The Haunted Hoard: Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut (Switch)

You find yourself on a path in the woods. At the end of that path is a cabin, and in the basement of that cabin is a Princess chained to the wall. If the Princess is allowed to leave the cabin, the world will end, and it falls on you to slay her. At the same time, before the game begins, an ominous message informs you not only will this game feature terrifying sights and situations… but it is a love story despite that task you’ve been given. Even before you’ve made your first choice in this visual novel, Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut has left you with a great deal to consider about what you’re about to see despite its goal sounding so straightforward.

 

As a visual novel, your actions are tied to choices that appear at set moments as you set about your task, and Slay the Princess recognizes immediately the moral confusion that might be inherent in its task. Despite a narrator telling you the situation, you are free to respond to him and question the action and even turn away and refuse to participate, and even as you approach the cabin and find the pristine blade waiting for you, there are still ways to second guess your actions in light of what you see. The world itself is drawn in only in black, white, and red, and when you approach the princess, she is drawn like a sketch as well. The game’s artist, Abby Howard, is clearly an incredibly capable artist as you’ll find as you delve deeper into the possible outcomes of this tale, but your first impression of the princess is an uneasy one. She has wide dinner plate eyes, able to look pleading and miserable over her current sad state but also uncanny with it easy to see how they can be twisted to horror. With the weight of your given task hanging over you, you’ll still be left uncertain if you’ve been told the truth, especially when you hear her voice, Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut entirely voiced be it your own thoughts or the Princess herself.

 

Nichole Goodnight voices the Princess, and when you first hear her pleading, sweet voice, it might sound a bit rough. Initially you might judge it a touch harshly, uncertain if its the performer’s fault, but considering the command she’ll show over the role later on, Nichole’s initial lines are likely to help straddle that continued uncertainty you’ll have about the princess. Perhaps she’s just weary from her terrible situation, or the princess desperate for rescue is a mask she wears poorly, and while you are able to act with the range of freedom you had at the start in terms of how you choose to either slay or save the princess, the Narrator is going to prove a consistent commenter imploring you to do what he deems the right thing. The Narrator is voiced by Jonathan Sims, who also proves to have similarly excellent range as Nichole partly because the Narrator is not the only voice he lends his talents to. Your own thoughts and varied perspectives are given personalities to weigh in on the situation, starting small with just a naturally heroic one rightly questioning the task, but soon, you’ll have found the story reaches a point where decisions must be made and the truth of the matter will come through.

And that is where this visual novel splinters into different outcomes in a most fascinating way. The box art and the disclaimers prime you for there to be something more going on than a mere girl locked away in a cabin, but it’s not a straightforward truth awaiting you. What you put in is what you get out of Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut, something you might not even realize since the exact way the Princess first speaks to you is already determined by actions taken before you meet her. The Princess is no one thing, and the way you talk to her, the way you act, will help shape the path you go down with her in an often tempestuous turn of events that actually seems to be a horror-tinged lens on the idea of reciprocal relationships. If you come at her with hostility, expect hostility in return. If you attempt to mend the relationship, do not expect immediately acceptance. If you aim to only be kind-hearted, you can find that an idyllic approach can be a trap in itself that neither of you cherish, but even if you should end up down a dark path where the Princess is warped and twisted by the actions that lead up to it… this is a love story. It is not always healthy, it can be one-sided, and it can be outright sickening, but there is a bond between you and the Princess that will always exist in some form even as the world and the characters undergo drastic reinventions.

 

Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut is a game meant to be played multiple times with alternate choices made, and it doesn’t quite fit the mold of simply having different endings. There are multiple routes to undertake where the story will unfold in wildly different ways, and while there is a capper after seeing a few different outcomes, most of the individual routes can almost feel like short stories in themselves. Some of them are legitimately beautiful, The Thorn for example making superb use of Abby Howard’s artistic skill and Nichole Goodnight’s voicework to make for a tale of the difficulty in learning to trust again. Subtle touches bring it to life as well as the excellent writing by Tony Howard-Arias knowing where to provide emphasis and when to let the art do the work instead. No one route in Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut is overly long, especially since your actions will almost always thin back to the idea of saving or slaying the princess despite the many ways such a thing can manifest, but such a touching route can pull at the heartstrings and make you care for that particular iteration of the Princess without alternate routes invalidating that story. It is part of the broader narrative that each form of the princess is valid and does exist in a way, much in the same way you the player are always the same person even if you can go down different paths that can represent your thoughts differently. Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut doesn’t lean much into metanarrative commentary though, occasionally prodding at the idea for a bit of fun, but its ultimate structure and themes are rooted within its own world in a way that preserves the visual novel approach of pursuing different outcomes.

Make no mistake though, even with a route as beautiful as the Thorn and some music that can be downright lovely at times, Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut is a horror game, and those same tools that can be used to create heart-wrenching emotional moments will be turned against you in ways that make your skin crawl. Abby Howard’s sketchy style truly gets to stretch its legs and show that the presence of detail is something she applies with careful consideration. It is hard to say Slay the Princess fits into one single form of horror, as taking different paths can result in short tales focused on body horror, psychological horror, and even cosmic horror. It feels like there is at least one route guaranteed to make any sort of player uncomfortable, the writing and visuals fiendishly cooperating with the degree of detail they’ll present to make you uneasy. The Narrator speaks with careful precision, knowing where his words will have the most impact to make you squirm, and even a seasoned horror fan may struggle to look at the scenes on display despite this all being hand-drawn art. At times a specific picture may look a bit odd or even get an accidental laugh, but for others that uncanny look may be unsettling. It’s hard to call any outright gratuitous, if you are down a path, the horror will focus in on its chosen theme for that story, and there are certain rules about the setting and situation that remain unbroken so it’s not like it’s going down a checklist of terrifying ideas.

 

There are definitely outcomes where it can be hard to even see the glimmers of the love story we’re supposedly a part of, only for a line to pierce you and make you understand. There is no senseless cruelty, and even though her perspective, her body, and her world may change around her, the Princess is a being with human thoughts and needs. Even when she is at her most disturbing, even when she is difficult to look at, she is still a person underneath it all, her state often a reminder that you are responsible for what you are witnessing since you took her fate into your hands and turned her towards this outcome. There is creativity abounds in the way these routes can unfold, often referred to with simple names that show how broadly they can manifest. The Apotheosis, The Cage, The Adversary, The Moment of Clarity… even knowing a title may not prepare you for the shape it takes, but you aren’t unchanging either as the player. New perspectives join in to comment on your thoughts, sometimes bickering a bit too much, but they can add to the scenes with their reactions and ideas as well to further sell the horror or send you down new paths.

 

In terms of function, Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut has many of the expected visual novel touches. Multiple save slots and the ability to save most any moment, options like skipping text you’ve seen before or having it play automatically, and a log that shows you previous text in case you missed it. After one full run through, you get a Memories section that lets you review the art from each section as well as hints on finding new outcomes even within individual stories. The Nintendo Switch version sadly has one black mark on it should you play it on Switch 2, that being things tied to The Nightmare route. In part of the lead-up to starting that story, one of the more unsettling standard images of the Princess just doesn’t display, and when inside the Nightmare route itself, my first time through I received upwards of five game crashes. Curiously, repeating the Nightmare route later through a different set of circumstances did not cause any crashes, but as the route already made use of flickering and other visual tricks that looked like glitches, it might have been toying with the hardware a bit too much. The PC version will likely run better, but the Switch version otherwise works perfectly for its features with easy button shortcuts for desired menus. Searching for new paths is a bit different than a regular visual novel since you’re meant to do some consecutively before a fuller ending is formed and the game even nudges you a little towards different outcomes when you’re still within the grander context of a “run”, but having the extra tools to speed up the process at least helps with the fact that after every story reaches its end, no matter how lovely or horrifying, you’ll be back on that path in the woods with the edict from the Narrator to go slay the princess.

THE VERDICT: The simple set-up of Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut unravels into a multitude of fascinating and creative outcomes that make expert use of text and illustration to construct horrifying scenarios and gorgeous emotional moments. The way the story unfolds can change to a drastic degree and yet it is always a dance between you and the Princess, even the mostly outlandish supernatural fates still rooted in human emotion and that reciprocal reactionary relationship you two explore. The voices in your head may banter a bit too long at points, but what starts as a simple task to slay some unknown princess blossoms into something haunting and beautiful, uncomfortable horror and intimate story-telling pushing and pulling you as you explore each surprisingly distinct path you can take.

 

And so, I give Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut for Nintendo Switch…

A FANTASTIC rating. The glitches on the Nightmare route are a truly unfortunate element that could have torpedoed this game’s story-telling efforts, but the strangeness of their unreliable presence and the fact they impact only that route due to Switch 2 compatibility issues that may eventually get ironed out is hardly enough to weigh down a game with over 20 distinct paths the narrative can take. It’s hard not to commend each person for their part in realizing this incredibly effective visual novel, Brandon Boone’s music and even Phil Michalski’s sound direction proving to be just as important in setting the tone of the scene or continuing the game’s unrelenting commitment to making its horror truly effective. Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut does not shy away from showing gore or adding appropriate sound effects to it, it able to be remarkably grounded with how awful it can look rather than indulgent or cartoonish. The artistic skill of Abby Howard definitely shines when she deliberately includes the kind of details that shows simplification elsewhere is an intentional touch, the art style not softening the concepts or sights meant to be disturbing.  Tony Howard-Arias adding the descriptions over top it all with Jonatham Sims and Nichole Goodnight adding their vocal touches means it can even avoid the issues with its minimal animation and first-person perspective not portraying things in full motion, the game able to sell the macabre with pinpoint precision rather than dragging it out needlessly. That all this excellent skill with realizing horror was then layered over a story that can be so emotional and sweet at times gives new purpose to these dark depths you descend in, the player almost always able to offer a hand to grasp or a dagger through the heart and seeing the emotional impact of such considerations realized in either frightening or beautiful detail. You are molding this story as well, and even though its the talents of the creative team that can take it to such wonderful heights and unexpected terrors, this deadly dance you’re trapped in will always go the direction you take it either out of genuine emotion or intellectual curiosity.

 

I’ve restrained myself from giving more solid details on which each route can entail, only simple descriptors that don’t even make what might occur that clear for my favorite routes like the Thorn. Discovering the ways the story can unfold, the terrible twisted forms the Princess will assume, and trying to connect it back to that idea this is a relationship deeper than the deadly encounter the Narrator desires it to be is what makes uncovering each new route fascinating and rewarding. Even once you’ve seen most of them it can still be surprising how the artistic talents come together as the team concocts a brand new way to perceive things. The mix of unabashed terror it is meant to inspire on top of a story with softer personal moments required just as much of an expert touch, and while maybe here or there it might overuse the bickering perspectives, Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut is able to evoke extreme emotion and yet delicately walk you through its deeper meanings into something more fulfilling than if it was a horror game or love story alone.