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Princess&Blade [Archive: July 10th 2021] (3/5★)

Table of Contents



Princess&Blade is lewd third-person action-RPG about a princess and a talking blade on a quest to reclaim her land from time-traveling orcs!


Adult Content?
(F) nudity.

Censorship?
No. Woot! Woot!

Hours of Gameplay?
Three hours (est.)

Patch Available?
No, not necessary.


Gameplay: overview (2/5★)


Hack and slash orcs and take advantage of outfits to modify your stats! Orcs populate every level, barriers between you and the “exit”. In some cases, you’ll need to complete objectives (such as defeating “chieftains”). Dropped by orcs (and hidden throughout levels) are “crystals”, which are used to purchase randomized “clothes”. Clothes alter your four core stats; “comfort”, which affects how quickly you recover from dodges and attacks; “sexuality”, which affects your damage output; “defence [sic]” which affects how much damage you receive; and “warmth”, which affects your resistance to the “cold”. If you’re cold, your comfort and movement speed will be slashed. If you take care not to be seen, you may conduct “assassinations”. Depending on your “sexuality”, assassinations may be the only way for you to deal meaningful damage. If you’re caught in a sticky situation, you may discard your clothes (as part of a “magic spell”) to acquire temporary invulnerability — however, your clothes will be lost forever, and total-nakedness is a surefire way to tank your every stat (barring “sexuality”). Going nude is a great way to enhance your damage, but you’ll wind up a slow glass cannon.



Wombat Rambles


Take care to avoid all bodies of water — YOU CAN’T SWIM.

Turns out, water kills you (and deaths reset your progress) — fuck you XP Liu.

Do not install this game on an HDD — I learned the hard way.

Princess&Blade must be installed on a SSD! I had to wait four to six minutes on every load screen. When I moved the installation to my main drive (a SSD), the load times were reduced to a minute or two.



Sexual Content: overview (3/5★)


There is no sexual content, but there’s gratuitous nudity and revealing outfits! Many outfits are pantyless, and they’re all physics enabled — if you watch carefully, you’ll no doubt catch some “motivational views”! By using your “magic”, you may completely strip to gain temporary invulnerability and enhanced damage (but you’ll lose your clothes forever!) There’s a “photo mode” that allows you to cycle through poses and hide the UI. Unfortunately, the animations are rather spotty, and they’re all pretty situational (such as leaning into a wall). Princess&Blade would benefit from some sort of character or clothes customization. I wanna play as a gothy loli!




Story: overview (4/5★)


Years ago, “a huge gate of time and space appeared”. From this gate, “countless orcs poured out”, spreading throughout the land and slaughtering everybody. Once a “kind and beautiful” group, the Shya people were forced into a “hidden valley”. It was only a matter of time before the orcs found what remained of them — but their fate is not sealed.

“crying and waiting for death, a bright light [cut] through the night sky and [fell] into the village.”

This “bright light” was a blade — a talking blade. It rejected all but “Princess Lina, the daughter of Shya patriarch”. Regarding himself as “the most powerful sword in the world”, he offers his services (as long as she stays “sexy” and keeps him “hard”!)

United with the mysterious, shining blade (and a rockin’ pair), Lina has the tools to save the world!



Sound: overview (2/5★)


The introduction overstayed its welcome. I don’t understand Chinese, but the narrator broke my immersion several times. The enemies make inappropriate sounds — I haven’t heard stupider “orcs”. Otherwise, the music and environment offered acceptable audio.



Visuals: overview (3/5★)


The titlescreen is super thematic! From “Config”, you may adjust a variety of display and graphical preferences. The in-engine, rendered background showcases your chosen graphical preferences. Interestingly, there doesn’t appear to be any way to adjust audio — there should at least be a way to toggle music. Graphically, Princess&Blade resembles a high-budget title. I wouldn’t go so far to say “triple ‘A'”, but they’re pretty good. I saw a lot of bugged animations (such as enemies sliding up stairs and weird physics) and poor texture work (it’s pretty clear where they start and end). I found the user-interface and excessive visual effects to be amateurish.




Verdict: needs more work (3/5★)


Wait for updates. I wanted to beat Princess&Blade, but this game is so boring! Combat is almost strictly “attack-attack-attack and dodge”. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the game is combat. There’s a few different enemies, but their attack patterns only serve to stall for playtime; you may need to pause between blocks, or chase after ranged enemies. Unlocking new clothes is a total drag. You have to defeat around twenty foes for each outfit, and using “magic” destroys them. Considering the grind behind every set of clothes, their destruction is confounding. It’d be interesting if clothes could be acquired during missions, thereby encouraging a shifting playstyle mid-game. As it turns out, you’re better off not wearing any clothes. They usually decrease your damage, making combat even less fun. I hated fighting orcs, and anything that made fights take longer was unacceptable. Princess&Blade is no fun, and I can’t handle it anymore. This game has a novel story and interesting mechanics, but it needs some work before it’ll be worth playing.



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