The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily is a turn-based tactical RPG by One or Eight where you play the villainess trying to clear her name. You conquer nations slowly by moving your units across a map to achieve certain objectives. Enemies are constantly assaulting your position and surprising you with ambushes. Coming up with a strategy and trying to recruit everyone is vital if you want to succeed. Or you can push everyone aside and take the throne for yourself.
There’s a heavy emphasis on strategy to deal with surprises and hold your current position. Characters have unique personalities and bond scenes that flesh out their personalities. Combat often feels like a grind and the difficulty is high because of the surprises. This is a great game that tests your strategic skills. However, it isn’t very long and the length is drawn out with the difficulty, making you fight long battles to succeed.
You follow Lily, an engineer from the Republic with a penchant for streaming. While in another country, Lily is caught up in an emperor’s assassination. She ends up fleeing with the main culprit, a villainess named Scarlet. Without anyone else to turn to, Lily must work with Scarlet to take control of the continent. The duo can crush everyone in their way or work for the happiest ending by “befriending” everyone they meet.
The story takes place in a medieval world but has modern technology such as airships and streaming. Most of the story is spent on uncovering the truth behind the emperor’s assassination, along with Scarlet’s relationship with Lily. It’s an unusual take of a villainess fighting to avoid death sprinkled with some comedy about streaming trends. You can recruit allies for a better ending or refuse them all to play with just Lily and Scarlet.
The cast you meet have exaggerated personalities, but this makes them unique and memorable. Each character has two bonds that also provide a deeper look into their beliefs. It’s a great way of fleshing out characters and gives them a chance to be more than the people standing in your way. Recruiting everyone also gives you more story interactions and lets the world feel more organic than if you slaughter everyone.
Unfortunately the story itself isn’t long even if you are going for the best ending. The plot is your typical political mystery and many of the twists don’t come as a surprise. Without the gameplay battles greatly extending the length, the story would end in a few minutes. It doesn’t take away from the story’s quality but it does feel like many characters and motivations could get more time to shine.
The gameplay consists of moving units across the land, taking bases and crushing your enemies. Combat takes place over three turns and you either win or fail to occupy a spot. Every round in the world map consists of moving your streaming airship around, then your enemies move, and finally your team acts. By managing the enemies’ movements, you conquer their territory and defeat the commanders. Depending on who you recruit, you get different streams to use.
Three-turn battles seem odd from a turn-based standpoint as the standard is fighting until one side goes down. But the turn limit works because it forces you to use a character’s ability to the fullest. Instead of conserving your mana or special moves “for the right moment”, you use them within those three turns. This gives you more variety with your strategies and it’s fun to experiment with the possibilities.
Every character has unique abilities that help them serve specific roles in battle. Lily and Scarlet pair well but other characters can also synergize well with them. Figuring out the optimal combinations is tough but you quickly find a few that work for you. Thankfully there are few bad teams and as long as you don’t over-extend anyone, you should be fine. New enemies appear as you progress, making you think of new ways to utilize your team to the fullest.
Controlling your airship provides various benefits that hinder your enemies. You can stop enemies from moving, prevent them from healing, or even take their base. Figuring out what stream provides the effects you need is crucial to your success. Surprises often mean enemies appear out of nowhere and proper use of the airship helps you avoid losing everything. The battles, team formation, and airship use come together to provide a fun strategic experience.
However, gameplay takes a long time as progression is a slog. Enemies constantly produce reinforcements and while your units never die, you can only use commanders you recruit. Lily and Scarlet are the exception; if either of them fall in battle it is considered a game over. While it’s no surprise that the odds are stacked against you, overcoming them takes a considerable amount of time.
The intention is to make you utilize your allies but if you aren’t recruiting anyone, it puts you at a big disadvantage. Playing with just Lily and Scarlet is necessary for one of the endings but you eventually get overwhelmed by reinforcements. Even with allies, the enemy often has a strong numeric advantage that pushes you back. You often don’t match the enemy’s levels either as you are fresh out of a fight, forcing you to train your team to win.
On one hand, this does encourage you to think tactically. Playing with just Lily and Scarlet gives Scarlet stat boosts made to compensate for a lack of manpower. But with two characters, you must often use rush strategies or take the safe routes while losing territory. Even with a full roster of characters, you must compensate for your level disadvantage and think about what sacrifices you must make. On the other, this means battle times are often drawn out. Fighting against enemies who are significantly stronger than you is a frequent occurrence and you must train your units. That means defeating waves of enemy reinforcements until they are strong enough to fight back. Depending on your team formation, leveling up could take an hour depending on the battle. Progressing through the regions becomes a grind rather than a swift campaign.
The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily is a strong tactical game with a good cast and narrative. Battles are genuinely fun and do test your strategic ability. But this game is a timesink and you should be prepared to invest several hours in a campaign. For fans of strategy games that make you think, you can’t go wrong with this title. But if you were looking for something on the short side, you may consider passing this up.
Victor reviewed The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily on PC with a provided review copy.
