Plot
The basic lore of the series is built around a Queen who fairly and wisely rules a Universe. By balancing elemental forces with the help of nine Guardians, she keeps the various planets in her domain stable and her people content. However, the powers of the Queen and the Guardians fade over time, and successors must be appointed. In the first game Angelique, the protagonist is a 17-year-old girl named Angelique Limoges who has been chosen by the current Queen and her aide Dia as one of two candidates from the Royal Smallney Girls' Academy to become the next Queen. She is transported to the Flying City to begin her final examination.
Each of the candidates is given a land to populate. Whoever finishes populating their land first wins and becomes the next Queen. It is done with the help of nine Guardians who use their powers to make the people of the candidate's land happy, or to devastate their rival's lands. Along the way, the candidates become friends with the Guardians and can fall in love. If they choose love, they forfeit their chance to become Queen, but will live happily ever after.
The story expands in later titles, but most entries in the series feature a girl named Angelique or a variant thereof (Enju or Ange) as the protagonist, with ever larger casts of characters. The roster of potential love interests swells to 19 characters in later titles (in Angelique Trois and Angelique Etoile).
Gameplay
Through the Angelique series games, the story begins with some crisis of the Universe, or some troubles in the Universe. To resolve a crisis or troubles, one girl is selected to become a savior of these crisis or troubles.
The player takes on the role of this girl. In the first game, Angelique, the player becomes a candidate for the new queen who will be the savior of the universal crisis. The player is asked to complete her mission or task during the course of the game. If the player completes her mission in the scheduled period, before her rival candidate completes the mission, the player will win and become the new queen.
But while trying to complete the given mission or task, the player necessarily needs some help from the nine guardians, who know and control the spiritual powers of the universe. The player needs to win their favor. If they do not favor a player, they will not provide assistance to that player. To win favor from the guardians, the player should properly work in her mission. Thus, the guardians may favor her.
And when the player wins favor of the guardians and the male characters, she will be able to better perform her task, and at the same time, she is capable of establishing romantic relations with some of the male characters. At this point, there are two options for her. Working best in her mission with the help of the guardians, she can defeat her rival, and become the new queen. The other option is for her to fall in love with one of her favourite male characters. If her love is fulfilled, her rival will become the new queen instead, but she may win the love.
These are two main types of endings to this game.
- Queen ending
- Love ending
In the other games of this series, there is no rival, and the player should perform her mission alone. While trying to complete her mission or task, the same situations take place. To perform her task, the player needs the help of the guardians and other male characters, and she should win their favor. In this case, there are typically two endings, as in the first game:
- Mission complete ending
- Love fulfilled ending
- Other ending
There are many candidates for romance. Typically, the nine guardians are all possible targets of the player's love. There are at least ten main endings, but there are other endings as well, where the mission and/or the romance may be broken. The number of endings ranges between 10 and 30.
The most interesting and difficult points of this game series are that there are many combinations of how to win favor from the guardians and how to complete the task. Sometimes the former and the latter are contradictory, yet the player needs them both to achieve good endings.
Reception
Keiko Erikawa established the woman-based game developing team in the mid-1980s. This resulted in the birth of team Ruby Party and the first otome game Angelique in 1994.
The Angelique series greatly promoted and produced the development of otome games and their franchise markets.
The Angelique games sold over 850,000 copies in 2020. Koei-Tecmo has reported sales of the 2021 game Angelique Luminarise in the 30,000s in Japan and Asia in the first quarter of 2021 (April to June). According to Teitengame.com, the sales ranking of Angelique Luminarise is 132nd, and its total sales in 2021 were 14,506.
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