slay the praise

During this week, I’ve been analyzing various aspects that I think Slay the Princess did very well and found interesting to analyze.

Today, I’m going to take a different approach and try to leave some notes about two things I didn’t like much.

While playing, I experienced a strong dissonance with how the game implemented progression.

The first time the princess is absorbed by “the hands,” she tells you that you need to “bring” three vessels (this is how the game refers to the different incarnations of the princess we encounter when making certain decisions).

Why don’t I like this decision of the 3 vessels? It feels too gamey.

Promising me progress if I go through the loop 3 times.

It feels as if the designers think their loops aren’t interesting enough to go through them anyway.

It’s almost an extrinsic motivation (I’ve never talked about this, but I will), and extrinsic motivations break my suspension of disbelief.

The other thing that struck me quite a bit and took me out of the flow was when the princess is in her “spiritual” form, the writing style suddenly becomes very philosophical.

Not only that, your responses often seem out of tune with the writing altitude that the princess has.

I believe that both your character and the princess should have a similar progression, because, after all, both are being profoundly transformed by the experience.

However, your level of dialogue becomes out of sync with that of the princess in her spiritual mode.

This reminds me a bit of Evangelion, where something similar happens.

There’s a trend that believes that by writing things with a spiritual tone (already written a billion times), the game gains “depth”.

I don’t share the feeling.

I think these two are the things I liked least about the game, and this is where this series ends. Starting tomorrow, onto another topic.

Do you want to tell me what you thought of this series?

Is there any game you would be interested in me analyzing like this?