Ambition: A Minuet in Power

by Aethyna Aug 21, 2021 | 1 Votes | 66 Played | 0 Reviews

10 rate

Genres:

Adventure

Graphics:

Labels:

Adventure , Visual Novel , Dating , Text-based , Romance

Platforms:

Publishers:

Iceberg Interactive Set in 1789 France, Ambition: A Minuet in Power is a visual novel that’s filled with love and political intrigue. It’ll test how well you can navigate the various factions in society via your fashion and dialogue choices in the year where the French revolution was supposed to occur. Will you let history play out or will you change it? You decide! Play Now Similar Games

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Community Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

Set in 1789 France, Ambition: A Minuet in Power is a visual novel that’s filled with political intrigue. It’ll test how well you can navigate the various factions in society via your fashion and dialogue choices in the year where the French revolution was supposed to occur. Will you let history play out or will you change it? That’s for you to decide!

Plotline

In this game, you play as a girl from a small town named Yvette Decaux, who was lucky enough to marry into nobility and live the rest of your life in luxury with the man you love, Baron Armand de Marbo… or so you thought.

The game starts off with you traveling to Paris to reunite with your fiancé, whom you have missed very much, but he wasn’t there at the meeting point where he said he would pick you up. You make your way to the Baron’s home only to have the second surprise – a shoddy-looking, dilapidated mansion is apparently what your Baron husband-to-be calls home.

Makes you think about how well you actually know him, really.

However, now that you’ve settled in, you not only need to make sure his monetary commitments are fulfilled, such as rent and the maid’s payment, by “working”; you’ll also need to attend parties that your husband has been invited to on his behalf while trying to gather news – any news – as to where Armand might have gone.

As you play, you’ll encounter interesting prominent characters from each faction in the societal and political landscape at Paris, as well as associated events, and how you respond to each of these encounters will determine how the historic moments of 1789 will unfold in Paris.

Gameplay

Since you’re playing as an up-and-coming socialite whose fiancé is mysteriously missing in increasingly tumultuous Paris in this game, you’ll need to do your best to forge connections and peddle influence, namely “credibility”, at the many parties you have to attend on behalf of your husband-to-be.

By having high credibility, you can get away with a lot more stuff than someone with much lower credibility, especially during credibility checks for certain dialogue options. Some dialogue options will even cause you to gain some “Peril”. The higher “Peril” you have, the more in peril you’ll be.

You can also meet new characters, one prominent character from each faction – there are 5 factions in total. By talking to them and picking the “right” dialogue choices, you can even build relationships with them, making them be more inclined to help you out when you need it… and boy, will you need to call in the favor in the later chapters!

Every party has a chance to present an event where you can learn more about Yvette’s relationship with her husband-to-be as well. Unfortunately, you can’t head into every encounter you get at a party since you only get to choose one encounter per turn and each party typically only comes with two turns. To put it simply, you’ve got to pick and choose your encounters wisely. Though, I should point out that the opportunity for a missed interaction or encounter may present itself later at another party.

By attending parties, not only can you meet new characters and build relationships with them, you can also chance on conversations that will grant you valuable gossip, ranging from “cheap” to “shocking”, which you can, in turn, peddle to the local tabloid editor for a pretty penny.

However, there are some unspoken rules in this business of gossip-selling. For example, you can’t sell too much gossips in a day or you’ll risk the public finding out that you have loose lips. If that happens, the blowback would be harsh and immediate. You’ll notice that people will be a lot warier about what they say when they are talking with you. Gossip will also “expire” over time and hence, its value will decrease appropriately. Fresh is best, after all!

From time to time, the editor will request specific types of gossip in exchange for extra Livre (money). It’s good to try to get these extras since Livre can sometimes be hard to come by and it’s always wise to have extra cash on hand in case any is needed in case of a “bribing yourself out of jail” scenario.

Why do you need so much cash though? Well, for starters, you’ll need to support the upkeep of your missing husband-to-be’s upkeep, which includes a shabby, rundown mansion and a maid that is under his employ. If you stop payments, word will get out and people will start to talk. You might find yourself in trouble as well, if not with the police, then with the respective people to whom you owe money to.

1789 Paris is a very fashionable place and era. As such, the people there highly regard the outfit you wear for the parties you decide to attend. Different types of people from different factions will prefer and approved of specific styles of dresses. If you wore the dress they like, you can make quite a huge splash at said party, giving yourself a massive credibility boost.

Dresses will also lose “novelty” with every wear and its effect will decrease dramatically. This is why you should trade in your older dresses for a fraction of the money you paid for it, and use the cash to buy new ones at the Le Petit Mogol clothes shop in town.

Besides dresses, relationships, and gossips, every party you attend will add a level of exhaustion. Each level added will impose a credibility penalty, and naturally, you won’t want your socializing and politicking efforts to all go to waste by having a penalty that’s too high. You can recover from your exhaustion simply by staying home for a day, or if you’re lucky to chance upon some coffee, that works too.

To be honest though, the game doesn’t really force you to attend any of these parties if you don’t want to. You can simply reject all invites and risk offending everyone. If you do decide to do that, you won’t be bored either. The game offers plenty of encounters that you can get randomly if you visit Paris via the map.

Each encounter will cost you a day to resolve with each offering you some manner of reward, though there’s always a risk that you may fail a credibility check or find yourself looking at the walls of a cell or worse, the noose at the gallows due to having a high Peril level.

Personally, it took me quite a while before I find my footing, so to speak, but this might not be the case if you’re especially familiar with the French Revolution of 1789. That beig said, even if you aren’t… like me… you can brush up on some crucial details, such as what each faction’s allegiances lay – initially, before your meddling that is - via a wiki-like resource provided in-game.

Gameplay-wise, Ambition: A Minuet in Power did a fantastic job, offering some extra gameplay features on the side, in addition to the visual novel aspect. It’s actually quite challenging to navigate the tricky and tense political landscape here as tensions between the common folk and the middle-class mount against the crown, and it’ll take all your wits to keep your head firmly on your neck.

Community

Like all visual novels, Ambition: A Minuet in Power is a single-player game. However, if you’d like to discuss the game or its plot with your fellow players, the Steam discussion board is your best bet.

Graphics/ Sound

The game features some really nice art, especially the many colorful characters you’ll encounter and the many different styles of dresses you’ll get to buy and wear. I’ve also noticed that its maps all seem to draw heavy inspiration from some of the most popular board games. For instance, the map for each party you attend is so obviously inspired by the board game, Clue. In terms of sound, the soft background music matches the era and the different settings in the game. There are sound effects that come in perfectly when needed as well.

The only bone I have to pick with the game is that the top part of the game seems cropped off for some reason. Not sure if it is something related to the game resolution since the game is capped at 1920x1080 while my PC supports up to 3840x2160, which I understand is way too much for a game with simple mechanics like a visual novel. Still, this little issue annoys me to no end.

Conclusion

As a visual novel, Ambition: A Minuet in Power offers a fun and more involved way to learn about the different circumstances and actors that brought about the French revolution since you get to participate in it. Of course, being a game, you’ll also have the freedom to change history so to speak if you choose to. Will you align yourself and the influence you’ve accumulated from the church, the military, and the bourgeoisie with the Crown or the Revolution? Let’s find out, shall we?

New Game Added: Ambition: A Minuet in Power

by Aethyna Aug 21, 2021

Set in 1789 France, Ambition: A Minuet in Power is a visual novel that’s filled with love and political intrigue. It’ll test how well you can navigate the various factions in society via your fashion and dialogue choices in the year where the French revolution was supposed to occur. Will you let history play out or will you change it? You decide!