The underdog of the JRPG proves his worth on PSP
Perennial favourites Mario and Sonic have managed to weather the ever-thinning herd of fuzzy corporate mascots, the former because of continued bouts of brilliance and the latter through stubbornness, but even 90s heroes Crash and Spyro are the footnotes of recent years. The world is jaded, and the cheerful and vacant anthropomorph is out. Gamers want grit; they want brooding anti-heroes; mostly, they want misdirected violence and a bandicoot-shaped punching bag to throw it at.
Nippon Ichi have
struck solid gold with their mascot design. Introduced in the Disgaia series, the Prinnies are a race of stitched-up, peg-legged penguins with the ever-uncertain demeanour of a race that has an odds-on chance of exploding every time they sneeze, and sport the kind of cuddly physique that makes their tragic deformities oh so hilarious. Their facial expressions waver between sweat-dripping fear and the vacant stare of the soon-to-be-deceased, and their lot in life is to be mown down by the indistinguishable thousands for the most inane reasons. Truly, they are the mascots of the twenty-first century, simple and gaudy enough for the kiddies with a veneer of hopeless dispensability for the adults, who have long since realised what an asshole Crash is and want to force his vacuous, shit-eating grin into a meat grinder.
The result is a game that balances black humour and genuinely colourful charm and does so beautifully. Nippon Ichi weave an epic tale of a Demon Lord of the Underworld who has mislaid her pudding; in no way petty or malicious, she sends an army of one thousand Prinnies on a mass-suicide mission through the Underworld to make her another one, acknowledging the fruits of their sword-slashing, Prinny-combusting labour with no encouragement or praise whatsoever. The Prinnies hack their way through each level with such grace and charm that you can forgive its faults just to see their adorable faces scrunched up in determination, usually just before their explosive demise. By mid-way you find yourself chanting along as they yell their lines with wholly unwarranted optimism, their personality so infectious and overblown that it takes the sting out of the many, many deaths you will suffer along the way, while the music plays itself across your brain long after you turn off the PSP. For sheer personality, Prinny has no trouble reeling you in.
Have Nippon Ichi crafted a genre-defining masterpiece? No, but for a company whose expertise lies in thoughtful, turn-based RPGs to dive straight into a frantic action-platformer with apparent ease is more than enough reason to clamour for a sequel. The ridiculous plot is echoed in a fantastically morbid lives system in which 1-UPs are non-existent and you have an army of one thousand to complete the entire game with. The Prinnies run and jump with the X button, while attacks are dispensed as fast as you can mash the Square button; a smattering of vehicles and explosives smear on an extra layer of gameplay to top things off. The Prinnies have a basic ground slash and an aerial attack that hurls energy beams from their swords, which explode in a flash of blue energy on contact. As the ground attack extends roughly three pixels in front of you, the aerial attack will be your weapon of choice; that means jumping, which is at the heart of the Marmite-wide discrepancies in review scores for this game. Although they are armed with a double jump, the Prinnies can't change direction once they are airborne, and how well you take to that particular quirk of precision will define exactly how ball-gnashingly aggravating you find the game; sadly, that isn't the only difficulty to overcome.
Prinny starts off promis
ingly with each level graded in difficulty. It is only once you get a level or two in that you discover that the difficulty is notching itself up across every single area, and you suddenly find yourself wondering if you should go from the top of the list and watch the difficulty curve soar or clear the later levels first and take a few hard knocks at the beginning as you try to adjust. Whichever you choose, you soon find another set of levels thrown on to the pile that far outstrip the others in frothing, console-throwing madness, and it culminates in a boss rush capped by a villain who is immune to your most useful technique, has jaw-dropping amounts of health and only allows three minutes in which to defeat him. We all love a challenge, but not when the reward is Carpal Tunnel.
Whether or not Prinny is worth the asking price for a new game depends ultimately on your tolerance for maddening hikes in difficulty and a flagrant disregard for physics, but it is most definitely worth playing in the first place. The characters, along with the entire premise, are overblown to the point of idiocy, but always with a knowing overtone. For memorable charm Prinny has to rank as one of the best experiences on PSP, and while it is clear that Nippon Ichi still have things to learn about anything that doesn't involve isometric grids, they attacked this project with such enthusiasm that it would be a shame if they weren't given the chance to try again. For that reason Prinny is worth at least some of your time, even if you don't last the whole distance.
Verdict
It lays down a challenge that many won't see the end of, but Prinny is so full of charm and enthusiasm that it is worth a piece of your time, however much or little that may be.
Perennial favourites Mario and Sonic have managed to weather the ever-thinning herd of fuzzy corporate mascots, the former because of continued bouts of brilliance and the latter through stubbornness, but even 90s heroes Crash and Spyro are the footnotes of recent years. The world is jaded, and the cheerful and vacant anthropomorph is out. Gamers want grit; they want brooding anti-heroes; mostly, they want misdirected violence and a bandicoot-shaped punching bag to throw it at.
Nippon Ichi have
struck solid gold with their mascot design. Introduced in the Disgaia series, the Prinnies are a race of stitched-up, peg-legged penguins with the ever-uncertain demeanour of a race that has an odds-on chance of exploding every time they sneeze, and sport the kind of cuddly physique that makes their tragic deformities oh so hilarious. Their facial expressions waver between sweat-dripping fear and the vacant stare of the soon-to-be-deceased, and their lot in life is to be mown down by the indistinguishable thousands for the most inane reasons. Truly, they are the mascots of the twenty-first century, simple and gaudy enough for the kiddies with a veneer of hopeless dispensability for the adults, who have long since realised what an asshole Crash is and want to force his vacuous, shit-eating grin into a meat grinder.The result is a game that balances black humour and genuinely colourful charm and does so beautifully. Nippon Ichi weave an epic tale of a Demon Lord of the Underworld who has mislaid her pudding; in no way petty or malicious, she sends an army of one thousand Prinnies on a mass-suicide mission through the Underworld to make her another one, acknowledging the fruits of their sword-slashing, Prinny-combusting labour with no encouragement or praise whatsoever. The Prinnies hack their way through each level with such grace and charm that you can forgive its faults just to see their adorable faces scrunched up in determination, usually just before their explosive demise. By mid-way you find yourself chanting along as they yell their lines with wholly unwarranted optimism, their personality so infectious and overblown that it takes the sting out of the many, many deaths you will suffer along the way, while the music plays itself across your brain long after you turn off the PSP. For sheer personality, Prinny has no trouble reeling you in.
Have Nippon Ichi crafted a genre-defining masterpiece? No, but for a company whose expertise lies in thoughtful, turn-based RPGs to dive straight into a frantic action-platformer with apparent ease is more than enough reason to clamour for a sequel. The ridiculous plot is echoed in a fantastically morbid lives system in which 1-UPs are non-existent and you have an army of one thousand to complete the entire game with. The Prinnies run and jump with the X button, while attacks are dispensed as fast as you can mash the Square button; a smattering of vehicles and explosives smear on an extra layer of gameplay to top things off. The Prinnies have a basic ground slash and an aerial attack that hurls energy beams from their swords, which explode in a flash of blue energy on contact. As the ground attack extends roughly three pixels in front of you, the aerial attack will be your weapon of choice; that means jumping, which is at the heart of the Marmite-wide discrepancies in review scores for this game. Although they are armed with a double jump, the Prinnies can't change direction once they are airborne, and how well you take to that particular quirk of precision will define exactly how ball-gnashingly aggravating you find the game; sadly, that isn't the only difficulty to overcome.
Prinny starts off promis
ingly with each level graded in difficulty. It is only once you get a level or two in that you discover that the difficulty is notching itself up across every single area, and you suddenly find yourself wondering if you should go from the top of the list and watch the difficulty curve soar or clear the later levels first and take a few hard knocks at the beginning as you try to adjust. Whichever you choose, you soon find another set of levels thrown on to the pile that far outstrip the others in frothing, console-throwing madness, and it culminates in a boss rush capped by a villain who is immune to your most useful technique, has jaw-dropping amounts of health and only allows three minutes in which to defeat him. We all love a challenge, but not when the reward is Carpal Tunnel.Whether or not Prinny is worth the asking price for a new game depends ultimately on your tolerance for maddening hikes in difficulty and a flagrant disregard for physics, but it is most definitely worth playing in the first place. The characters, along with the entire premise, are overblown to the point of idiocy, but always with a knowing overtone. For memorable charm Prinny has to rank as one of the best experiences on PSP, and while it is clear that Nippon Ichi still have things to learn about anything that doesn't involve isometric grids, they attacked this project with such enthusiasm that it would be a shame if they weren't given the chance to try again. For that reason Prinny is worth at least some of your time, even if you don't last the whole distance.
Verdict
It lays down a challenge that many won't see the end of, but Prinny is so full of charm and enthusiasm that it is worth a piece of your time, however much or little that may be.
