Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess Reviews
Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess is a surprisingly sadistic guilty pleasure. It's tough to match the satisfaction of seeing a well-planned trap chain go off. Unfortunately, the fun lasts about as long as that satisfaction does. If you can spend hours setting up deathtraps for helpless humans, then you'll have tons of fun with The Nightmare Princess. However, longtime fans may not find enough extra content in this version for it to be worth the money. This is a solid entry point to the franchise, but only the most hardcore should double-dip with the last-gen version.
Of all the Deception series, Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess is the complete package that has it all. It's great for neophytes since it has an adequate tutorial and offers an unbelievably wide breadth of what the series is all about, and long-time fans will be satisfied by the new twists on the old formula.
Overall, the game is incredibly enjoyable, allowing one to sadistically torture enemies to death. The game is perfect for that, and will bring many hours of enjoyment, especially with the Deception Studio mode and user content being downloadable. Unfortunately, the plot itself is not as engrossing as the gameplay. If the Deception Studio mode did not require unlocking characters and traps in another mode, it is unlikely I'd spend much time on them. Despite this, the game is well worth the price of admission, moreso for newcomers to the franchise, to this sadistic playground.
The Nightmare Princess feels like it was made by people who were forced to work on a Deception game that they wanted nothing to do with, and, harboring nothing but contempt for it, worked to undermine its development at every juncture. They succeeded at doing so, creating something so abysmally contrary to the spirit of the Deception series and painfully un-fun in general that we'll likely never see a true Deception game again.