Angelique Special 2: This is what a hardcore game looks like

Koei’s 1996 (PC-FX)/1997 (Saturn, PlayStation) romance sim, Angelique Special 2, is perhaps the ultimate “girl” game—and by that I mean it’s been made exclusively for girls and women and isn’t interested in accommodating anyone else’s interests or desires. The result of this sadly still too uncommon focus is a refreshing game freed from all of the usual unwritten rules that normally dictate the pace, tone, and nature of the medium. Special 2 makes a real effort to avoid getting bogged down in traditional game-y language and presentation as much as possible, the manual—ah, I mean “Queen Candidate Guidelines”—choosing to open with a series of gorgeous full colour spreads explaining the setting (the queen of the universe is going to put two queen candidates the test to find her successor, but nobody knows why), the information delivered as if I’m hearing the cast discuss it amongst themselves. The rest of the 60 page book carries on in a similar manner, advice often presented in a more…