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Review
Ever since the first book, I had always felt that Choice of the Consort or Choice of Court Intrigues would have been a better name for this game. There is technically romance here, but it's just not very romantic.
As the son/daughter of an impoverished noble family, it's up to you to find a wealthy suitor to bring your family to a better financial place. Like Choice of Broadsides, you have four major stats, and can pick your strongest and weakest ones.
Still, you have a choice of three suitors, broadly described as another impoverished noble who wants love, a wealthy merchant who wants a spouse, and the ruling monarch who is married but is looking for affections elsewhere.
I didn't like the first character at all, and she reminded me a lot of that forced RO in the original Heroes Rise. She was clearly meant to be the 'true love' character, but I didn't feel that way about her at all.
The second character is actually more interesting, and has some surprising depth to her. On the surface, she is trading her wealth for your influence, but you find that she's affectionate and wants to love you as well, just that she isn't quite good at doing it. Still, if you pick this route, the ending scenes are adamant that you have traded happiness for money and thus suffer for it.
Being in some kind of relationship with the third character is necessary to advance beyond the first book. Otherwise, the story is considered 'finished'. This route does bring in some elements of thrill from doing something illicit, and is an interesting depiction of how one trades away principles and propriety for power (and maybe love?) If you survive to the end of the first book, the next parts of the adventure are about navigating court intrigue and power struggles.
The game is well written in general, but the main problem is that each RO is broken down into a different type of objective and motivation. A true romance game would have had three characters with three different types of personalities which make them stand out in their own way, but here, it's all about the mechanical motives for marriage. The game also is quite forceful about the outcomes of each RO choice, without really letting you explore whether you could have made that relationship different. (It was supposed a practical marriage, but maybe you could have found love in it?)
If you want a game about court intrigue and power struggles rather than romance, this is it.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking there should be other ways to help my impoverished noble family. Maybe by joining the army as an officer, being a merchant, getting a job as an academic or something. I mean, why not? I have the stats for it. But for now, marriage is the only option.
