The Princess Guide Reviews
The Princess Guide bring a poor action gameplay, despites an interesting design and nice strategic phases.
Review in French | Read full review
So how would I grade The Princess Guide? It gets high marks for engaging, yet somewhat predictable, story threads and having a variety of waifus, but clearly misses the mark in a few areas. For the full grade, see the report card below.
The Princess Guide is a loot-based action RPG with a twist that involves teaching four princesses about the ways of life. While the concept is intriguing, the game's unique teaching mechanic isn't used as much as I'd like and the campaign could also use some extra world-building to make you care more about what's actually going on within it. On the plus side, the actual dungeon crawling can be fun and even addicting once you get the right loadout going. The game just needs a little bit extra to get it over the hump.
When it's firing on all cylinders, The Princess Guide is a somewhat deep, satisfying action game with vibrant visuals and humorous, whimsical storytelling. Unfortunately, it's bogged down by trying to shove overengineered combat through a thick UX fog. After yet another "mission" that consists of moving on the map to intercept three enemy skirmishes to completion, a reasonable player might wonder: Is it worth $40 to praise-or-scold each Princess through a couple of hours of sword-swinging? This quirky game may meet the particular sensibilities of some, but others should probably pass on this one.
The Princess Guide is an adorable, energetic game. It has gorgeous art and fun, well-written characters. It's just marred by grinding through messy and poorly designed combat. The AI squad-mates that are so integral to the action have terrible AI that make it impossible to consistently coordinate any of their actions. There's massive heart and care put into the narrative and visual design of The Princess Guide, but that is weighed down by how frustrating it is to play the game.
The Princess Guide is a game I enjoy less and less the more I play it. There is a sound structure here and some really clever ideas, but the weight of all its small issues really burden what should a fun and frivolous experience.