The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince

Developer/Publisher - NIS America

Review Platform - Nintendo Switch

Release Date - February 12, 2019

Also available - PS4

The Liar Princess and The Blind Prince is a puzzle and platformer game. The objective is to lead the Blind Prince, a non-playable character (NPC), through the dangerous forest to the witch and bring back the prince's sight. Scenes are set in stages that must be cleared in order to progress through the game. Every stage is a platform puzzle where players need to utilize the wolf's power, the princess' limited abilities, and the prince's very limited abilities.

STORY

The story starts out sweet with a wolf that sings to the moon and a prince that ventures out to the forest to hear the beautiful melody. The wolf knows the prince visits to hear her sing and decides to ignore her instinct to eat him because she feels a bond with him. The wolf never lets the prince know she is a wolf because she’s afraid he’ll stop listening to her sing, breaking their bond. One night the prince takes the courage to confront his mysterious singer. Upon seeing the prince near her the wolf panics, tries to deflect the prince, accidentally slashing his face, and blinds him.

The Blind Prince

Back at the prince’s home his family is ashamed of his disability and locks him away. Worried for the prince the wolf visits him and learns the prince is blind because of her carelessness and the royal family is treating him horribly. The wolf feels guilty. The wolf then tells the prince there is a solution to his injury. Visit the witch, ruler of the forest, and wish to heal his eyes. While the wolf is hopeful the prince is doubtful because he’s blind, can barely operate on his own, and is traumatized from the claws of the wolf.

The wolf feels guilty. The wolf knows she can’t hold his hands through the forest with the claws that blinded the prince and traumatized him. The wolf then tells the prince she has a plan and will be back to take him to the witch.

Introduction of the witch. She is a powerful being who can grant any wish for a price. The price is "the requester must sacrifice what they care about most to make the wish come true". The wolf wishes to be turned into a princess so she can help the prince travel through the forest. The witch grants the wolf her wish and takes the very thing that brought the prince and wolf together (I’ll let you figure it out).

The witch knows the wolf wants to bring the prince to her but the forest is filled with predatory monsters, so the witch grants the wolf the power to transform between princess and wolf: princess to hold the prince’s hand and wolf to fight off monsters.

Travel back at the castle the wolf now transformed princess tells the prince she is a princess from a neighboring kingdom who likes to visit the forest and explains since she knows the forest, she will lead him to the witch. Together they embark on an adventure taking the path filled with monsters and puzzles.

The Liar Princess

GAMEPLAY

Y – Hold prince’s hand

B – Jump

A – Pick flowers, pull levers, etc.

X – Transform between wolf/princess

Y – Wolf attack

The princess and prince can only travel so far by linking hands. With their hands linked together they walk/run/jump.

While holding the prince’s hand the princess can tell the prince to walk a few steps forward or back, although the distance is limited. This is helpful in areas where more than one switch needs to be activated.

Later in the game the princess can tell the prince to pick up or place items (while holding hands press up or down) this will be helpful for puzzles with switches that need to stay active the entire time.

While traveling players need to be mindful that the princess and prince are delicate for they can die from high falls (its cute when they fall from low heights), squashed by platforms, and attacked by monsters. The wolf is invincible but the princess can die easily.

Players will also have a few side quests and items to collect. One of the main items to collect are flowers placed randomly all over the game. The menu displaying the stages will indicate which stage/scene will have a flower and the player must figure out where the flower is and how to get there. Only the princess can pick the flower and must bring it back to the prince because he likes flowers. This is where is gets a little challenging because players will use the wolf to get to the flower with ease but getting to the prince in princess form is a bit more difficult. The flowers are not imperative to the game but the process to find them is fun and each flower reveals a story about the witch of the forest.

MUSIC

The soundtrack is quite lovely filled a range of classical instruments: woodwind, string (harp), percussion (xylophone), keyboard, and maybe an accordion. The rhythm and high pitches create an atmosphere of mystery, suspense, and fantasy. Even though its upbeat its not the typically happy-go-lucky vibe. The music has a layer of somberness which reflects great with the theme of a dark fairy tale.

GRAPHICS

The artwork is 2-D and unique. Unique because its not like the usual: its not perfectly clean, its not fully dark or fully bright. Its like the drawing is depicting an old story book and the artwork reflects how art was done in the past with the limited knowledge they had at the time. Then mix in with our modern technology and we have clean lines, shapes are more defined, and certain colors pop. Like when we put color in an old black and white photo.

The areas colored black look to be sketched allowing some texture into the designs. Parts where there are blood scenes do not show any red but sketched blotches spraying about faded at the edges. For a simple drawing technique the blood scenes are able to be gruesome.

Where to get the game?

https://amzn.to/320RtSC

For more information please visit......

https://nisamerica.com/games/the-liar-princess/