The Princess Guide Reviews
The premise turns out being a rather shallow veneer on top of an enjoyable but underwhelming mission-based action RPG that bizarrely decides to try and hide its deeper elements.
Here’s the deal. I have an intense love for all things Japanese, and companies like Nippon Ichi Software tend to release games that speak to my soul. I’ve loved so many things they’re developed as a team and published as a studio, and they’re willing to take risks which I appreciate more than anything. Every now and then, a game comes along that makes me question that, as the disconnect is just too high.
WORTH CONSIDERING - The Princess Guide is fun at first, overwhelmingly complicated overall, and a little weird to be scolding or praising princesses in their training. It has some great points like crazy button mashing combat, but also has clunky menus and severely repetitive gameplay.
It’s the repetition that truly hampers The Princess Guide however. Aside from new traps to use and increasingly larger and more dangerous foes to fight, very little changes throughout the game. Beat up monsters. Move on to next area. Beat up Monsters. Repeat Ad infinitum. Because the mechanics are either poorly explained or shallowly implemented, the sheen of this game wears thin very quickly and without the unique aspects of its predecessor Penny-Punching Princess, it becomes a slog very quickly.
While The Princess Guide has an interesting concept, and the systems meshed rather nicely when I got used to them, there are some points that need a more in-depth tutorial, or at least an accessible tutorial after you’ve seen it, instead of having to start a new game to re-read something you missed. It may not be anything that’s redefining the genre, but I certainly wasn’t disappointed either.
The role as a teacher that ties the stories together held some promise, but the messy mechanics made me feel distanced from my pupils and in the end my actions were completely inconsequential.