Princess Battles 2013 Initial Release
by Nekomura Games


 

This was the official website for the dating sim genre, Princess Battles which was initially released in 2013. It is a visual novel video game for Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux, developed and published by Nekomura Games.
Content is from the site's archived 2013 pages as well as from other outside sources.

Princess Battles
Length: Short (2 - 10 hours)
Developer:  Nekomura Games

If you are interested in buying the Princess Battles go to https://store.steampowered.com/

Story and Characters

Princess battles is a visual novel with raising sim themed card battles, a female protagonist and four romanceable male characters. The player starts off as a rebellious princess who refuses to marry Edmond, the prince of a neighboring kingdom. In addition to this, her place on the throne is threatened by a seemingly perfect rival: Olivia. In order to show the people of her kingdom that she is more worthy for the throne, the player must learn to play the game 'prima' and eventually defeat Olivia in the Prima tournament. Throughout the game the player is able to interact with many different characters which effect the game's ending. Players build up stats by doing card battles with other girls. The game is full of rivals, each with her own unique style and each gives you a unique new outfit when you win.

Unwilling to be replaced in her position as a minor kingdom’s princess by a popular and semi-perfect rival, Lillian has to fight other ladies in raising sim themed card battles.
“Work”, “School” and “Item” cards all raise stats and the goal is to raise all the stats to maximum before the opponent does.
Will she manage to defend her position as the kingdom's princess and prove to the world she's the best girl for the job?

Your choices (as well as your card battling skills) influence the outcome and lead to one out of several possible endings.

New cards are unlocked gradually. After the main story is completed, freeplay mode unlocks and you can customize your deck and battle any opponent you unlocked so far.

 

System

  • Release Date: spring 2013 (original version).
    *Steam version coming soon.
  • Platform: Windows PC
  • Genre: visual novel / raising sim themed card battles
  • Player: 1
  • Developer: Nekomura Games Pte. Ltd.
  • Publisher: Nekomura Games Limited

Princess Battles

Raise your stats through item, work, school and special cards, or deal some damage with attack cards!

  • Unique gameplay: a combination of visual novel story and raising sim themed card battles.
  • High replayability: not only does the main story feature multiple endings, you can also customize your deck and select your opponents in freeplay mode!
  • Customization: unlock seven different outfits for your character to wear.
  • Romance: win the hearts of romanceable gentlemen.

Hints

General hints that don't contain spoilers:

  • If you want to meet the guys, go everywhere on the map.
  • Different characters prefer different locations.
  • Sometimes, other characters will tell you something about a love interest.

 

Princess Battles - map

Princess Battles - dressup system

Princess Battles - battle

Princess Battles - title screen

Princess Battles - settings

 

Princess Battles Looks to Shake Up the Dating Sim Genre with Card Play

By Bradly Halestorm on September 4, 2013 | https://www.hardcoregamer.com/

Nekomura Games’ latest title in the dating sim genre, Princess Battles, is looking to shake up the tried and true otome formula. It’s doing this by combining elements of a traditional dating sim/visual novel with those of a collectible card game. That sounds a little ridiculous, right? Well, according to Nekomura it’s a more natural fit than we might immediately suspect. By adjoining these two types of games, Princess Battles looks to emphasize mainstream strategy and a deep narrative.

Princess Battles stars heroine Princess Lillian as she sets out to prove her worth for the throne by mastering a card game called Prima. In the midst of conquering Prima, Lillian must also court an appropriate love interest. Unfortunately for the young princess, her rival, Olivia, is something of a local hero whom the King and Queen are considering to replace Lillian as their successor. In order to prevent this, our fair maiden must best her brash opponent at the renown Prima tournament.

The card game aspect of Princess Battles is a large focus of the title, with gameplay that is said to be easy enough for anyone to figure out, combining challenge and fun for an accessible strategy experience. Players are tasked with keeping track of three stats primarily: intelligence, charm, and refinement. By using these, folks have to reach max stats before their foe does in order to come out on top. Stats are essentially affected by cards, which require money or energy to employ, and are subsequently categorized into items, lessons, work, attacks and defenses. Princess Battles also includes a free play mode as well in which the player can freely select opponents, cards and outfits to practice their dueling skills.

But Princess Battles isn’t all about that sweet, sweet card action; it’s equally about the dating sim aspect. The ending and suitor with whom Lillian ends up ultimately depends on which answers to questions in the dialogue are chosen, what locations the player decides to visit at certain times and also her stats.

By taking this approach of strategy and dating sim, Princess Battles is looking to mix up the genre a bit. Will the combo pay off? That’s what we’re most interested in knowing. Be sure to check out the video below for a peek yourself.

Princess Battles is available now for PC for the price tag of $20

 

Reviews

Nekomura Games is a brand I’ve heard a lot about in passing, but have yet to actually play one of their titles. That changed when I downloaded a copy of what has to be the most manically fun I’ve had playing an EVN this year: Princess Battles.
VNs Now!

 

One of the boring elements of dating sim games is leveling up your stats by doing lots of work and buying items. Especially when the way that is done is by clicking on a “work” or “item” button and not actually doing anything. In Princess Battles, you still have to build all this up, but you do it in a fun way that’s entertaining and challenging. It’s a very unique way to still include required sim dating elements but taking out the monotony of it.
GamerTell

Gamertell rated Princess Battles B+, stating: "If you like princess dating sim games (or really any dating sim games) but are tired of the same old button clicking stat building, then you should check out Princess Battles.

 

 

Princess Battles

By Meghan Sullivan Posted: ss Battles Posted on September 6, 2013 By anonl | https://weeaboo.nl/

Royal Beatdown

Conceptually, Princess Battles is something I should love. The premise sounds fun and I really like (trading) card games. Heck, I even kinda liked the dumb card game in Princess Waltz.

Story

Princess Lillian (nameable) is in a pickle. While she’s been playing the role of a typical spoiled brat princess, a commoner named Olivia has been winning the favor of the public. Unfortunately for Lillian, she lives in wacky zany monarchy land where the crown princess is at risk of being tossed aside in favor of a talented commoner. Olivia has been winning every frivolous competition she enters in (jewel crafting, fencing, etc) and now Lillian’s parents are planning to marry off their only daughter and take in Olivia as the new heir. With her future at stake, Lillian sets out to beat Olivia at anything she can find, and the upcoming Prima card game tournament seems like a good opportunity for Lillian to prove her worth.

Princess Battles - dressup system

The plot in Princess Battles is there to serve the gameplay. It frames the card battles and gives some extra flavor, but doesn’t get in the way of the main attraction — playing the card game. While the game technically has romance paths, they don’t significantly change the (linear) main plot. You just get a couple of extra scenes totaling maybe five minutes or so and a slightly modified ending.

Princess Battles - settings

The beginning of the game is dedicated to introducing the characters, but more importantly — learning the card game. After an initial set of tutorial matches, Lillian learns about an upcoming foreign Prima tournament. Supposedly, that’s what she has been training for, but I guess she had somehow forgotten all about it (didn’t make much sense to me). The matches in the tournament further introduce the rest of the card types and once you’ve finally learned all the rules over the course of the tournament, the game just ends. Are you fucking kidding me?! The entire thing is only 2-3 hours total and it ends after the tutorial… WTF.

Princess Battles - title screen

Aside from the somewhat contrived premise of a crown princess fearing to be replaced by a commoner, the plot stays mostly sane. Well, except for one point where it goes completely off the rails, going beyond even Yu-Gi-Oh levels of card game related ridiculousness. After one particularly heated card game during the tournament, Lillian is accused of cheating. Never mind that the card game was in a giant stadium with a bazillion people watching, including tournament officials. Never mind the accusation was made by a small child and only after the match was over and Lillian had already won. According to tournament rules, Lillian is considered to be guilty unless she can prove she didn’t cheat (which is impossible). Luckily for her, she’s allowed to card battle an evil spirit(?) to prove her innocence. WTF. Losing that match results in a special game over where for the rest of her life, Lillian is kept as a pet in a cage. I guess her kingdom is ok with that for some reason?

Gameplay

The goal of the card game is to raise your intelligence, charm and refinement stats to a predetermined limit (30/50/70/99) before your opponent raises theirs. To achieve this, you have a 5 card hand of which you can play one card each turn. The cards typically cost resources (energy/money) to play and increase some of your other stats/resources. The trick is that you run a small profit on each of these conversions, and repeatedly spending energy on money, then money on energy quickly gives you mountains of both.

Princess Battles - map

It’s not a very deep game, strategically. You’ll win most matches just by aiming to raise all your stats in a balanced way, while keeping your money/energy high enough to afford the highly profitable conversion cards. At one point I tried to intentionally lose a match, but selecting the leftmost card in my hand each turn almost won me the game anyway. There’s also very little interaction with your opponents and the cards they play just don’t matter. The worst they can do is steal a card (extremely rare) or attack your automatic 10 energy/turn regeneration.

Princess Battles - battle

Matches are quite long — they can easily last 40 turns of more. The best way of getting through a match in a reasonable amount of time is to just continuously hold the skip key. Otherwise you have to manually click the mouse between each turn which really drags down the pace, especially when you’re waiting 5-10 turns for a specific stat raiser near the end of the game.

After each battle in the story mode, you unlock a few more cards for your deck and get 5 points to permanently increase your starting stats. There doesn’t seem to be much of an incentive to raise your stats in an unbalanced way though, making it feel kind of pointless. Also, having one of your stats reach the goal value before your other stats actually really sucks. You can’t raise stats to above the goal value, meaning all stat boosts are wasted and stat decreases become extra painful. I guess you could heavily invest in one stat, then adapt your deck to focus on raising the two others, except… you’re not allowed modify your deck during the main game.

Princess Battles - dressup system

It’s such a baffling decision to make a trading card game, then leave out the trading and deck customization parts. While you do unlock new cards throughout the story, they’re just automatically added to your existing deck. It’s very annoying every time your hand is flooded with bad cards that you can’t take out of your deck. Free play mode at least lets you customize your deck, but you start with having to make an 80 card deck out of something like 83 cards. The main problem with free play mode is that your opponents are the same as in the story mode, only now you start with maxed out base stats and a slightly better deck. Story mode is already rather easy, but in free play mode everyone becomes a complete pushover. Unlocking more cards by winning (1 random card per victory) tips the balance even further towards no challenge whatsoever.

Princess Battles - battle

Isn’t the fun in most trading card games collecting more cards and improving your deck? Facing lots of different opponents with wildly varying strategies and decks is also fun, but Princess Battles doesn’t really have that either — the decks of various players are mostly interchangeable. It’s only a very small card pool (28 cards) especially compared to the minimum deck size (80) and the card game feels crippled because of it.

Presentation

I just remembered I hate custom mouse cursors, funny how rare those are. I don’t know what it is, but custom cursors in Ren’Py always seem to lag a bit. Something which I also hate is when new games released in 2013 are only 800×600. The low screen resolution actually causes some readability problems in the deck editor, making the cards virtually unreadable.

The sprites in Princess Battles are underwhelming for a commercial release. One (stiff) pose per character with very simplistic shading. Lillian gets a bunch of different outfits, but that doesn’t help the other characters emote or look decent. Backgrounds are pretty nice, with the occasional minor animation. Unfortunately, the more realistic look of the backgrounds doesn’t match the style of the sprites at all.

Princess Battles - title screen

Background music for some reason keeps disappearing for entire scenes at a time. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of reason to it — did they just forget to add music? The card battling theme is pretty catchy and didn’t get annoying even after having played several dozen games with it in the background. Princess Battles also has partial voice acting. Well, more like sound bytes to be honest. The few voice samples are overused to the point of ridiculousness, something which becomes painfully clear when skipping through the story scenes on repeated playthroughs.

The textbox is weirdly narrow, somewhat similar to the one in The Royal Trap. Only Princess Battles isn’t widescreen and doesn’t use side images, so there’s even less of a reason to annoy people with excessive line wrapping. The usual polished look of the GUI sometimes completely falls apart, for example at the game over screen.

I’ve already mentioned the excessive clicking required during card battling, but there’s a much more annoying flaw that you can’t simply work around. Whenever your mouse cursor starts hovering over a playable card in your hand, a small animation plays and an incredibly annoying sound plays. The sound is one thing, but there’s also a short but oh so noticeable fraction-of-a-second freeze every time you hover over a card. It’s shockingly annoying and I’m surprised that apparently no-one noticed it before the release of the game.

Princess Battles - settings

Conclusion

The concept certainly has potential, but the card battling mechanics are too simplistic to stay interesting for very long. The game ends after what’s basically the tutorial arc and 2-3 hours is painfully short for a €20 commercial title. While the simplistic story works fine for framing some card battles, this isn’t a game you play for its deep and engaging storyline. The otome parts are superficial and minor, basically amounting to a couple of extra scenes and nothing more.

 

 

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

MINIMUM:
OS: Windows XP
Processor: 1Ghz
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Graphics: DirectX or OpenGL compatible card
Storage: 121 MB available space

MINIMUM:
OS: OS X 10.6
Processor: 1Ghz
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Storage: 121 MB available space

MINIMUM:
Processor: 1Ghz
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Storage: 121 MB available space

 

 

Princess Battles - Review

Posted: Aug 15, 2015 | https://chudah.tumblr.com/

image

Princess Battles is a charming, quirky, totally enjoyable little card battle/visual novel hybrid that despite a silly story and simple game play stands as a shining example of how creativity and humor can make a smaller title more fun than flashier games in the genre.

Life as a princess isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Between unwanted marriage proposals and commoners aiming to dethrone you through popular opinion, it’s a tough life. What’s a princess to do when even her royal parents find her rival more praiseworthy than herself? Card battling, that’s what! The premise is preposterous, but that’s why I love it so much. Princess Battles knows exactly what it is and plays to its silliness with perfection. In this world, a lady’s parlor game is no laughing matter. Tournaments, black market card trading, demonic overlords, card battle schools, all ridiculous ideas that click together and work mostly because the story never takes itself too seriously.

I love Lillian. She’s a spoiled, lazy and entitled brat, but that is precisely what makes her so endearing. We’re given a caricature who acts more realistic than most other “perfect” protagonists. Even though she’s far from the ideal princess, through the challenges she faces in her rise to Prima champion, she grows and matures, but never entirely loses that impudent attitude. Oddly enough, her love interests make more sense for it. Perfection is boring, guys want a girl with character and spunk, and Lillian has it in spades.

Speaking of love interests, the boys are appealing, too, in their own ways, though we’re not given nearly as much time with them as I would have liked. Perhaps another scene or two of dialogue and a little more development of their characters would have fleshed out their stories a bit more. But I admit, outside of satisfying my own desire for experiencing the “feels” of romance, it probably wouldn’t have benefited the game much as it works so well simply because it’s not as deep or complicated as it could be. That goes for the game play as well.

The game consists of visiting various areas and selecting dialogue choices between characters to further the plot with card battles sprinkled in. The battle system itself is simple enough to enjoy casually, but allows for a bit of strategy to keep the player engaged. A race to max stats against your opponent, you play princess themed cards to either increase your stats or decrease your opponent’s, all while juggling your gold and energy. As with other card games, success often comes down to the luck of the draw which at times can be frustrating, but the battles are usually short enough to not feel like a total waste of time if you lose. My sole complaint with the system is a bug that does not allow your opponent’s attack cards to affect your stats. While this makes the game easier (although success is by no means guaranteed), it removes some of the strategy from play and makes Free Play mode less attractive. I certainly hope the bug is fixed as I’d love to build and play around with my own free play deck, but it’s only worth it if the card battles are working the way they should.

image

Which brings me to game length. Free Play mode would add several hours of game play if only the battle bug were fixed. The main game itself is rather short taking only about 3 hours to complete. There is plenty of replayability, however, with over two dozen achievements leading through most of the branching dialogue paths and in-game events. It took me a good 12 hours to make 27/28 with that last one eluding me, but I’ll get it yet!

Despite a few shortcomings, I enjoyed Princess Battles immensely. It’s not often I am this impressed by a title that looked much less adventurous and entertaining than it proved to be. The price may be daunting for some due to the short play time, but I feel I’ve gotten my money’s worth given how much I enjoyed what’s here. If you’re looking for silly fun with a dash of romance tossed in, pick up Princess Battles. On sale, off sale - it’s worth it either way. I know I’ll be supporting Nekomura Games in the future, especially if they continue to bring the same creativeness and humor to their other titles.

Buy it from: Steam

 

 


Princess-Battles.com