Ah, Japan. The land where the virtual men all look like women, the virtual women wear very little and everyone carries virtual weapons that are about ten times the size they should be. Take a look at the happy and equally weird characters in the screens below, and it should come as no surprise that Code of Princess originated in the land of the Rising Sun, with the titular Princess having stepped out to fight monsters in some rather scanty underwear, whilst trying not to topple over forwards by using her huge sword as a counterbalance ("Just look how they sway in perfect docile synchronisation"). Yes, she looks ridiculous, but she knows it - because Code of Princess is a game that knows how to laugh at itself.
Nuns! Nuns! Reverse! Reverse!
In the land of Code of Princess, things are split into two worlds - the world of man, and that of monster. Existing separately for centuries, each went about their business without a care, until some centuries later, the monsters mysteriously rose up against man, infesting their cities and killing anyone who stood in their way. When the kingdom of Deluxia is overrun, Princess Solange Blanchefleur de Lux flees to keep the city's sacred sword, the DeLux Calibur safe - something the Distron reinforcements don't seem too pleased about, when they arrive to rid the land of monsters. With the sword in tow, Solange sets off to find the source of the monster attacks, joining up with a whole cast of colourful characters along the way.
At it's heart, Code of Princess is a hack and slash game - each bite-sized 'quest' is a single level, in which your only objective is to clear the area of enemies, gaining gold, new items and experience as you go. Get enough experience points, and your character gains a level, and you can assign an arbitrary number of points to net you more health, let you deal more damage or move faster. Combat is pretty straight forward, with the A button dealing stronger, slower attacks, whilst B hands out weaker but speedier blows and the X button sends your character into 'Burst' mode, a limited time frame in which all your attacks deal double damage and stun any surrounding bad guys. The action itself takes place on three 'planes' and you can leap between the background and foreground by holding down either the L or R buttons and pressing up or down - a technique which comes in handy on the later levels as it lets you leap out the way of enemy attacks.
To help break up the action a bit, each level has a bit of a pre-amble to the action to set the scene a bit - and this is where Code of Princess really shines. While the story isn't especially deep or thought-provoking, the game never takes itself too seriously and is packed full of well-written and funny characters - whether it's the guitar-wielding jester elf bard/sage-in-training Allegro (who could "farm xp all day and still be useless"), the feline front of the Empurrium, Marcopolis Neko, to the mini pink fairy-like commander Alchemia who strolls around with her fake Onix (a huge snake-like Pokemon made up of boulders). There's also a knight duo called Emble and Semble who seem to have a kind of Monty Python quality to them, as well as two competing commanders who constantly try to out do each other in their search for the sacred sword.
Solange means business
Beginning with the naïve scantily-clad blonde Solange, you'll unlock three more characters to play as during the course of your adventure - the tomboy thief Ali; a pink-pigtailed Necromancer assembled out of corpse parts known as Lady Zozo (who's parts frequently fall off); as well as the aforementioned sage-to-be, Allegro. After a slightly different intro sequence which gives a bit more insight into Solange's companions, you'll mostly be playing through the same quest stages you've already completed though, levelling up each character and unlocking more equipment in much the same way. Each character has their own moves and special abilities though, so it's not necessarily as much of a drag as it sounds.
As you play through the game, the quests get progressively harder, with their ratings increasing steadily from one to five stars - and for each quest you complete in the main mode, you unlock bonus side quests which sadly lack the conversations between, although they do come in handy for strengthening up your characters, as you earn experience points, new equipment and money all the same. You also have twice as many characters to choose from, including a short-tempered Nun, an animal-loving beast of a man and a Samurai in love with Zozo.
However, perhaps the only downside is that Code of Princess doesn't come cheap, weighing in at a whopping £24.99 for download on the eShop. That may well be substantially more than your average downloadable game, but it's worth bearing in mind that Code of Princess was a full cartridge-based game over in America and Japan and was released over here as a download, perhaps an issue of cost, or perhaps because publisher Atlus don't have any European offices. What we do know though, is that Code of Princess is around half the price of Nintendo's own comparable retail downloads and just as substantial.
"You can farm XP all day and still be useless to us" (Ali on Allegro)
Thanks to it's amazing dialogue, funny cast of characters and easy to pick up combat, Code of Princess is how hack and slash games should be done - if you can afford the entry fee, we'd say it's definitely worth a look. With over thirty quests in the main story, plus almost seventy bonus ones to unlock - and four (sometimes eight) playable characters to play through as - Code of Princess should keep you going for a while, especially if you have a friend with a copy of the game as there's also a hundred co-operative quests to work your way through too.
Format Reviewed: Nintendo 3DS
