It’s barley midway though 2018 and NISA so far has released a couple of very interesting games for various platforms, especially for the Nintendo Switch. One of those games is called Penny Punching Princess, a top down retro looking brawler staring a princess who is hungry for money. Can money really buy happiness or will this princess go bankrupt? Let’s find out.
I’m in the money
Old school brawling goodness- Growing up 2D brawlers were one of my favorite types of games to play. Double Dragon, Battle Toads, Streets of Rage, Final Fight, the list goes on. Penny Punching Princess is inspired by these games as it takes the formula and puts its own spin on it as a top down brawler. It
Bribe enemies to your side- One of the most unique aspects of Penny Punching Princess is that you are able to bribe enemy monsters to join your side. As you take down enemies they drop coins you can use to buy armor, new moves and as I mentioned before, bribe them to join your side. To bribe the enemies you press LZ, that will bring up the calculator and if you are around enemies, a price tag that shows much it cost to bribe them. While looking in the general direction of the enemy, press RZ to lock on them and A to confirm the bribe. Once bribed, you can summon them to come out and attack on your behalf, but have a limited amount of uses. However as you go farther along in the game you can upgrade yourself to increase the amount of times you can summon the bribed enemy to help. Bribing enemies helps you rebuild your kingdom and open up skills for you to equip.
Lite RPG elements- Unlike most brawlers, Penny Punching Princess has some lite RPG elements that spice up the gameplay. As you beat up enemies, you gain xp to use to level up different stats that make you stronger, increase your health, improve stamina. etc. You also earn skill points that allows you to learn various new attack. There is one flaw that PPP picked up for having lite RPG elements and that is a tedious grind. More on that later.
Quirky story- In the world of Penny Punching Princess, success is measured in how much money you have. It doesn’t matter if you’re the strongest person in the world, money trumps everything and everyone. The game stars a princess whose father once ruled the whole land through his wealth. The way he recieved the money to start his rule though was dubious. One day the Dragolan family, a family of loan sharks, visited the king and demanded he pay back the money he was loaned, with a elevated interest rate. Unable to do so, the Dragonlans destroyed the castle and drove her father in to debt and died a poor man. Luckily the princess escape with the help of her faithful beetle butter Sebastian. Ten years later she and Sebastian return and the princess now verse in the ways of money, is ready to get her revenge.
Bankrupt
Dialogue is cringe worthy- While Penny Punching Princess’ story isn’t overly complex, the dialogue in the cut-scenes that appear in between stages is really cringey. I understand that the localization team’s job is to try to translate the game not only into English but to also match the tone of how each of the characters that has lines of speech to the tone of the game. For example, if the game was taking place in a fantasy world that has similarities to England/Central Europe, the characters encountered would speak in that region’s dialect. In PPP’s case, the majority of the characters that are in the game are meant to portrayed as gangsters. I understand what they were going for, but it’s not really working for me so I just skip the cut scenes.
Heavy grinding- As I mentioned before, in order to level up in the game, you will have to grind for xp. Now I really don’t mind grind for xp that much as long as the game makes the experience fun. But with PPP leveling different stats takes a lot of xp and in turn you will have to play some stages over and over again in order to get enough xp in order to level up.
Penny Punching Princess scratches that old school 8-bit brawler itch on the Switch (and Vita). It takes what makes brawlers fun and addicting and combines it with lite RPG elements, unique gameplay elements, and a strange but quirky story. But even with its quirky story, the dialogue is a bit cringe worthy and with RPG elements comes heavy grinding. Even with these flaws Penny Punching Princess is an enjoyable brawler that money can buy.
