REVIEW

Penny-Punching Princess Review

by Martin Kerr, April 10th, 2018

If you ever found yourself sat in work or on a bus or train thinking, “Do you know what I want? I want an action RPG with cute pixel art, a fun sound track and a heavy nihilistic and anti-capitalistic sense of humour!” Well, if you are in the handful that may have said that over the years, Penny-Punching Princess may be the RPG that you have been waiting for. The game has buckets of charm from the word go. Its art style is endearing and vivid, and the soundtrack is great sounding and suitably fun in terms of a presentation package. In fact, this is the biggest strength of Penny Punching Princess as Nippon Ichi know exactly what they want to achieve with the franchises they create. Everything from the aforementioned art style and sound track to the character design of the princess and enemies to the offbeat cynical humour is cohesive.

The game sees its royal protagonist brawling and buying her way through a series of dungeons. These areas made up of several pathways with battle zones scattered around the map. The game’s fighting system is clear and straight forward, with a light attack (which can be hit repeatedly for an easy light combo), a heavy attack (which can be charged to do more damage), a push back attack and a dodge roll as part of your arsenal. It is pretty standard fare, and it’s only when we add the princesses bribe system in that the game steps away from its comfortable surroundings.

You can bribe any enemy by using the calculator button. Once you have targeted an enemy, you simply tap in its fee and it can be stored for later use as a power up. For example, if you were to bribe a dragon it would cost you 500 coins. When you use the power up in battle, your new dragon friend will appear and use a large flame attack to all the enemies on screen. One of the things I found most enjoyable about Penny-Punching Princess was seeing what an enemy’s attack would be when I encountered an enemy for the first time. Nippon Ichi have included a nice variety of enemy types, from the usual candidates such as dragons and skeletons, to the slightly less standard projectile spitting onion.

In a nice twist, buying bribes does have more uses than just for combat purposes. You can use it to bribe traps so they don’t activate, and for doors to swing open like you are the guest of honour, which could be rightly assumed as one of the normal pathways to gain more valuable loot. The mechanic also features in the games RPG elements, so in order to get make better gear such as a stronger piece of armour, you will need to have bribed the correct number of enemies of a certain type to receive it in your arsenal.

Amongst all the usual ARPG elements, the princess can use skill points to upgrade her vital stats, which you are going to need to do as Penny-Punching Princess can be a deceptively difficult game at times. This is mostly down to juggling the combat and bribing mechanics in order to succeed. The bribing feature is an amazing idea in principle, however in practice it can be slightly frustrating to use. Trying to quickly select a particular enemy on screen in the middle of a horde of foes, whilst dodging, fighting and resisting the urge to launch your handheld at the wall takes some doing to accomplish successfully.

Regardless of its sharp wit, the story is light on the ground and for many players it would be dismissible at best. This isn’t the biggest issue in the world, as the game was clearly designed to be played on the go in short bursts. However, I don’t feel the core gameplay is strong enough to be completely detached from a cohesive narrative. My time with the Princess hasn’t been a bad one by any means, but I must confess I seldom found myself itching to find out what happens next, or loading up my console to run through another dungeon before I go to bed.

In short, Penny-Punching Princess is a stylish, funny but largely uninspiring game with some largely frustrating and difficult moments. It has overly simplistic combat, which is unfortunately crushed under the weight of an awkwardly implemented idea. If you are on the fence and looking for something to play on the morning commute, then Penny-Punching Princess will certainly fill that role. With the current price tag however, it makes it all the more difficult to recommend, especially to its intended target audience.

IF you are looking for a humourous RPG that attempts to bring something new to the formula, Penny-Punching Princess may be exactly what you been searching for.