The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince (Switch)

The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince is a game that’s essentially one step above a digital storybook. A digital storybook tends to have limited interactivity, the reader usually only able to turn the page, click on a part to hear it read, or click on the pictures to hear sounds or see little animations. The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince turns its storybook fairy tale into something more akin to a proper game, but even with the platforming and problem solving elements added between story beats, the game is still mostly focused on conveying its plot to the player.

 

This will become immediately apparent to anyone starting the game, as the opening of The Liar Princess and the Blind Price takes its time setting things up. Universally the tale is narrated by a singular voice as if it was being read to you, the characters even read by the woman who, unfortunately, will only be speaking in Japanese. English words will appear on the screen so you can follow along though, and while the tale uses simple language throughout, it does still devote extra time to describing things like a character’s thoughts or the appearance of an area even when the player can clearly see the images on screen. During the scenes the game uses still images that take advantage of the game’s art direction, the overall visuals using a heavily inked style and muted colors to appear distinct and often rather striking or even beautiful. Some designs like the wolf look rather odd since it is four eyed creature but you often only see two on the side it keeps towards the player’s view, the flounder-like appearance a bit at odds with the mostly detailed and clearly readable monster and character design featured elsewhere. The main characters do look rather adorable though, both having easily readable expressions that can be subtle like their slight smiles when they grab each other’s hands or overt like when they’re having fun or experience something heartbreaking.

 

The tale begins with a lonely wolf that pierces the quiet of the forest every night with a beautiful singing voice. One day, the prince of a kingdom near this forest hears the voice and goes to investigate, but he does not find the singer at first, instead only applauding the mystery singer after each performance. One day though, his curiosity grows too great, the boy climbing the perch the wolf rests on to try and see the owner of the voice. Worried her monstrous form will terrify him, the wolf acts impulsively, trying to push him away only to rake his eyes and blind him. Guilty and devastated that she hurt the only person who was kind to her, the wolf seeks to make things right, consulting a witch of the forest to bring his vision back. Unfortunately, to get the prince to the witch, she will need to guide the prince through the dangerous forest, something she could not do if he were to discover she was truly a wolf. Striking a bargain with the witch, she gives up her singing voice to gain the ability to become a princess whose soft hand could comfort the prince and guide him through the woods, the wolf able to shift back to her monstrous form whenever she might need to protect him.

All of this is set up before the player really begins to play the game, and as the adventure continues, many more scenes will appear as the prince and princess get to know each other during the adventure. As befitting the cute designs of the main duo, much of the game is meant to put a smile on your face as the two grow closer friends, have comical misunderstandings as the wolf fails to understand human life styles and the blind prince makes incorrect assumptions, and they interact with some of the nicer critters in the forest. At the same time though, the fact the princess is lying about her true form is a constant source of drama, the wolf dreading what would happen if the prince learned the truth of not just what she was, but what she did to him. One scene may be charming and sweet only for it to take a sad turn as some reminder of the situation rears its head, but the deliberate pace and visuals do help the emotion come across so it remains an interesting tale. There’s definitely a tinge of darkness to the affair as well, the fact the wolf was a man-eater part of the problem and the other creatures and characters in the forest having their own quirks that can make the game an often bittersweet experience.

 

Unfortunately, while a lot of love was put into the look of the game and the story book presentation, the play mostly consists of mild platforming and puzzle solving. There are a decent amount of mechanics at play, but very few of them get explored much, making them rather unexciting to interact with. The main focus of play will be swapping between the princess and wolf forms of the game’s main character, each one having different purposes. The wolf is a sturdy beast that doesn’t have to worry too much about danger, its claws perfect for fighting off aggressive forest life and its jump much better at getting to high areas. However, you are meant to be guiding the prince through the forest, and to touch him in this form would reveal the unfortunate truth of the princess’s true form. When you want the prince to move, you will need to take on the more vulnerable and less capable princess form, able to lead him forward by the hand. You also gradually get a few commands to help you with moving the prince, the princess able to tell him to move forward a certain amount or carry helpful items like a lantern to light dark areas or blocks that are needed to weigh down switches. There will be plenty of alternating between the two play styles as you progress, and an attempt is made to introduce new ways for it to be used, but many of them end up still feeling rather plain, probably in no small part because you will always have to lug the much less capable prince through an area after you’ve worked through the puzzling elements.

One issue with the puzzle and platform design before we even address the layouts and concepts is the looseness of everything. The wolf’s jumps drift around with an unexpectedly light feeling to them, but the princess and prince have actual issues with their jumps, the game sometimes struggling with the mushrooms they can bounce on. Sometimes one will go flying but the other won’t while you’re holding hands, and other times when you land on them to cushion your fall, one character just ends up flopping onto the space right next to the mushroom and dying. The wolf can struggle with ghosts that turn into platforms but seem to trigger in an odd manner that makes using them hard, and while things like this are slight irritants accommodated for with decent enough checkpoints, even when things are working well, the game doesn’t really ask much of you. There are a lot of times you’re just fiddling with switches to raise and lower platforms, breaks where you just go ahead as the wolf to clear monsters out, and little moments where you just make sure you and the prince are riding moving platforms correctly. Moving forward already feels fairly slow, and arresting your movement to do a puzzle that doesn’t require much thought or even action doesn’t really enhance the play.

 

The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince does include a few decent puzzles, including some math-focused riddles that almost seem at odds with the mostly action-focused activities present elsewhere in both concept and difficulty, but the better moments are pretty much saved for things like getting the optional collectables. Flower petals are scattered around stages that are fairly easy to grab with a little extra effort, but getting a full flower as a gift for the prince usually requires some investigating as the wolf and then trying to safely get the princess back after, the flowers even giving you some interesting backstory for your troubles. While these are a step up from the typical designs,  there really isn’t much exciting or mentally stimulating on offer, the best thing about the play segments being the visual touches rather than what you’re actually doing.

THE VERDICT: To put it simply, the main draw of The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince is certainly its cute but bittersweet story. If you come to it for the gameplay though, you’ll be left with a mostly mediocre experience where the concept of swapping between the wolf and princess forms is barely tested with anything interesting or challenging. You can push through the plain puzzles and run of the mill platforming without much woe to see more of this virtual fairy tale, the art style and story framing making it a somewhat delightful experience. However, the unexplored and sometimes inconsistent game mechanics that populate the space between the two leads interacting does mean this endearing tale barely scrapes by on its charm alone.

 

And so, I give The Liar Princess and the Blind Princes for Switch…

An OKAY rating. Make no mistake, this game can be boring at times to play, but at others, the simplicity of its unengaging level design can make it much easier to reach the story scenes. While the mechanics hardly get pushed to the point they are interesting or challenging on their own, there is barely enough to make sure that play won’t get grating. The play just doesn’t really carry its weight too well considering the fact it does make up most of the experience. It is possible some of the design simplicity stems from trying to make things accessible enough for younger players, although its never so basic that it would allow the youngest of the young to simply experience this fairy tale adventure. A few bursts of more involved puzzle solving here or there doesn’t really make up for the straightforwardness of the rest of the game’s interactivity, but none of this detracts from the love and talent that made the tale being told so charming.

 

To go back to the digital storybook comparison, this is a game you come to in order to read the delightful but sometimes dark story of two cute characters on a difficult journey, the art just as much part of enjoying the plot as the words you’re reading. However, the play does show that sometimes turning the page would be preferable, as it would at least push things to the next point of interest rather than trying to fill the space between with something interactive. The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince is a game that manages to evoke a few different emotions with its story, but the gameplay doesn’t leave much of an impression at all.