The Demon Queen’s Dire Dilemma by ebi-hime tells the tale of the growing relationship between an arrogant yet easily flustered Demon Queen and the overly cheerful ex-princess she kidnaps.
This is a relatively short original English language visual novel (OELVN), which I completed in under three hours. It’s a lighthearted all-ages yuri title, with plenty of amusing moments. It’s loosely inspired by the anime Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, both involving (more or less) confined princesses who aren’t at all scared about their situation and being rather lighthearted about the situation, but this story takes things in a rather different direction.
Not So Sleepy Princess In the Demon Castle
The story begins as the Kingdom of Mielle is under siege. Asmodeus takes her place as the new ruler of the country and decides to exile the king and his followers. But despite sparing their lives (not at all because the sight of blood makes her feel faint, she assures), she decides to take his daughter, the beautiful Lisette, as a captive and her new maid.
Lisette is horrified at her new situation and downtrodden… or at least that’s what Asmodeus would expect, but she’s completely unafraid of the (allegedly) fearsome Demon Queen and is incredibly upbeat about her new situation. In fact, she’s unfailingly cheerful and delights in her new role as a maid. This is rather disconcerting to Asmodeus, who expects fear and respect. Instead, she’s receiving unending praise and reassurance.
The Demon Queen’s Dire Dilemma spends much of its time showing Asmodeus being, as the author ebi-hime described her, a failgirl demon queen. It’s very comical, with much of the humor involving recurring situations where Asmodeus acts arrogantly, talks about demons being superior to humans, and plays into her role as the demon queen, only to have it backfire on her and leave her pouting. All the while, Lisette praises her so much that it could come off as mocking, acts overly servile, and manipulates her in small ways such as bribing her with treats to eat vegetables that she doesn’t like. There are a lot of really fun back-and-forths between Asmodeus and Lisette, and it’s even more amusing when Asmodeus gets the idea into her head to make Lisette fall for her as part of a plan to ‘defeat’ her, leading to some silly scenarios.
While the tone is comical overall, it does occasionally veer into more serious topics. There are reasons why Lisette isn’t exactly unhappy with her situation, and Asmodeus still conquers the Kingdom despite not liking bloodshed. These moments are few and far between, but they do help to add something behind the laughs.
As the story progresses, it adds some more tender moments between the two. The romance is more in the buildup and the comedic attempts to seduce Lisette than anywhere else, in large part because the story ends before showing much beyond that. The final scenes did feel a little too brief, and a certain event felt rushed (commented on by some of the characters themselves), so it would’ve been nice if this were extended slightly. That said, I thought the length of the visual novel overall was about right. The comical moments, which took up much of the runtime, may have started to feel repetitive if any more were added.
(Don’t) Speak of the Devil
The Demon Queen’s Dire Dilemma uses character art by Vala and chibi art/background art by Konayachi to create an attractive world, if with what seems like limited assets at times. I particularly liked Asmodeus’ distinctive character design, but Lisette and the two other characters all looked great too. One place it was used especially well was the title screen, where Asmodeus is shown frustrated, pulling on her hair while Lisette laughs behind her. A weaker area was during one of the final scenes, where the screen flicked back to a Lisette CG, presumably because there wasn’t a sprite of her wearing the correct clothes for the situation.
The user-interface looks quite nice and fits the fantasy theme. Features included are fairly basic, with save, auto, skip, and some other basic options. The default Ren’Py text rollback is included rather than a backlog, which I generally don’t find ideal.
There are no voices included, which is fairly typical of an OELVN, and even more of a very reasonably priced one like this. Little touches like shaking words are occasionally used in the text and the changes of expressions on sprites and sound effects helped to convey the emotions in lieu of voicing. It would have been nice to have voiceover, especially since hearing Asmodeus’ frustration would’ve added to the scenes, but I understand it would have increased budget needs substantially. Fifteen background music tracks are included, which fit the tone of the world well.
Verdict
The Demon Queen’s Dire Dilemma is a rather short and amusing OELVN. It’s lighthearted, has a fun premise, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. The dynamic between the “failgirl demon queen” and princess-turned-maid makes for an entertaining time reading this title.
THE DEMON QUEEN’S DIRE DILEMMA IS RECOMMENDED
If you are looking for another girls-love visual novel, you might want to check out Fragile Feelings. We have also covered a wide variety of visual novels both original to English and localized from Japanese, which you can check out here.
Many thanks go to ebi-hime for a PC review code for The Demon Queen’s Dire Dilemma.
A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.
