"We are all in cages, trapped by our history, our roles, our expectations. It is only that some cages are more comfortable than others."
I recently pirated *ahem* "obtained" this game, since it seemed similar in overall theme to the other warrior-chick otome game I played not too long ago, The Second Reproduction. It took me two nights to finish all of the good endings (since there were more characters in this one), and I have to say, it was really engaging!
The social injustices of the setting are a reversal of most European-style fantasy; in the game, only firstborn daughters can inherit property and titles, meaning that princes and dukes and the like have to make good marriages if they are to secure their futures. Similar challenges face younger daughters of noble families, who need to obtain land and money before they can ever hope to start a family. The main character, Madeleine, is the second daughter of a low-ranking noble family, meaning that she is entitled to absolutely no inheritance and must either act as an understudy for her sister or work for a living. Defying her parent's expectations, she chooses the latter, and ends up taking a job as a bodyguard/valet/personal assistant/spymaster/all-around-caretaker for Prince Oscar, a young, innocent prince of medium consequence from her kingdom. It is her job to protect him, groom him (literally, she has to brush his hair and everything), spy for him, promote his interests, and whip him into the kind of suitable young man that can be married off to someone of rank, dammit! Things are looking good for Oscar after he gets invited to a neighboring kingdom for the debut of Princess Cassidy, along with a group of other potential suitors...but then, everything goes to hell in a hand-basket after Oscar is assaulted and the Princess Cassidy goes missing. The princes are confined to quarters while the investigation into her disappearance begins, so it's up to Madeleine to sneak out and discover who is responsible for Cassidy's kidnapping. What follows is an entertaining story of palace intrigue, familial lies, and botched assassinations. Who will Madeleine ally herself with? What enemies will she make? What secrets will she uncover about the people closest to her? And perhaps most importantly, how will she leverage the information she gathers to ensure that she walks away from the whole affair with land and a title, so that she can marry whomever she chooses?
I think my favorite part of this game was the main character. Madeleine was, first and foremost, a proactive protagonist, which is a freaking GODSEND in a genre filled with passive or reactive leads. She had a strong sense of a duty, and there was an element of practicality to her machinations; she was never outright cruel or wholly self-serving, but was willing to use any means at her disposal (short of murder) to accomplish her tasks...everything from daggers, to diplomacy, to bribery, to befriending prison guards. She was by no means super talented or brilliant, but she possessed the kind of well-rounded competence that you would expect from someone who spends their life managing and protecting royalty.
The other best feature of The Royal Trap was the variety in the "good" endings (most of the bad endings were similar, with Madeleine ending up penniless and facing an uncertain future). There were the traditional otome game endings, of course, where you end up marrying someone you love, though none of the romances were as precious and tear-jerking as the one between Christina and her knight Lezette in The Second Reproduction (though honestly, that's not a fair comparison, because I could probably play otome games till I'm blue in the face, and I'd never encounter a route I like as much as LezettexChristina). I think my favorite pairing was probably Madeleine and Callum, because they had major chemistry in their mutual ruthlessness (plus their route starts with a knife fight. How can you go wrong? 
)
There were also endings where you played matchmaker for another couple, endings where you gave up your happiness to secure someone else's, and endings where you sacrificed some element of your own morality to get a better position for yourself. There was even a girlxgirl route, but the romance was disappointingly understated (I wanted a kiss, dammit! That girl was adorable, and all we got was hand-holding and the suggestion of future love? LAME.) Some of the routes revealed more of the plot than others, so you really had to play multiple times to get the full picture of what was going on at the palace (not that I minded).
The designs and main game art were so-so (by my insane standards), but the CG event art was quite nice, and the theme music was pretty great too. ....And by now, you've probably gone into tl;dr mode, so I'll wrap it up before this review gets any more excessive. FUN GAME. PLAY, YES? OK? OK.
~*Mara*~ = ^.^ =
The king and the warrior princess spontaneously started perving on each other with no build up, and it really threw me out of the story. Whereas the princess had been brash, romantically inept, and combat-minded in the knight's route (only crying at the death of friends and the loss of her religion), she was suddenly all weepy and swooney and horny in the king's route. It was like...um, what prompted this 180 degree shift in personality? And what was up with the narrative suddenly focusing on how 'hot' the king was, when the knight's route explored questions of honesty, guilt, and sacrifice, and delved into the princess's cruel back story and her relationship with her ruthless mother? And how come the knight's route ended with them both going into battle together and then the princess ruling her own kingdom, and the king's route ended with the princess being preggers and getting a family portrait painted? 
Were the two routes written by two entirely different groups of people? Honestly.
(Although I'll try like heck to stay clear of that traumatizing storyline you mentioned... x_X)
