Karder Dal-Arouya is a mess. I mean that as a compliment, mostly. The art looks like someone drew it on a napkin during a particularly horny history lecture, lines all shaky and proportions that shift between scenes like the artist forgot what a human body looks like. But that's the charm, right? It's got that raw, unpolished energy that makes you feel like you stumbled onto someone's private sketchbook. The queen mother, that absolute bitch, she's rendered with these sharp, angular strokes that make her look perpetually pissed off, which fits because she stole the whole damn kingdom. Karder himself, though, sometimes his face just... melts. One panel he's a determined exiled prince, next panel he's a blob with eyes.

The battles. Oh god, the battles. They're these weird little visual novel segments where you pick a move and then the screen does this janky shake effect that I think is supposed to be impactful but just makes me laugh every time. There's this one fight against a former friend, a knight lady with armor that covers absolutely nothing important, and the dialogue is so melodramatic I had to screenshot it. "You dare raise a blade to your rightful sovereign?" and she's like "I serve the crown, not the man" and then they just... stare at each other. For like three text boxes. The sexual tension could power a small city.

Then suddenly there's a lesbian scene between two side characters I barely remember meeting and it's surprisingly tender? The writing for that part feels like a completely different person took over, all soft focus and gentle touches, while the gay content with Karder and his old war buddy is all rough and desperate and full of terrible decisions. The violence is cartoonish, limbs go flying with a wet slap sound effect that's way too loud. I wish the game would pick a tone and stick with it, but also I don't. The whiplash is the whole experience. The throne room at the end, when you finally confront the queen mother, has this one CG where her expression is genuinely unsettling, like she knows something you don't, and it's stuck in my head for days now. Not because it's good art. Because it's weird art. And weird sticks.