SLAY THE PRINCESS IS A PRISTINE BLADE ON THE TABLE
I knew I was "probably going to love" this game the moment I saw the art style. And guess what, I pretty much only have high praises to sing for this pencilingly scribbled, princessified horror, branching path sassy narrator-like game.
Slay the Princess can be simply summarized as a graphic novel creep-out horror version of the Stanley Parable. But, of course, that's a slight disservice. I love me some Stanley Parable, but it's a very lean experience comparatively.
Slay the Princess has similarly fun, sass-mouthed Narrator with a British accent, but they are actually baked into the lore/plot in a novel way. The two games also share the same gameplay incentive, which is to keep playing and looping to see all of the various creaking, twisting pathways and "endings". The major difference being that, in the Stanley Parable, the fun comes from fucking with the Narrator as you antagonize each other into bizarre and amusing situations. Whereas Slay the Princessis more narratively focused. It's rooted in exploring all of the permutations of the story. How many ways can I kill/not kill the princess? How many voices can I get in my head? Which consequences lead to which chapters lead to which other outcomes lead to which OTHER chapters?
It's a blast the whole way through. Every facet of the game is executed with mastery. The art, sound design, writing, music and music cues...the only thing I was hesitant about at first was some of the voice work by the Princess' VA. It sort of felt like some sort of "yandere gf ASMR" bit. BUT she eventually grew on me. And by the end, I thought she had done a great job juggling between many, many different versions of the Princess you will find on your journey. I imagine this was an extremely fun game to record for.
My only criticisms are sort of fundamentally tied to the nature of Slay the Princess being an "ending-like" game. After the first playthrough, the novelty sort of starts to grow stale. You can see behind the curtains a bit, which takes the magic down just a half a peg. I found myself focusing more on clicking words that were words I hadn't clicked in order to see something I hadn't seen before. I guess what I mean is that the stakes sort of disappeared. It started to feel like I was "going through the motions" rather than engaging with the story. But even then I was discovering new and fun things in my subsequent second and third playthroughs. And...well even though I knew how everything was going to end up more or less, there were still moments I was discovering in my third playthrough that pulled my heartstrings.
I played it. I slayed it. And, just like my favorite voice in the game, I'm absolutely SMITTEN.
I knew I was "probably going to love" this game the moment I saw the art style. And guess what, I pretty much only have high praises to sing for this pencilingly scribbled, princessified horror, branching path sassy narrator-like game.
Slay the Princess can be simply summarized as a graphic novel creep-out horror version of the Stanley Parable. But, of course, that's a slight disservice. I love me some Stanley Parable, but it's a very lean experience comparatively.
Slay the Princess has similarly fun, sass-mouthed Narrator with a British accent, but they are actually baked into the lore/plot in a novel way. The two games also share the same gameplay incentive, which is to keep playing and looping to see all of the various creaking, twisting pathways and "endings". The major difference being that, in the Stanley Parable, the fun comes from fucking with the Narrator as you antagonize each other into bizarre and amusing situations. Whereas Slay the Princessis more narratively focused. It's rooted in exploring all of the permutations of the story. How many ways can I kill/not kill the princess? How many voices can I get in my head? Which consequences lead to which chapters lead to which other outcomes lead to which OTHER chapters?
It's a blast the whole way through. Every facet of the game is executed with mastery. The art, sound design, writing, music and music cues...the only thing I was hesitant about at first was some of the voice work by the Princess' VA. It sort of felt like some sort of "yandere gf ASMR" bit. BUT she eventually grew on me. And by the end, I thought she had done a great job juggling between many, many different versions of the Princess you will find on your journey. I imagine this was an extremely fun game to record for.
My only criticisms are sort of fundamentally tied to the nature of Slay the Princess being an "ending-like" game. After the first playthrough, the novelty sort of starts to grow stale. You can see behind the curtains a bit, which takes the magic down just a half a peg. I found myself focusing more on clicking words that were words I hadn't clicked in order to see something I hadn't seen before. I guess what I mean is that the stakes sort of disappeared. It started to feel like I was "going through the motions" rather than engaging with the story. But even then I was discovering new and fun things in my subsequent second and third playthroughs. And...well even though I knew how everything was going to end up more or less, there were still moments I was discovering in my third playthrough that pulled my heartstrings.
I played it. I slayed it. And, just like my favorite voice in the game, I'm absolutely SMITTEN.