Code of Princess is now available in the Nintendo eShop or in cartridge form. So what's the game about a half naked princess like? Well, it complicated ... I have some mixed feelings and none of them have to do with the princess's near nudity.
A village, a kingdom, a graveyard, where the Hell are you going? These are not the average trip plans of a dude looking to party during spring break. No, this is an adventurers' trip plan. Battling demons and walking trees. As we all know if trees could walk, they would try and kill us. As Princess Solange Blanchefleur de Lux, whose a total sweetheart, dahh, must go on a quest to save the world from an evil angel named Distille who likes bunnies.
Now story-wise I love this title, the English reversion is better than a redub by Funimation when it's got it's game going on. Lines like in the title of the review are spread all over in the game. "Miss, it's illegal to be a zombie!" , would you not chuckle at that? That line is in reference to Zozo a Necromancer whose playable in the main campaign story along side Ali Baba, thief, and Allegro Elfen bard. You meet up with a wide range of characters who join your party, yet when it comes to battle are no shows. You can play as any of these fleshed out funny characters, but only one during game-play unless in co-op mode and then someone else is behind your elf. I was wanting more of a group battle that I controlled, but fine.
So with a party of friends who all have their little quirks, especially Allegro the elf, who sometimes I wanted to punch for just being annoying, but the kind of annoying you need in a group for some comedy, your on adventure to save the day. You can save the day from different angles. That is during the main campaign, you don't just have to be a permanently almost naked princes, but Ali, Allegro,or Zozo. I didn't really get this premise, I've seen it before, but it kind of gets annoying to replay something you've already seen, just with a different character.
Writing and voice-over melded into a fun true rpg story that does take a meta look at itself and made fun of JRPG's which made it even more fun. I can't remember a 3DS title that had every character dubbed or really and old DS title. The game never switched to incoherent babble from characters while I was playing, you didn't just have to read after a certain point. For that I give C-O-P a thumbs up. I give it a thank you squeeze to for being able to skip dialogue in replays.
Replays, gameplays and what's going on with the game here. Where there are problems with this title shattering my ideal of what the game might have been which was a easy to access beat-em up co-up game was instead a much harder JRPG beat-em up game.
Gameplay has you taking any of the greatly designed characters and has me doing the same attacks over and over again, which did get repetitive. Now many RPG's do this, but my problems was my screen being covered with too many enemies and slow reaction time by my Princess or Necromancer. It's fun to swing a big sword around or have an elf use rock and roll attacks, but with a constant barrage and doing the same attack it's a nuisance.
Slow, is what I would call my characters, reaction time to what I press is not in sync. It's like moves are delayed by seconds and it feels wrong. I didn't like being able to to hop my elf forwards and backwards against the game background you can move between the foreground, middle ground, Indianapolis, ... oh, sorry I got bored with this feature and it's already to complicated with so many trees that want to kill my elf.
What amazed or I guess made me sad was the items and leveling up system. Don't show me numbers when I'm leveling me up, that's boring. Piety is where I have to put points for magic? You unlock items like different armors or earring, but your character doesn't seem to be wearing them. Don't add those items, unless I can see them. How could you be lazy about that, but get all the dialogue in the game voiced?
I like shooting lazers out of swords and throwing bombs at bad guys and it does look nice when it goes down in the game, but then the screen gets over run. Yeah, I know there a power call burst which can freeze enemies and do extra damage, but it's not a breakthrough in gameplay.
Down the line, the game would have been better if it was as fun and as innovative as it's writing. It's a mixed bag here. I like if the team behind it Agatsuma Ent. took a look back and understands what could have been done better. The cartrgide edition even comes with a color intruction booklet, showing off that much was considred in bringing the game out here.
I tried a few times to connect online, but haven't seen anyone. Which is regreatblle, because you unlock a slew of charcters to play with in the other modes including the NPC charcters in the game like a bar maid. Sigh, I guess all have to find a local play event, maybe some Street Pass LA event.
I want four player co-op on my 3DS damn it! For that reason I will keep playing.