Penny-Punching Princess immediately distinguishes itself from just being an isometric brawler. Within the first battle, the player is presented with a calculator. Instead of punching your foe, you type in an amount to bribe them off. It’s a neat gimmick that becomes integral to both battles and the player’s progression.
The princess is in deep debt. In order to get back at those who swindled her family, she furrows her brow and travels from realm to realm. Her aim is to take down Dragon Lord, CEO of the Dragon Lord Company, by beating up his minions, stealing money and using it to pay off his henchmen.
Fisticuffs are the princess’ standard attack, but are more of a last resort. Each battle locks the you into claustrophobic arenas that quickly get so busy that it’s often hard to tell what’s going on. This is especially true when making use of a mechanic where spinning the right analog stick in front of a stunned foe causes them to spew out coins everywhere. Crowd management is key, as getting overwhelmed will quickly bounce the princess between foes as they wail on her.
Alone the princess is woefully under equipped to deal with the odds against her. Her stubby arms don’t reach far, even when her fists expand. Attacking enemies is usually dangerous as they can swipe right through her own flurry of punches. It’s reasonable to dodge a few foes at once. Though when it’s a mass of enemies, it’s impossible to decipher what’s happening and who is readying to strike.
Paying off your foes as much as possible is required. It eliminates a threat while also offering a special attack for the princess to use. It’s typically some sort of melee or ranged attack. With her tiny arms, almost anything is an improvement.
You can also bribe dungeon traps, which is typically more effective for dealing with groups. These are locked to their locations, so you have to make use of what’s within the arena. The devastating explosions, lightning strikes, cannon shots and more that these offer outweighs most of your standard enemies’ skills. That being said, they’re just as deadly to you. Running from a mob of enemies is easy enough in an empty room. In one filled with poison, rolling boulders and spikes, it becomes much harder.
The combat’s foundation isn’t particularly unique, with the likes of Lost Kingdoms and Folklore traveling a similar road in the past. However, Penny-Punching Princess creates an effective resource loop around this mechanic.
Each bribe-able enemy or trap has a different value they ask for. Only the money you’ve found in the dungeon can be used for this. Over spending can leave you vulnerable in the face of danger, so it’s tempting to save all your cash. Though in the grand scheme, investing in minions is also a good thing.
Gold is the core currency to help pay for upgrades. That being said, your town also requires residents. After an enemy or trap has helped you on the battlefield, it moves into your crumbling castle. You can then use them to build new armor and statues, which help your character’s stats. If anything, you need to be more mindful about when you can bribe.
The calculator has a cool down timer after each use. If you accidentally bribe the wrong thing or have a lot of enemies to deal with, then its time to run until it’s ready again. You can definitely try to stand your ground, though the odds are against the princess. She’s bowled over in no time.
I know I’m being rough on the main character here, but she’s not very effective at anything. It makes sense given that bribing is the focus. Still, she seems excessively limited in reach and power. When it’s difficult to evade due to the amount that’s happening on the screen, it felt like I had no options other than to get lucky. About halfway through the story, you finally get access to Isabella, who is the princess’ zombified aunt.
Her rotting limbs reach significantly farther and she has a different style of bribing system. She can essentially pay off minions five times in a row before having to wait for a cool down. This is incredibly important for quickly comboing traps in battles while spend less time running in circles. Because she has such extensive reach, she’s more effective at pushing enemies away while her bribe meter recharges.
Isabella has much more offensive options, yet she’s still fragile. She gets beat up just as bad when caught in a group. It’s a shame you don’t get the option to play her until much later, or that the princess herself wasn’t brought up to her standard. The princess does have the ability to spend money to buff and heal herself, though I rarely found this to be a useful trade-off.
Princess troubles aside, the other problem is that it shows you everything it has to offer early on. It’s all tile based with fairly simplistic designs. Even the diversity in traps and enemies are limited with re-colored as well as re-sized sprites. Each area offers no real variety in challenges, and visually aren’t impressive, creative or distinct. Towards the end, instead of introducing new areas, dungeons start being composed of environments from previously visited regions. So it becomes even more dull to look at.
Most of the style comes through the cutscenes at the beginning and end of each mission. Your butler stag beetle gets in arguments with minions from around the world. The writing is goofy and always looking to shove a joke in when it can. One of the most charming bits though is that each character has a little squirmy voice clip that triggers when they talk. If the player starts clicking through the dialog too quickly, everyone starts talking over each other. It amplifies the chaotic nature of the dialog, as characters are constantly butting into conversations with their own quips.
Penny-Punching Princess is a bit one note. It’s a cute idea and it’s nice to see every bit of spending ultimately come back to the player in some way. However, the moment to moment gameplay is too repetitive to excel.
(Box Art and Header Source: Amazon)
