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Review: HEIR TO THE QUEEN

Even without knowing the term "isekai", you have probably at some point encountered a story or piece of media that follows its basic framework. A Japanese term meaning "another world", isekai stories deal with the notion of being adrift in a setting quite unlike one's own; they follow protagonists who are ripped away from a world much like ours and dropped into an unfamiliar place or time. Be it Edgar Rice Burroughs's depiction of Mars as a futuristic kingdom in the Barsoom books   or the fantastical realm of Oz, the specifics matter less than the intent - to challenge the protagonist's preconceived notions and lead them to personal growth in the face of unexpected conflict.  I lay all of this out for you because I think the intent with Heir to the Queen, a small-scale adventure game, was to hit the basic points of the isekai journey under the constraints of a threadbare budget and no larger media presence. That's speculation on my part, though, sinc...
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Blog Update for June of 2017


Big question time: what's kept Kurt preoccupied to such a degree that he's only posting at the END of June?

Well, contract work that pays the bills, for one thing - got professional responsibilities that I need to put first. Also, within the last couple of days I've been hit with a cold, the specific details of which I'll spare you. And some taxing housework that cuts into my time but needs to get done...

Basically, life, money and the limitations of the human body. So I'm a little behind on stuff and will be working to get caught up.

For those interested, these are the pieces I've got in the pipelines:
  • The (slightly) long-awaited Thoughts on... Mega Man X piece. I might get into it in the piece itself, but in short: on top of normal work stresses causing delays, I'm also not in love with the game and thus finding it difficult to motivate myself to write about it. Nevertheless, it'll get done.
  • A review of Homefront: The Revolution
  • An E3 round-up with some very special awards paying tribute to the best (and occasionally the worst) that the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017 had to offer.
  • Possibly for late July or early August: a retrospective and personal ranking of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films to date. This is a project I've had in my mind since I first started the process of rebooting the blog, and I'm eager to see it to completion.
As always, my thanks to Patreon supporter (and friend) Mark Aguirre for his contributions. I hope that my growing body of work proves worthy of support, and I urge anyone even slightly interested in my endeavours to please consider checking out and contributing to my Patreon yourself. Every little bit helps.

Thank you.

-Kurt
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