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Slay the Princess

I wanted to like this game really badly, and evidently so did a bunch of my friends since three of them offered to buy it for me. I only came into possession of it because a fourth skipped the asking phase.

Honestly? There are parts of the game I was really sweet on. The art is sublime, especially whenever things take a turn for the eldritch - or gorey. If you like seeing women get maimed as much as I do then a lot of the gore on display is artisanal. The artist clearly sketched some scenes with a reddened face. Though lowkey, the soundtrack is perfect. No notes.

It's just the rest of the game that drove me up the fucking wall.

Other reviews have said it in grander terms, but it really does feel like the writers sitting you down and explaining the concept of Chaos Theory to you. Each 'route' is about 10-15 minutes long, capping off with an Entity throwing concepts at you before going "oops time to reset!". Some of these routes are enjoyable on their own merits, I'm really fond of Thorn because it's my ideal enemies-to-lovers dynamic and also has minimal Narrator dialogue. Adversary is excellent too, in part because it's the only route where this game's dogshit sense of humor actually lands. Her, The Fury and The Grey are stunning too.

Unfortunately, each route without exception is kneecapped by a few things. There's this game's obsession with trying to have meaning, sure, but there's also the sense of humor. It's very, very obviously inspired by The Stanley Parable's narrator but it just doesn't land. A combination of the bad jokes, the terrible audio mixing and the flat voice acting meant that every other line made me groan. The Disco Elysium-esque voice cabinets were equally as miserable.

It, and the wider narrative, just feel very... Juvenile? Throughout the game's relatively brief runtime I got the feeling that the developers just played Nier Automata, Bioshock Infinite, The Stanley Parable and Death Stranding in a weekend. It very much reminds me of the fanfiction I would write when I was younger; Ingredients in a cauldron, but the water isn't hot enough for them to melt and blend together. Slay the Princess is much more obsessed with just 'being a game about Chaos Theory' to the point where it doesn't actually end up being a game about anything.

The ending to this game is cool on paper. The Shifting Mound tries to convince you to go along with her into infinity by pulling out the incarnations of The Princess you've met and throwing your actions back in your face. Except... This doesn't really work if you've went along with her, and indeed you essentially have no choice but to do so if you want the actual ending. It's the same if you've been wishy-washy or actively hostile, but in a game where events often account for your granular decisions it sticks out as being - to be mean, for a second - very half-assed.

I also really have to harp on about the voice acting for a second. I don't expect every game to be Final Fantasy 12, especially not a game made by like two people, but it's so bad it probably made me incredibly uncharitable towards the game. The Princess is uncomfortably flat most of the time, and when she tries to be domineering/seductive/teasing it comes across as someone practicing accents in a mirror. The Narrator and all of the Voices are either Hbomberguy impersonators or Gideon Emery impersonators depending on the route and it gets grating fast. That he often sounds as though he's trying to avoid waking up someone in the next room doesn't help.

Really, the two stars are for the gore. You can fuck that girl UP.