Pretty Princess Party LadiesGamers

Pretty Princess Party Review (Nintendo Switch)

Game: Pretty Princess Party
Genre: Simulation
System: Nintendo Switch
Developers | Publishers: Nippon Colombia | Aksys Games
Age Rating: EU 3+ | USA E
Price: EU €39,99 | USD $39.99 | UK £35.99
Release Date: December 3rd, 2020

Review code used, many thanks to Aksys Games

Have you always wanted to be a Princess? If you love the colourful and cute with a dollop of mini games then now’s your chance in Pretty Princess Party.

Never Follow a Talking Rabbit

Now you know how I love the cute and colourful games, but I can’t say I’ve ever wanted to be a princess. Seems to be so much pressure! But then, neither did my little YvoCaro, my in-game character that found herself following a rabbit through a magical portal. Seems it was no coincidence and she just had to be the princess the kingdom had been waiting for! I do hope she learned not to just follow talking rabbits!

Pretty Princess Party LadiesGamers
The magical gate…before it vanished!

But let’s get back to the beginning. YvoCaro saw a brown rabbit muttering to itself before it jumped away through a shiny archway of sorts. Instead of being very skeptical of talking rabbits she decided to follow it…to find herself in an alternate world. The talking rabbit turned out to be called Asbel and he was overjoyed to have found YvoCaro. After all, she is wearing the magic bracelet, so she was the missing princess that is supposed to restore order to a long abandoned enchanted castle, complete with thorn hedges! It’s not like she has much of a choice either, as the magical portal just…vanished!  So YvoCaro does what she is good at! Make the best of it and help Asbel and the other rabbits to restore the castle to its glory.

Reviving the Glass Rose

Inside the Castle YvoCaro finds she is not the only Princess there, there are three more. All lovely and happy, but apparently they are not the kind of Princesses that have the can-do mentality.

Pretty Princess Party LadiesGamers
Of course YvoCaro is an elegant dancer!

No seriously, only YvoCaro has Design Magic, tied to the magic bracelet, and she can whip up all kinds of furniture and decoration as long as she has the recipe. And that’s exactly what she is doing: taking on one room at a time to make them beautiful again. For every room that is redecorated she receives a Jewel Stone, that revives a small part of the Glass Rose in the Hall.

Pretty Princess Party LadiesGamers
Filling up the glass rose to get rid of the thorns

By doing this, the Castle Level is raised and one by one, the thorns that block rooms, fade away, making for more rooms to decorate. Also, it brings more rabbit inhabitants to the little town outside the Castle gates. They in turn help to get more recipes, as they have decoration requests themselves and for every one you finish well, the recipe is yours.

Pretty Princess Party LadiesGamers
The residents in the nearby village

Lumina is What Makes the World Go Around

Progression in Pretty Princess Party is tied to the in-game currency called Lumina. You acquire it by doing requests from the town residents, and from castle rooms you have successfully decorated. Greeting the other princesses and Asbel daily gets you Lumina as well as the lessons you can follow.

Pretty Princess Party LadiesGamers
Back to the class room

The lessons, or mini games, serve another purpose too: the experience points will raise your Taste Level, with each kind of mini game refining different taste levels. My YvoCaro has 3 Taste Levels, cute, elegant and cool. The higher your taste levels, the more recipes she can learn. There are all kinds of lessons, knowledge lessons (of the ” is this red”  kind), you can take archery lessons, race on your poney, take dancing lessons or gather bouquets of flowers and more.

Pretty Princess Party LadiesGamers
Sort of the Fountain of Wisdom!

You need Lumina as well to learn new recipes at the Knowledge Fountain and to decipher carvings at the stone pedestal outside of each castle room. When you take on a Castle Room the stone outside the door dictates what kind of furniture the room should have. But not all carvings can be read immediately, they need to be deciphered. That costs Lumina, especially when you want it done pronto.

Pretty Princess Party LadiesGamers
Deciphering the requirements for a room

Mini-Games and Decorating

When playing Pretty Princess Party I cannot help but compare the game to others I have played before. It gives me very strong vibes of Disney Magical World that I played on the 3DS. Maybe it’s because the castle looks very much like the Disney castle in Disney World Orlando. But Disney Magical World had more elements aside from collecting recipes and decorating, there was some gathering and farming too, though minimal.

Pretty Princess Party LadiesGamers
A castle straight from a Fairy Tale

Pretty Princess Party is all about collecting recipes and furniture, about making your character look cute and lovely with several costumes. It is strongly based on the mini-games and I miss some other simulation elements. I would have loved to gather items to make the furniture, or to really craft instead of just pushing the A button to have the item magically appear.

Pretty Princess Party LadiesGamers
So many decorating options to choose from

Having said that, what the game does, it does well. The Castle has 20 rooms to decorate, plus there are the resident’s houses to work on, with over 1,300 items in total and even after that’s done you get new challenge objectives. The furniture and items look great and are detailed. And there are many, so many to choose from.

Pretty Princess Party LadiesGamers
Decorating a room, this is the Library

Decorating the rooms is a pleasant pastime. It has a camera option to make the most lovely pictures of your efforts and lots of customization options for the Princess. I mean, just looks at the below dress. Now doesn’t that look lovely?

What a lovely combination of color!

The background music is cheerful and sweet and the game works very well in handheld mode. I did struggle with the Archery lessons because my Right stick on the joy con wasn’t precise enough, but that might be just me not being quick enough.

Lastly, we have to keep in mind that the target audience for Pretty Princess Party is a younger audience. I’m pretty sure your little girl will probably want to be a princess herself.

Pretty Princess Party LadiesGamers
High Five gives you Lumina!

Conclusion

Pretty Princess Party is cute, cheerful and colourful and it is a great game for people who love decorating  and collecting. Decorating is done with items you get through recipes that you have to earn by doing mini-games and decorating requests.

The game might get repetitive after a while as there are no other sim elements included, though leveling up and the constant stream of new items does keep you interested.

Pretty Princess Party LadiesGamers
The Home menu with all stats and collections

Keep in mind that Pretty Princess Party is primarily aimed at a younger audience, but if you are looking for cute and colorful laid back gameplay you might be interested as well. I’m pretty sure it will make a fine addition to many Christmas stockings!

Final Verdict: I Like It  Ladiesgamers.com

 

12 comments

  1. How does someone save this game as they go along. We keep having to start over again and again which is exhausting?

    1. You shouldn’t have to! The game performs auto saves, but if you want to save manually you press X. At the left hand side all the way down it says Save. Pressing that saves the game and then you can shut it off.

      1. this game does not auto save. my daughter has had to start it over every time we power it up. its ridiculous. and hitting the X button does nothing. there is no save option. it says it will auto save but after getting an hour into the game, designing a room, leveling up and getting the first rose petal, the game still did not auto save, nor give an option to save, and then we shut it off, turned it back on, AND HAD TO START ALL OVER. I’m beyond disappointed and frustrated by the lack of help on this.

        1. That is very annoying to say the least, takes the fun out of playing, so I understand your frustration. Note though that we are not the developer nor the publisher of the game, so I can only try to help you as one player to another. Below you find the steps that I do to manually save. But if you don’t see the menu yet at all, it may be that you need to at first play longer to unlock it all. It’s been awhile for me though, so I can’t be sure about that.
          https://ladiesgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/1695A0F5-B421-4120-8E3E-886764141FAC.jpeg (menu for X on the right lower side on the screen)
          https://ladiesgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/841D5C32-5AB6-4EFF-85C4-D33FBE432A34.jpeg (after that, I get this screen)
          https://ladiesgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/1D948599-4EB2-4874-944F-8793DA024C6A.jpeg (choosing Save at the bottom gives me this)
          https://ladiesgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/BC9DF2A2-B602-44A4-8EBC-C1AA03EC0235.jpeg ( and the final result).
          I’m sorry, that’s all I can think of…

          1. I’m sorry if I came off abrupt and irrate. My other frustration is that there is no online literature or help on any of this, even from the developers site, so forgive me for venting here. I know that you are just fans, so I should have toned down my comment. I really appreciate the help greatly. So, I definitely don’t see the Menu icon. I will try again and put some more time into the game and see if it comes up. I had just reached level 1 and that’s when I shut the game off, so maybe I should have hung in there a bit longer, even though it took a while for my daughter to get to that point. I’ll follow up here with an update to see what comes of this, just in case anyone else is having questions about this. Thanks again!

    2. You can access the menu and save after completing the tutorial. It should be after you do the recipe fountain stuff.

      1. Any other games like this for switch that you would suggest? Not animals crossing (so bored with it) thanks in advance!

  2. As a player yourself,you may appreciate that this game is helping to motivate my little one to read! So good call for like.
    I would appreciate it if you can help us solve a problem. My little has come to the gallery room and it says Wide storage is required. And it says she owns it. However we have used every storage option in the room and it doesn’t accept it as complete. This happened in one other room when it asked for a large vase but wanted a big jug. But we can’t figure out what is actually needed for this requirement. And I’m not seeing any fixes on any page. Hoping you can help Thanks

    1. Hi Pati, that’s great to hear that this game motivates your little one to read! It is truly a cute game and happy game. I noticed in the game that translations are sometimes too literal, but I don’t remember this particular one. It’s been awhile since I reviewed it, and as we have a lot of games to review and limited storage space on our Switch, the game is no longer on mine. If I should take a guess I would say a chest of drawers that is wide instead of high, but you’ve no doubt thought about that too. Maybe one of our other readers knows the answer?

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