| Princess Crown review |
|
The Sega Saturn was a 2D gamer's dream come true. With the excellent support shown by companies such as Capcom and SNK the Saturn quickly became home to a plethora of sterling releases that put most of the 3D output to shame, regardless of the confinement to one plane of movement. Another company that blessed Sega’s 32-bit console with some memorable titles is Atlus. As well as publishing many excellent 2D shooters they released the painfully beautiful Princess Crown. Now, almost a decade later the game has been given a new lease of life on Sony’s PSP. A side-scrolling fantasy RPG, Princess Crown takes inspiration from such genre classics as Zelda II: Adventures of Link, Wonderboy III: The Dragon’s Trap and Y’s III. The player assumes control of the 13-year-old Princess Gradriel as she begins her quest to defeat the emerging evil that threatens her newly inherited kingdom.
The ‘meat’ of the game involves exploring the fantasy kingdom of Valendia. Dotted around the landscape are towns, villages, castles and dungeons, all joined by pathways which become accessible when the player has conversed with a certain NPC or performed a particular task. These paths form a straight line between each location (the player can either move forward or back) but must be traversed in real-time. It is during these journeys that random enemy attacks occur.
Although the battle system is based on totally random encounters (in true RPG-tradition), the actual combat takes place in real-time. Playing like a simplified game of Street Fighter II, the player is given full control over their character and can perform combos, air attacks, counters and charge-based supers, as well as use items in their inventory to replenish health or cause additional damage to the enemy. Most offensive commands are issued using the ‘O’ button, with the ‘X’ button controlling counter manoeuvres. For example, a few presses of the ‘O’ button will unleash a combo, onto which a ‘charge’ attack (unsurprisingly executed by holding down the ‘O’ button) can be tagged – defeating an enemy with this move results in a Street Fighter-style ‘screen sunburst’ which never fails to satisfy, even after hours of prolonged play. Pressing the ‘X’ button just before an enemy launches an attack pauses the game and brings up two options – ‘side step’ and ‘dash back’. Selecting one of these options allows the player to evade the attack and launch their own offensive. Pushing back on the D-pad when an enemy is attacking activates the guard. All of these moves drain the ‘power gauge’, which once depleted leaves the player defenceless. This bar slowly recharges when no action is taken. Therefore ‘button bashing’ is not a sound tactic. Even when the bar is full, the player must consider their options carefully, as enemies have the ability to counter in the middle of a player’s combo too. This system will seem pretty basic to anyone who is used to Capcom or SNK’s 2D fighting titles, but it remains complex enough to offer a challenge and easy enough for non-fighting fans to grasp. While it’s true that the battle system doesn’t evolve or expand over the course of the game, it remains enjoyable and action-packed, and many will prefer it to the endless turn-based encounters seen in other Japanese role-players.
Success against enemies not only results in items and money being dropped, but experience points are also granted which allow the player to level-up. There’s a wide range of items to collect, ranging from projectile weapons to special items which can be equipped to aid the player in battle. Food is also available in several different varieties. Apples can be plucked from trees and grant the player three health-reviving ‘bites’ before vanishing. Other foodstuffs like eggs, raw meat and corn-on-the-cob can also obtained, and these need to be cooked using a frying pan (or pot) and the correct ingredients before they can be eaten. The amount of preparation involved usually gives an indication of how much energy the final ‘product’ will grant.
As you would expect when playing an untranslated Japanese RPG, the language barrier often causes problems. The player can find themselves unable to advance because they failed to speak to the correct NPC in order to ‘unlock’ the pathway to the next village, dungeon or objective. Thankfully, when conversing with NPCs key words and locations are highlighted in a different colour so you have a fairly good idea when you’ve hit upon the correct person. The game contains a great deal of Japanese text and anyone unable to read it will miss out on pretty much the entire story. There are some excellent FAQs available to fill in the gaps, but as is the case with most RPGs the story is a considerable part of the appeal. Thankfully, all of the key in-game menus are in English so getting to grips with item use and other basic options isn’t such a problem.
Once Gradriel’s quest has been completed, three additional characters become available: Edward the Dragon slayer, Prosperpina the Witch and Portgus the Pirate. All three control in a similar fashion to Gradriel, and their stories are fairly short in comparison the main quest but their inclusion is welcome and adds at least a little replay value. The most entertaining aspect is the fact that the quests are intertwined with Gradriel’s, and many situations are replayed but from a different viewpoint.
Graphically, the game is still as achingly gorgeous as it was in 1997. Everything is stunningly animated and drips with sheer quality – the sprites, ranging from the main characters to NPCs and enemies, are a master class in hand-drawn excellence. The backgrounds are also of a stunningly high standard. Although nearly ten years have elapsed since the release of the Saturn version, the visuals have lost none of their impact and as a result Princess Crown is arguably the best looking 2D title on Sony’s handheld. It’s a shame then that Atlus have been extremely lazy in converting the game to a new platform. The aspect ratio of the original is the standard 4:3, and rather than re-tooling the game to fill the PSP’s vibrant screen, the programmers have simply placed a border around the 4:3 image. Other viewing options have been included – one enlarges the image to fill height of the screen (with borders on either side) and the other stretches the image to completely fill the entire viewing area. Both of these methods are wholly unsatisfactory. The former simply ‘zooms’ in and results in a considerable loss of clarity. The latter distorts the beautiful visuals to such a point that it renders the game practically unplayable. As a result the default setting remains the only way to play Princess Crown. It puts a strain on the eyes but ensures that the graphics remain pin-sharp. It wouldn’t have taken much for Atlus to have re-programmed the game to accommodate the widescreen of the PSP, and the fact that they refused to do so is one of the biggest failings of this new version.
The laziness of the programmers extends to the rest of the game, too. Aside from a sound test and art gallery, there is no additional content - no extra characters, items or quests. For those gamers who are approaching the game without having experienced the Saturn version this will not present a problem, but established fans will struggle to find any tangible reason for playing through the considerable quest again, other than for pure admiration of the title. Load times are another negative area – they’re longer than those found in the Saturn original.
It’s an indication of the quality of Princess Crown that despite these shortcomings, the game still manages to entertain. It’s clear that a lot of care and attention went into it (well, the original Saturn version, anyway) and the fact that someone with no knowledge of the Japanese language can still enjoy it is testament to the simple perfection of the game engine. At the time of writing Atlus of America have no plans to release the game in the West (despite strong rumours at the start of the year). An English-language version would be a dream come true to those who fought their way through the kingdom of Valendia nearly a decade ago. Time will tell if they decide to take the plunge.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
System: Sony PlayStation Portable
Genre: Role Playing Game
Developer: Atlus
Publisher: Atlus
Players: 1
Version: Japan
Reviewed: Dec 2005
Writer: Damien McFerran
|
Pros:
- Stunning visuals
- Excellent combat system
- Additional quests add to replay value
|
Cons:
- Language barrier
- Lazy conversion
|
|
|
|
|
|
