Most of the visual novels I played were simple: Read, make a choice here and there, read, continue with the consequences of these choices, read, and then get to the end. Ambition: A minuet in power, however, raises many of the Gameplay elements found in role-playing games to create a very refreshing entry into the Genre. In addition, you will also learn a little about the history of the French Revolution.

Ambition: a Minuet in Power takes place in 1789 and you play the role of young Yvette, allegedly engaged to a Baron who has Magically disappeared. The story begins when Yvette arrives in Paris in search of her fiancé, is attracted to the Baron’s modest house and meets the concierge of the house to tell him that she also does not know what happened to him. While in 2021, a not-found rich man would justify The interrogation of the authorities as well as media and Internet coverage, this is quite normal in 1789.

Joking aside, Yvette’s Fiancé Baron is both a critical element of the story and a Gameplay element. You see, Yvette comes from a modest farming village, with only a handful of money (Book) in her possession. Without financial support, she only has to navigate the waters of Parisian politics with her mind. Believe me, it will not be easy.

The Gameplay Of Ambition: a minuet in power are the choices Yvette makes in each interaction. This is where the RPG element comes into play. Yvette has two statistics to watch out for: credibility (how trustworthy and influential she is) and peril (how much she is in peril of playing politics or being caught up in crimes). Some decisions in the game use a credibility check that can make you lose or win, and some decisions can increase (and sometimes reduce) your peril.

Although these two statistics are not correlated, you need to make sure that Yvette has high credibility and low peril. This is because reaching a perilly high peril justifies Yvette a trip to the Guillotine to be beheaded (yes, this macabre part of French history is certainly a defining feature here).

In addition to credibility and peril, Yvette also has to earn money. How does a young Parisian public figure earn money today? Well, apparently, he sells new and old clothes. Let me be clear. Yvette’s status as the fiancé of a baron allows her to attend parties of different factions, from the royal family to the clergy, the army and citizens. During these parties, she has to dress to impress, because wearing the wrong outfit can finish her credibility and put herself at peril with the guests of the party. So she has to buy clothes in a store and exchange them regularly (that is, sell old outfits and buy new ones), because the fashion police are fully engaged here; multiple wearing of the same outfits reduces her credibility. It’s really hard to be poor in this game.

However, during the holidays, Yvette has the Chance to listen to rumors, and these rumors are literally golden in ambition: a minuet in power. Yvette can sell these rumors to the local tabloid, and the amount of books she can get depends on how crazy the rumors are. She may also receive rumors and books of random events during her daily trips to the city, but she may also have a peril.

So The ambition becomes: a minuet in power to juggle. Not only do you manage Yvette’s credibility and peril, but you also have to collect money to pay for clothes, pay rent and pay workers (for example, the concierge or other people you hired to give you bonuses like a tailor who can restore old clothes so that you can wear them longer).

Doing all this balancing act really discourages the main story, which, by the way, is still there for you to digest. Although most of the time it’s up to you to move the story forward, there are times when deadlines are met to complete a particular task, which becomes really complicated when you try to find the best tactics to approach Yvette’s crazy life.

Yvette’s Crazy Life also includes a dating simulation gameplay element in which she can romance both a handful of suitors and women (yes, it gets so crazy). She apparently misses being her fiancé for hanging out with other people. The one she wants to see is intertwined with the main story, and boy, the story can’t get any crazier; just play it.

The best thing about Ambition: a Minuet in Power is that it’s a Visual Novel that you don’t play once (or two or three times) to see the ending and then put it on hold. With the amount of things you can do in the game, your game will definitely be different almost every time. The big question is whether you can bear to become credible, avoid perils, raise funds, go to parties, meet someone and find out where Yvette’s fiancé is.