kisui is Reviewing Slay the Princess
Hey again and Happy Holiday. Today, I'm gonna be reviewing Slay the Princess, a visual novel with overwhelming positive review on Steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1989270/Slay_the_Princess__The_Pristine_Cut
I come with heavy heart to say, this game has soooo many good things but the main concept is what makes it a miss for me. Does it deserve the overwhelming positive review? I believe it might be so, yes. But do I like this as a game? No.
The game follows basic premise of a visual novel, choices. It doesn't have any extra gameplay other than picking a LOT of CHOICES, which is not bad if you like it (and I do like visual novels). But what makes this game stellar is the delivery. They are fully voice acted (most are good and some are... less than good) and each scene are handdrawn, which I find really beautiful (but can be a miss for people who like well rendered 3d image). The music and the ambiance are also great.
Wow, everything sounds great. On paper, yes! But in actuality, the core concept of the gameplay is a big miss for me. But you said you like VN? Yes, I do. But this game doesn't really use generic VN flow. Since VN core highlight is the story, I can't tell you why without spoiling. I will talk about this down below, but for now the gameplay is not good for me.
Price point-wise, the game is cheap, I got it on sale for around (5USD or 80k IDR). For a game that promise hours of gameplay, that is AMAZING. Unfortunately I played this for 2 hours and have no appetite to pick this game back again, which makes this game bad bang for bucks.
So should you buy it? 95% Overwhelming Review of 20k people means people like it and very large chance you like it too. But for Core Gamer who played hundreds of innovative indie game like me, you might belong in the 5%.
Heavier Gameplay and Story Spoiler Below
The basic concept of the game is you are someone (you don't know who or why) sent to slay a princess. And you don't know why, that's the mystery. Sounds exciting. But you get to decide to kill or save or abandon the princess in the first 20 minutes of the game. Then you found out you are stuck on a time loop. Yes, this is that kind of game. The game then goes through a series of loop which each explain what you and the princess are and starts to resolve around a mix of eldritch horror with metaphysical philosophy about life, death, reality and existence, which is really cool thing because it's uncommon for VN to do this. I played some game that resolve around similar concept but no one execute it this well in the gameplay and story telling. Now for the full review.
Let's start with the art, all the art are hand-drawn black and white pencil/charcoal sketches style. Which really work for eldritch horror kind of story telling. The objects are somewhat unclean, lines are not straight, there are marks and inconsistencies which are great for horror. But again, if you are used to rendered pretty image, this game is not it. But each object are beautifully drawn especially the princess.
Then the sound, which is great, the game is fully voice acted and I really love the Narrator voice acting, there are also inner self/though voice acting which are also great. The weakest VA is the princess which is still good and not detrimental but it's not stellar either. Other than that every sound is good enough and nothing to be complained.
Then finally the gameplay/story. I can't separate this because it is a Visual Novel which puts emphasis on story. The story is well delivered and the gameplay resolves around choices, which in turn shaped the Princess personality. The princess will be nice if you are nice and the princess will be evil if you are mean. Exploring the princess personality is one of the gameplay core loop. Picking choices to know which Princess you end up is the fun part of the game. Then the second gameplay loop revolves around time loop. Every run is around 10-20 minutes and the princess will end up devoured by an eldritch entity. The eldritch entity is actually building itself based on the personality the princess has. And after you sent 5 princess to the Entity, you will arrived at an ending and knows about the story of who you are and what the princesses are. That means 20 minutes times 5 which mean almost 2 hours to reach the ending. The Ending is on the bad side. It tries to be philosophical for a life/death/reality/existence metaphor but for me, it's really anticlimatic and leave bitter taste in your mouth. Basically, the princess are "changes/growth" and you are "death/end", you want to stop changes and the world/princess wants to keep moving. You ended up ending the world and the princess creating a new world. Cool, okay but yeah... okay. After you reach the ending. That's it. You unlock the gallery and see how many path you miss. There MIGHT be a secret ending but the game doesn't tell you on how to achieve that since the game are very blur and conceptual about the story. So after 2 hours of playing I tried on another loop and decided I didn't want to keep looping without any payoff. Each loop is just, meeting a new/old princess personality without new info.
So 2 hours of epic gameplay, a disappointing ending and A WHOLE LOT OF REPETITION to know IF there is true ending or not. I tried googling and to see if there is another ending, and it says there is but not major difference than generic ending (just extra narratives and extra gallery image), and since the whole concept was already found on the first loop, I didn't find it appetizing to play it again.
Why is this review so short? Because IT IS a short game (2 hours for me). So is this a good game? On Paper, Yes. The game is well polished, the writing is great, the Voice Acting is great, the art is great. Do I regret buying this? Also yes.
Consider this a piece of art rather than a fun game. Buy it for the experience not for the game.