summons can only happen once certain items are obtained for the yaoguai. Conversely, you can sacrifice a yaoguai to get a massive boost of energy, but now that yaoguai is lost: once sacrificed, that demon can’t return for the duration of your play. 

If all you had to do was reanimate your queen, the game would be simple, but you’ve also got a kingdom balancing act to maintain like you might imagine an emperor would. As you rule, issues will pop up that either need to be addressed by the emperor, addressed by yaoguai influence, or simply ignored. Trust me, you can ignore things all day long and end up with a boring and anti-climactic game over, so you need to choose your battles, so to speak. Each choice will affect your funds as well as one of four citizen factions (military, nobles, merchants, or peasants) and their love and support are crucial in your future of soul harvesting. Piss off the wrong faction too many times and you’ll have some kind of upheaval awaiting you, albeit with a bit more of a wiggle factor than Reigns.

My Lovely Empress has some solid qualities as far as a kingdom simulation game goes. It really eases you into the role a bit at a time, giving you more and more information without overwhelming you all at once. The motives and concepts are well dictated, offering a clean separation between what’s essential, what’s important, and what’s optional. You might want and sometimes need to engage with the rulers of other kingdoms in order to get better information and resources, but you won’t need to figure out the complete ideology of each neighbor in order to survive. Additionally, you’ll want to really decide what your ultimate goal is, and who you most want supporting your rule. A good balance between the class factions is ideal, but choosing one to favor over others has its benefits.

Bro, same! I kind of hoped I could invent microwaves and make a killing, but it’s not that kind of game.

Having said that, it can sometimes get discouraging in earlier playthroughs trying to spread yourself thin to make everyone happy. The yaoguai each have their own strengths and weaknesses in negotiations/influence, as well as particular powers and summons that affect the long-form game. The timeline for how to support your wife’s soul is critical, but making sure you don’t end up with your head on a pike from angry merchants also feels important. Like other great sims, you’ll want to breathe deep and accept that your first, second, or even third playthrough will end in tragedy in some form or another, if only so you can start to feel out how best you want to discover your own first victory. I personally recommend drilling down on three yaoguai and using them to the best degree, but there’s probably an even better approach.

Besides the sim aspect, My Lovely Empress also forms well as a visual novel unto itself. The art styling, drawing from Chinese brushstrokes and a good number of influences in ancient mythology, is captivating to behold and gives distinctive character design to all. The Crimson Empire is a sight to behold, and it’s wonderful to see the landscape change and move with different impacts and shifts in time and temperament. The yaoguai are all unique and fun to see, starting with the fox demon (hu yao) and moving into all kinds of mermaids, wangliang, and other entities. It’s a visual feast, especially for someone like me who enjoys the supernatural designs of old, and players will have a blast with all the titillations in creation.

Three guesses how this yaoguai ends up killing everyone. C’mon, I bet you’ll never get it.

Additionally, the dialogue is fairly well written. While there isn’t any voice work, the text does a great job of conveying the chaos in Hong’s heart as he must try to figure out the right balance to strike for his people’s happiness and his own. It’s a monstrous thing he’s doing, and he knows it, but he cannot bear the idea of continuing to live and rule without his empress by his side. The confidants who know are aghast but as supportive as they can be, though players must be careful about how much information is truly disclosed. Moreover, the characters who are unaware do their jobs perfectly by trying to impact day-to-day ruling issues, not aware that their pressure and suggestions might contribute directly to the slaughter of tens, if not hundreds, of citizens.

If there’s fault to be found in My Lovely Empress, I’d say the pacing is my biggest gripe. There are multiple times when there are just too many choices on the screen, the yaoguai are out of energy (each needs to meditate once in a while to refresh their abilities) and there aren’t enough turns in a season. It’s a helpless sensation to think that things might be different if you could address the corrupt merchants instead of trying to route out squatters, but you really feel the pressure of just needing to make a choice and living with it. I didn’t love how it made me feel, but I understood the developer’s decisions and it helps to craft the sensation of distraught leadership that Hong is undergoing as we speak.

The everyday decision on “who am I pissing off this time” really rings true.

If you’ve wanted something more involved than Two Kingdoms, but not as complex as Nobunaga’s Ambition, My Lovely Empress is a wonderfully ranged title that asks players to divide their hearts and their heads to the extreme. To rule but also to seek out your own happiness, however twisted it may be. It may not be perfect, but it’s memorable in a big way. There’s no easy or clean solution to this game, but, for players willing to go on a dark journey, the way ahead is certainly interesting, and the greatest curse of all may be for an emperor – and his unfortunate people – to live in interesting times.

My Lovely Empress is available now on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of My Lovely Empress was provided by the publisher.