While they are mostly know for the Disgaea franchise, over the past few years developer/publisher Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) have been branching out and developing new games. From games like dungeon crawler Labyrinth of Refrain to beat em’ up/ARPG Penny Punching Princess, it’s great to see NIS diversify their catalog. Their release schedule this year is no different as the line up ranges from traditional JRPGs to game creation. One of those games is subject for today’s review, The Princess Guide for the Nintendo Switch and PS4.
The basic premise of the game is that you take on the role of a knight instructor who has taken up the role as teacher to one of four princesses. Can the knight get these princesses to the top of the class, or will they be held back for another year? Let’s find out.
Praise
A Knight’s Tale- The Princess Guide stars a knight who has grown tired of battle as of late. He’s basically has seen and done it all as a knight. So after the last battle he was in, his commander dismisses him and suggest that he takes up teaching the next generation of knights.The knight takes his advice and sets off wandering the land and ends up answering the call to one of four warrior princesses to become their instructor. Each of the princesses has their own story to tell and reasons on wanting you as their teacher. As you travel and teach each of the princesses, you not only learn more about them, their missions and what makes them tick, you also learn more about yourself what you want in life.
Meeting the princesses- As I mentioned before, you answer the call of one of the four princesses request to be their instructor. Each of them has their own storylines, so don’t worry about missing out on anyone of the princesses’ story, you will be able to train and playthrough each of them. Speaking of the princesses, let’s take a quick moment to meet each of them. First up is Liliarte Alixon.
Liliarte is the princess and Captain of the Kingsguard of the Alixon Kingdom. Before she was born, the kingdom was poor due to the land not being able to produce crops and sustain livestock. People would fight and kill each other over what little wheat and grains that was produced. Things did get better over time, but Liliarte works extra hard to make sure that her people never have to go through that again. That extra work however has made her obsessed with food, especially dragon steaks. Liliarte has called on you to be her teacher in order to learn how to slay dragons, as one has decided to nest near the kingdom and threatens the area.
Next is the powerful Witch Princess, Veronica of the Rusty Magic Guild. In the Rusty Magic Guild, only the most powerful may lead, which is why Veronica is on top. Smart, cunning and with a bad temper, she will not hesitate to turn those who anger her into frogs. Now she sets her sights on world domination. And in order to do that, she needs to unravel the mystery of three relics that will give her the power to do so. So she “recruits” you (actually she has you kidnapped while you were sleeping in bed) for your knowledge of these relics. With your knowledge and her power magic, world domination is just a nap time away.
Next up is Monomaria, former princess of the Yudaria Family and current mercenary leader. Monomana’s situation is a bit tragic. The Yudaria Family were once a prosperous family of traders working in the Mercantile Trade Coalition. Till one day an expedition her parents were on went wrong and died, leaving her with massive debt. This lead to the financial and reputational collapse of her house and being cast down to the lower ranks of the Coalition. Regardless her retainers are still loyal to her and her situation has not dampen her spirits. She now works as a mercenary, earning money and working hard to bring back honor to her family’s name. Her hard work has made her a bit overzealous and she can be a bit hard on herself, but with your guidance Monomaria will be able to bring back honor to her family once again.
Last is the gental, peace loving Dragon Princess, Alpana. Alpana is a half-dragon/half-human leader of the North Kamara Faith, a faith that preaches peace and harmony with everyone. Her wish is to spread the word of the Kamara Faith to everyone and for everyone to get along with each other. However the country is located to the far northern regions, where its cold and snowing most of the time, so outsiders rarely come that far north. This does not discourage Alpana as she ìs determined to spread the Kamara Faith to all. However since she has never been outside the region, it’s up to you to bring her up to speed on all the cultures of the regions you and her pass through. With your knowledge of the cultures outside of Kamara and Alpana’s kindness, all will know of the Kamara Faith.
As you can tell, each princess has their own goals and reasons for wanting you to be their teacher. While the game is centered around you, it mostly focus on the princesses. Its their stories as seen through your eyes. This is a pretty good change of pace since most JRPGs focus on a central character. So it doesn’t matter which princess you decide to start off with, as you will get the chance to go through each of their stories.
Knight School- As the princesses’ teacher and mentor, it’s your job to properly train them and lead them down the right path. As such you are able to strengthen each princess by having them learn and equip Materia. Equipping different Materia increases certain stats and activates different skills. These range from increasing resistance to more items and gold appearing when enemies are defeated. Learning which weapon for each princess to equip is also very important as the game uses a rock-paper-scissors type of system. Attacking enemies with the right weapon, skill or spell will do extra damage and even cause a break state where they are stunned for a couple of seconds. Now depending how well they are doing in the middle of battle, you are able to either Praise or Scold the princesses. These actions give them buffs depending on what’s happening during battle. These buffs range from defense and strength up to HP recharge and limited invincibility.
Squad goals- You and the princesses are not alone in the battle, as a small squad of six knights follow you around. Their main purpose is to protect you and the princesses as you all travel through an area. They have two main attacks, a stun attack that has a small cool down and a powerful charge attack that has limited uses. You and the princesses can also order then to group into different formation by dominating the field. Each formation enables a buff for the whole group or just the knights themselves. You will also be able to recruit monsters to your side after defeating enough of them.
Scold
Too simple combo system– While the combo system is simple enough for anyone to get a hang of, The Princess Guide’s combo system feels a bit too simple. Now I’m not saying that it needs to have six button inputs to pull of a super combio, Im saying that it should have a system that allows players to string different attack together easier with the princesses and fellow soldiers that are on the field with her. Like for example have the princesses execute a 4 hit combo on an enemy, pop him up into the air and then have her troops make the finishing hit.
Can’t change in the field– An aspect of the game’s use of a board game style of map that annoys me is that while your commanders, princess and you are out on the field, you are not able to switch out gear, skills, and weapons. The game requires you to withdraw from the field in order to do any gear/skill swapping. If this was a rouge-lite/like or a dungeon crawler then would understand the need to return to base. However even some rouge-lites/likes and dungeon crawlers allow you to swap gear in the middle of a dungeon crawl, so it doesn’t make sense for The Princess Guide to do this.
Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat– Any game that has beat em’ up elements, ARPG elements or any action elements in general will get repetitive after a while. And The Princess Guide is full of this repetitiveness. This is apparent when finishing a princess’s storyline. The story, mission, motivation and princess might be different, but hacking away at enemies, defending point on the map and the overall combat is repeated and the same.
It’s great to see NIS developing different games like The Princess Guide. The story is your standard fantasy fare but enjoyable nonetheless. I liked that even though the knight was the main protagonist, the story was focused on the princesses and was seen through his eyes. Each of the princesses had their own story and personality with made playing through the game four times enjoyable though a bit repetitive. The combat system, though as simple and repetitive as it may be, was solid and enjoyable. Ordering around and using the squad of knights was fun to play around with. There is a chance that you might get tried as the gameplay is repetitive. Looking through these flaw, I still had a fun time with the game. If you are looking to bolster your Switch JRPG collection, add The Princess Guide to the pick up list.
