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Steal PrincessBy Marlon Esmeralda - 05-29-09 Print  EmailPuzzle and platforming once again go hand-in-hand as Atlus releases Steal Princess for the Nintendo DS. This time around you aren't solving a puzzle on the touch screen like in Henry Hatsworth, nor is this title in 2-D. Steal Princess is a 3-D platformer, in which the puzzling aspects are the levels themselves. The story of Steal Princess has you taking the role of a skilled female thief by the name of Anise. When trying to hit up a place for treasure, Anise runs into a bit of trouble and is washed away down a river stream. When she comes to, she is welcomed by a fairy and a King. After a bit of dialogue, Anise has been appointed the role of new Hero and is destined to help save the land, much to her displeasure. Her first duty is to find and save the kidnapped prince. While she is at it, Anise woudn't mind snagging up some treasure along the way. Thus this journey of thief-turned-hero begins. In Steal Princess, you progress forward by completing mini-levels. Every level will require you to find the key in order to unlock a door. The thing is, the key doesn't appear until certain conditions are met. It sounds pretty simple, but you are also being timed on how fast you complete this task. Based on how fast you complete the stage, you will be awarded a gold, silver, or bronze medal. To past these levels, you must endure many obstacles and enemies along your way. You start off each level with your trusty whip in hand. This whip serves many purposes and is a viable tool for you to get past these levels. The obstacles are your typical platforming elements; like spikes, moving platforms, and hitting switches. Various enemies are also in your way and you must pick up weapons found on the field in order to do them in. You must consider all of these thing as you aim towards to fulfilling the specified condition of each stage. These conditions consist of killing all enemies, killing a specific enemy, killing enemies in a specific order, or killing a specific amount of enemies. Once the condition has been met, the key will appear and you will then need to head to the lock in order to open the door. This is where the hard thinking comes in. If you want to achieve that gold medal rank, you will need to find the fastest path in order to complete the stage in as less amount of time as possible. Getting gold medals may not be a mandatory thing, but because it effects which ending you get, you may consider wanting to achieve the higher award. Getting higher ranks will also unlock some secret levels in the game. Killing off enemies and such may sound like a simple procedure, but deeper levels make it very difficult. In most cases, enemies can't be killed off so easily. Certain enemies will have certain elements and can only be killed by a weapon with that element(i.e. fire sword kills fire enemy). In order to find that weapon, you will need to kill off the other enemies. There are many other variables to consider when completing each stage. This is what makes Steal Princess so interesting, since you're decisions on who to kill first, where to go first, and other factors like that help draw this game away from just any ordinary platformer. There are quite a few issues though that prevent Steal Princess from being a pretty good game. One issue I was particularly upset with was the lack of a moving camera. The camera is fixed on one location and its sometimes hard to see something because of it. The controls also need some getting use to as well, they're not bad, but I feel it could have been much better. There is an option for touch controls, but I didn't particularly like it, so D pad and buttons are the preferred choice. Graphics and audio are pretty average as well. Nothing really standing out for this game. The graphics are alright for a DS game, but my main concern is towards the audio. The Japanese version of the game had full voice-overs, but in the US version Atlus decided to cut it all off. So no English dub is in, and the already made Japanese dub was taken out. An option to choose to have the Japanese audio on would of been a nice touch, especially for those who prefer it(which I'm sure many Atlus fans do). There is some mild voice work though in the form of small Japanese phrases, like "Yatta!" which means "I did it." There are many levels in Steal Princess, over 150 to be exact. So this game has quite a bit of content to last you for some time. The levels don't take too long to beat, with most levels taking less than two minutes to complete. That doesn't necessarily mean you can just breeze through this game though. There are quite an amount of levels that will really test you. These levels are very difficult and may drive you to the point of frustration. Probably not very hard, but getting a gold medal rank for those types of levels will certainly test your will. So you can try to go through all of Steal Princess in one sitting, but it would be best to enjoy the game in small bursts. Another point of replayability is the addition of a level editor, which allows players to create their own platform puzzlers. The level editor is pretty deep and creating your own levels is quick and easy. You can even send levels to other users via Wi-fi, after friend codes have been exchanged. Its too bad there is no online database available to download levels off of. Nonetheless, the level editor is a nice little feature for the game. If you've been wanting a 3D platformer for the Nintendo DS, then I wouldn't mind recommending Steal Princess. There are many levels to play through, some pretty easy and some fairly hard. The 150+ levels and the level editor help make Steal Princess a lengthy experience. There are quite a few things that could have been better, but nothing too much to ruin the game. Steal Princess isn't anything too groundbreaking, but it does what its meant to do pretty well. Ratings |
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