Battle Princess of Arcadias – PlayStation3

Battle Princess of Arcadias wasn’t announced with much fanfare, but I sat up and took notice anyway. It immediately reminded me of games like Odin Sphere and GrimGrimoire, and since I’m a huge Vanillaware fan, I knew I had to play it. I can’t say that Battle Princess can go toe to toe with Odin Sphere, but its bubbly mix of beat ‘em up, role-playing, and strategy kept me smiling the whole time I played it.

The first thing I noticed about Battle Princess is its bright and beautiful world, which sets it apart from the more common drab, post-apocalyptic look of so many other games about a world in need of a savior. It’s clear that developer Apollosoft took its art direction cues from Vanillaware (forests and mountains look like they’re copied directly from Odin Sphere), and Battle Princess does a good job capturing the vibrant color palette. Unfortunately, it also looks like an old Flash game, based on the at times flat and choppy quality of the animation. I was relieved to find that choppiness doesn’t affect the gameplay in any way, since much of Battle Princess’ fun lies in the fast-paced combat.

Three different combat modes are available: regular combat, skirmishes, and sieges. Combat is by far the easiest and most enjoyable mode for me – I loved cutting down enemies using the red-haired protagonist Plume and her Princess Corp. (a group of nine playable companions that accompany the battle princess wherever she goes). Well mapped-out and responsive controls make it smooth and easy to set up 100-hit combos of light, strong, and special attacks, which kept the action zipping along. I also like being able to quickly swap out characters in combat by tapping the R1 button, letting me take advantage of each character’s special weapon type (sword, spear, gun, etc.) and skill set, which proved to be useful against the myriad different enemies that appeared on the battlefield. Best of all, when things got hairy I could use built-up skill points to unleash a massive group attack that instantly destroyed everything in its path.