Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £7.19
Where To Get It: Steam

Princess Maker is a funny old series. It popularised the life simulation and trainer genres in the west, and, for all that its basic formula has remained the same, it managed to create different characters, moods, and refinements throughout the series.

Even so, when I found Go! Go! Princess, I sat there for a while, just… Blinking. A board game with life-sim elements, containing the first four princesses to be of the series. Competitive princess making, if you will.

Naturally, I got some friends together to play it (after playing it hotseat and solo.) What we agreed on was that this… Definitely had its weirdnesses. Fun overall, but also with a fair bit of jank.

So yes, you are four princesses to be, and the king is setting a number of tasks, which will determine who has the right to join the Prince on the throne… And who gets any other one of the 36 endings (some of which are unique to the princesses.)

There’s, er, just one problem with that last bit. You’ll have a bastard of a time achieving the ending you want unless you’re specifically gunning for it, completely ignoring the mad rush to the quests which are… All around the damn map. There is an option to have a smaller map to work with, and quicker games than the full 8 years (96 turns), but even so, there’s a lot of running around, and, with having to move the full value on the die or dice, without going back on your path, some of the quest locations are painful to get to, being at the end of a path. So right off the bat, you have a sometimes painful quest system, which either results in a mad, unstructured rush to each quest location, or, in the case of everyone but a single player ignoring the quests in favour of their ending (itself a problem due to needing to learn the board, rather than just thinking “Ah, yes, this job would do this, perfect for a General’s necessary stats!”), one player going for one quest, and then the rest of the game a cavalcade of “Ahh, fuck it.”

It’s… A very odd design, where the incentive to faff around on the board is, once you’ve achieved a princess ending for the first time, much larger than winning, unless there’s conflict for a goal. Add in that behind the scenes is somewhat obfuscated, and you have further confusion. How does a high magic skill influence the magic roll in combat? Dunno. Is there any way to relieve stress beyond the random 500g doctor event or some specific churches on the map? Dunno. Do higher stats = higher rolls in general? Seems like, but dunno…

Aesthetically, the game is… Alright. It has the small text problem of earlier games, free mode in the map isn’t as helpful as “Original” mode, and while the icons tell you roughly what to expect, it takes practice to know how it benefits, but…

In the end, this is a weird one. I don’t really see it as appealing to lifesim fans, and similarly, it’s got enough board game annoyances and lack of incentive that I don’t really see it as appealing to them, either. It’s a hodgepodge which feels aimless, and, although we had fun, it was mostly because we were friends playing, not because the game was well designed.

The Mad Welshman wonders what else could be shoehorned into a game like this. Doom? System Shock? Alan Wake, maybe?

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £1.99
Where To Get It: Steam

When I went into this game, a divination game similar to… Well, Divination, in which you choose from a limited set of interpretations (of Tarot Cards, as Cartomante would imply) to “deal” with three people’s problems… I wasn’t expecting to try and solve a gay love triangle of man, their boyfriend, and their pupper (In the werewolf sense, who is also the boyfriend’s ex.)

Okay, okay, that’s a big spoiler, but, as with any short game, it’s kind of hard to avoid them, and… Well, there’s several ways that could go. Several cards. Thirty potential endings.

And it helps that it has an aesthetic. Bright, colourful, with an off kilter soundtrack, it feels wonderful and weird, and the three clients are quite the set of characters. A voiceless (?), masked figure with a heavy load. A tattooed man with a ghostly dog on his shoulder. And a bourgeois plantgirl who is utterly blind to the fact her nephew is having orgies in the flower shop she entrusted to him.

God, she really is a bitch, and I’m looking forward to finding the ending to her story where she gets hers. But I did get her to legalise sex work in one ending, so there’s that!

Anyway, yes, the writing is as colourful and oddly off kilter as the game’s visuals. Sometimes, you get hints of a very dark supernatural world. Other times, it’s a supernatural world where people just casually talk to the Nameless like it ain’t no thing, and others, it’s an ordinary world with ordinary (and sometimes dumb) problems.

In any case, if you want something weird, with a fair bit of replayability while being short in terms of individual sessions, and like short VNs, well, Cartomante is £2, its sessions are short, it shows when you’ve picked an interpretation , and one feature I’d really appreciate is tracking what you’ve got and where, but…Well, as mentioned, it’s £2, it’s fun, it’s got good writing, and what the hey, bring a notebook.

The Mad Welshman seeks advice from the cards on what to if he’s secretly 300 bwci bois in a sweater…

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £7.19 (Full bundle £11.34, soundtrack/artbook/wallpapers £6.99)
Where To Get It: Steam

I love me monstergirls. I love me women protags, because, even today, they’re a relative rarity. And I have recently developed a weakness for Gacha style gameplay, where the character drops are random, and upgrading them is the order of the day.

So, nominally, Monster MonPiece ticked all the boxes. But it does have some problems. Even if it’s not the ones you might be thinking of from the screenshot above. Although it is related. You see, weird sexualised minigames (along with other awkwardness about small lookin’ monsterfolk in bikinis), I am somewhat used to, having survived reviewing Senran Kagura (eeeeeeeesssh.) I’m not gonna say it isn’t weird, or a turnoff, because both can easily apply. But that speaks for itself. No, what isn’t seen here is that, despite this levelup with “touching/rubbing games” (ew) being a core mechanic, what’s gained is often unclear, while what’s lost is very clear.

Wait, my big ol’ buff warrior type lost attack? What did it get back? Where can I find what the hell it got back? Why would I want my main gal Fia to suddenly become an unmoving character, rather than raising hell? (Okay, that one, at least, makes a vague sort of sense… But others suddenly gain that property, while becoming, for want of a better word, crap.)

Anyway, yes… Basic idea. So, some monstergirls have been tamed, becoming friends with humanity, while others are still Lost in their urges (and so have some humans.) Cue our protag, who, at first, is a bit of a wet blanket, but her resolve hardens when her friend is made Lost by the villainess, and cue a shounen-like battle to collect the big magic things wot might be used to end the world but were previously benign. And, gameplay wise, it’s a mix of a card game and a tower attack/defense, with three lanes of monsterfolk being placed in your area, moving forward with each turn, whacking each other with sticks/bows, using special abilities… It’s pretty tactical, actually… And, the aforementioned gacha. After each fight, or when you pay the in-game currency, you get card packs, or individual cards, from a region based deck. Level ’em up via… Sigh… The rubbing minigame, plonk ’em down, rinse, repeat.

And it’s that rinse/repeat that’s palled on me. It takes a fair few battles to get to the next part of the story, and… They’re a bit nondescript. Little things change, new monstergirls slowly get introduced, but… The story isn’t enough, and isn’t common enough, to make this not feel like a bit of a grind.

Accessibility wise, the rubbing minigames are the worst aspect of things. Tap repeatedly. Waggle the mouse repeatedly… It’s hell on even my hardened wrists and fingers, and I can’t think how bad it would be for people who can’t use the mouse like that. And, aesthetically, it’s… Actually alright. The weirdness aside, the art is good, the music is alright…

But that doesn’t save it from feeling kind of eh. So, this isn’t really a recommendation or “Nah”, it’s just… Eh, I guess if the screenshots appeal, if the idea appeals, and if what you see on LP vids or the like appeals, then… Yeah? But it’s certainly a flawed title, regardless.

The Mad Welshman would like to catch all the monstergirls, but twitter keeps stealing his stash. Which is hella rude.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £29.99 (Arbook £3.99)
Where To Get It: Steam

Ever since I heard Disgaea 4+ Complete was coming to the PC, I’d gotten curious about the series. So I gave 1 a go… 2 a go… And, recently, 5. And it’s not hard to see how the series has evolved.

So, a refresher, even though we’ve reviewed another Disgaea game this month: Disgaea is an SRPG fantasy series, in which Demon Lords (with one exception in the series) face some sort of tribulation, having to rise through the ranks of their kind by beating the shit out of others, in small battles comprising chapters in the story. And Disgaea 5 is perhaps the darkest one, as the antagonist is a Demon Lord who enslaves and conquers other netherworlds, Void Dark. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have silly moments, it certainly has those, and in spades… But it also has, for example, a demon world where it’s revealed someone in a royal family was held hostage, the people were sent off to fight as disposable soldiers, and then… The royal family was slain and resurrected as zombies.

I can’t wait to murderise the demon lord responsible for that, to be quite honest.

In any case, as mentioned, the evolution is interesting. Fusions? Gone, replaced by a “Mon-Toss”, aka “Monster can throw you, even if they can’t lift you.” When you hire, it doesn’t cost Mana, but HL, and characters… Can be levelled up to the highest named character level. Mana, meanwhile, goes on Skills, the Senate, and later, the Chara World, which… Well, that one’s not great in retrospect, but it is a fun little game, even if you probably want to focus on skills in your first loop. And then there are quests, which allow you to get neat stuff, from skill scrolls, to new character types (at the time of writing, I’m working toward Sage. And got her before I finished this paragraph.) There are other changes, but those are the biggies.

Aesthetically, it keeps the cel shaded/hi-def spritework of its predecessor, with a great soundtrack (the one you’ll hear the most is the bittersweet base theme, vocals and all), and some solid voice and sound work. Accessibility wise, it’s okay… Turn based stuff generally is, and it certainly tries to have map design that doesn’t obscure shit needlessly, but, sad to say, this remains a problem with the series.

But, except for the changes, Disgaea 5 remains what the rest of the series is: A solid strategy RPG, where I’ve never felt pressured into worrying about whether my units fall or not (except in terms of “Damn, I need them to do damage”), where I don’t feel bad about the grind (even the grinding of the Item World gives you sweet stuff, especially on or around your level), and where the stories are this interesting mix of silly and dark that I quite enjoy. Although the mileage varies on individual Disgaea games, I do recommend them as a whole for dipping your toes into SRPGs, and for the devoted SRPG fan who wants really big numbers (over time, anyway.)

The Mad Welshman is not normally a fan of pretty numbers. But even he has to admit, SRPG Big Numbers are a good feeling.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £5.19
Where To Get It: Steam

Sooner or later, everything falls to ruin. Everything returns to nature. And Cloud Gardens, as much an experience as a puzzle game, is all about that. All about making it happen. And, in its sandbox mode, all about making something that will look all the more… Bleakly beautiful, once it’s been overgrown, nature triumphing over the works of man.

Yes, that’s a very poetic way of putting things. It’s that kind of game, even though there’s not a single word spoken. Like how a cactus in a corner, with bricks around it, and the fact that candles were my items for the majority of it… Led to a sort of shrine. It’s meditative. It’s quiet. And the only sounds are the ambient music, the light thuds as you place items near your plants (in order to make them grow), the rustle of growth, and the gentle, echoing drips as you replenish water from harvesting seeds, to make new plants.

This game isn’t perfect. It tutorialises well, but some of its areas are tricky as hell (especially the overpass signs early on), and it’s sometimes hard to see elements, leading to confusion as to why you aren’t either losing because you haven’t overgrown the world enough, or being given more stuff.

But overall… Cloud Gardens is an interesting puzzle experience, with a good aesthetic to it, and simple, yet gripping play. Although the theme might make some folks depressed.

The party’s over, it’s time to call it a day…

The Mad Welshman isn’t sure whether to call this calming, or depressing. Probably both.

Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews by admin

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