Review The Liar Princess and The Blind Prince (Switch)

Game: The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince
System: Nintendo Switch
Publisher/Developer: NIS America
Price: £19.99| $19.99| € 19,99
Age Rating: EU 16+| USA 10+
Release Date: 12 February 2019
Also available on: PS4 (Vita Japan only)

Review code kindly provided by NIS

The Liar Princess and The Blind Prince is a puzzle platformer game developed by NIS and published by NISA.

Storybook

It begins with a  fairy tale story of a wolf with a beautiful singing voice which is admired by the Prince. One night he climbs up to learn who the singer is. Scared he’ll see her she pushes him which accidentally blinds him. The royal family lock him up for his disfigurement. She goes to save the Prince but he’s scared by the monstrous figure so she seeks help from the Witch. The Witch gives her the ability to turn into a Princess at the expense of her singing voice, but also lets her freely transform. From there she fetches the Prince to take him to see the witch to cure his blindness.

Take My Hand

In her Princess form she can pull the Prince along by the hand to lead him places, pull levers and collect flowers. As the Wolf she is able to dispense of monsters, hit rocks and obstacles away, be heavier, jump higher and survive falls. The Wolf is the most useful form as the Princess and Prince can’t take a hit and if they fall too far or much they’ll die. If either you or the Prince dies you’ll go back to a checkpoint.

Monsters typically stay dead unless you reload, except for a couple areas. So it’s quite easy to get ahead of the Prince and ensure the path is safe. There are some areas the Wolf can’t go through due to her height or weight. Not long in you’ll be able to command the Prince to walk a small distance. Either to hit a switch or walk across a light path.

A few additional mechanics, such as a flower which the Wolf can hit pellets out of, and the Prince being able to carry things occur later in the game. There are also a few more that tie into specific enemies or the background. The new things the Prince learns can’t be used in earlier stages with the stage select.

There are also five flower petals you can collect, and in some stages whole flowers you can give to the Prince. Tying into the trophy system where there are achievements for completing certain levels in a time limit or without killing enemies.

Picturesque

The games art style is cute and illustrated. Story cut scenes are presented with book pages on the edge to add to this. For a while it seems that the forest looks similar. Changes do occur to the colour pallet and backgrounds once more progress is made. The music also managed to get on my nerves after not terribly long. Even some of the prettier tracks were still short. There is no English voice over for the narration, though the Japanese voice was nice. In one way this allows for it to be more like a book, but it wouldn’t have hurt to have the option.

After a few levels, story segments will happen. With a few misunderstandings due to the Wolf’s lack of human knowledge.  The Princess’s naivete in general makes her a little less sympathetic for a while. That does change and the story is a bit more lighthearted than the initial premise makes it feel.

Bookworms

There are also a few minor glitches such as the Princess’s skirt going in and out during a cutscene, or the Prince dying from a fall death while in the air. I had some slight trouble with the hand holding as it would let go sometimes leading to deaths.

Thankfully the checkpoints are frequent. There is also an option to skip levels after you’ve waited a certain amount of time. Something I did once and then realized I could do a prior puzzle because I hadn’t noticed I could hold hands and jump at the same time. Asides from a particular timing instance I didn’t find the puzzles too hard.

Overall

The Liar Princess and The Blind Prince is a short game, it took me just less than four hours. I even manged to do it without getting the, “let the Prince die thirty times trophy”! Of course there are the timed and pacifist trophies. As well as collecting all the flowers and petals. It is a nice little game but in a way it could just as easily have been a real picture book and have given the same experience.

Final Verdict: I like it.