Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? Review

I haven’t played a side-scroller in ages, but I couldn’t say no to NIS’s Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? After playing for about 4 weeks I managed to beat the game and have assembled my review, arranged by the game’s individual elements.  I would like to sincerely thank NISA for allowing me the opportunity to preview the game.

Story – 1,000’s of Prinnies, Prinnies for me

In Prinny you play as 1,000 Prinnies sharing an enchanted red scarf.  The scarf grants the wearer immunity to throws, which normally reduces a Prinny to some ash and a beak.  Your goal is to collect several ingredients required to make an amazing sweet for your master Etna after hers was stolen by an unknown individual.  You are allotted 10 hours and those 1,000 lives to do so.

Don’t be concerned with the time-limit.  I was at first, but they are not actual game hours, they are based on the number of stages completed (one stage = one hour).  And believe me, 1 stage can take much more than an hour…

As would be expected, playing as a Prinny provides multiple situations which are hilarious.  In contrast to other games taking place in NIS’s Netherworld, you are now the bottom of the barrel – you are nothing, and that will be made clear repeatedly.

Gameplay – I doublejump like a pro

As I mentioned before it had been a while since I played a side-scroller, or anything so different from an RPG. For this reason I decided to go with Standard difficulty (3 hits to lose a life) rather than Hell’s Finest (1 hit to lose a life).  I did not regret this decision and HIGHLY recommend it to first time players.

When I first started playing, I noticed gameplay was fun and fast.  The controls felt pretty smooth, and enemies were pushovers which made me feel good about myself.

There are not a whole lot of actions the Prinny can perform, which adds to the difficulty.  Your Prinny will remain the same, but you will need to improve as the game progresses.

Each stage is made up of 2 halves.  The first is the main stage, which consists of the majority of the running around and obstacle avoiding.  There are checkpoints throughout the stage from which the next Prinny in line will continue once his predecessor perishes.

The second half is the boss battle.  Here you will face off against anywhere from 1-2 bosses with nothing but your Prinny wit and hopefully a bit of luck.  Bosses have a certain number of shields which you will have to wear down by jumping on them in order to do decent damage.  There is no set number of times you will have to attack a boss as it is all based on their HP bar.  There is also a 3 minute time-limit which means for some of the later bosses you will really need to budget the damage you dish out.

As I played on, the sun began to set, which caused nastier creatures to boil up from the Netherworld.  With a higher difficulty, my artificially inflated sense of side-scroller skills quickly deflated.  My low self-esteem quickly changed to anger.  I wisely decided to take breaks when this happened and would advise anyone who gets frustrated to do the same.

Presentation – More than a red scarf

I can tell a lot of work went into all the various 2D sprites throughout the game.  The Prinnies are capable of many different expressions, all of which are hilarious and cute.  Backgrounds, effects and music are all typical of a game set in the Disgaea world, as is the frequent humor.

Since I am playing a preview version of the game I cannot comment on any voice acting  (my version still has Japanese voice acting).  All Prinnies do have different voices and names which I think is cool.  They haven’t really been given these luxuries in past games.

Final Thoughts – Red Moon

I will not sugarcoat it; Prinny is a challenging game.  It will make you mad.  It will make you want to throw your PSP at a wall and vomit on it while burning a Prinny effigy.  I spent a few days on the last boss battle and it was insane.  If it weren’t for the continued support of Foxes I would have given up entirely.  I do believe it was one of the hardest bosses I have vanquished in a game ever.

Ultimately the game is a great spin-off of the Disgaea series.  I think a lot of people who aren’t fans of the grinding aspect of Disgaea games will be on-board for some fast and funny side-scrolling action.

If anyone would be interested in a Boss FAQ for the game, let me know and I will try to compile one before the game’s February 17th release date.

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