The anime-as-hell presentation may turn off many people (me included), but this is a surprisingly inventive story-driven game filled with political intrigue. Like Princess Maker 2 (the only one in the series I've played) -- another anime-as-hell video game -- it has an interesting turn-based character-building system that is fun to poke around. Unlike PM2, however, the narrative is constrained within the short 40 weeks it is set in (basically 40 cycles of decision-making), and it is not afraid to murder the princess in many, many ways. It has an almost deterministic, flowchart-like narrative structure that might be a dealbreaker to some, but the writing is solid and there are enough branches and variations to allow for unique-enough playthroughs. In two different runs, I made a princess who's focused on studying military and royal intrigue but clueless of basic manners, and another who's a powerful, regal sorceress but pretty stupid and unfriendly (they both died different but equally terrible deaths). It's pretty fun to see how different builds tackle the same larger problem, having different options available to them.
My problem with it is that I didn't find this game to be the exploratory game I half-expected it to be. This isn't fully a game about exploration and experimentation. This is a game meant to be beaten and the objective is singular and simple: don't let the princess die. The princess can die (or sometimes survive) from the most seemingly arbitrary skill checks. It can be cool to get feedback for the kind of princess build you're aiming for, but sometimes there is just no way to foresee them. It's a bit weird to be grateful that the game is so short that a restart isn't such a big deal. Since things are largely deterministic, a path towards survival becomes clear a bit too easily after a few playthroughs anyway. Finding all the deaths and different ways to beat the game might be fun for completion's sake, but the core "fresh" experience is a rather short one (I'd say 4-6 hours).
If you're looking to burn a few hours on something that's like a visual novel, but a bit more involving -- this would be a really good choice. Just don't get this game expecting a mini Crusader Kings 2 or anything.
(copied from my Steam review b/c wtv)