Prinny: Can I really be the Hero ? The first spin off of the hit Disgaea series is a game that I’ve always wanted to try but not been (until recently having just gotten a PSP) been able to dive into. Now that the PSP thing is no longer an issue I decided to dive into the game and boy was I surprised at just how solid this game is.
Upon popping the UMD in the first thing I noticed is the game spares no expense in its humor in the dialouge every little piece of conversation from the way the Prinny’s seem to use “Dood” in almost an accent kind of manner bookmarking the end of every other sentence. It’s hard not to be charmed by Prinny’s timid/cowardly demeanor but after some time you’ll be spouting off Prinny’s catch phrases such as (“You gotta have guts Dood!” or “You gotta have smarts dood!”) as you start a level or restart rather. And restart levels you shall as Prinny demands some old school platforming expertise as it can become absolutely brutal at times in terms of difficulty. The Developers seem to have understood the challenge set in front of players and have given you 1000 lives in you quest to return the Ultra Dessert to Princess Etna. Thankfully there are multiple checkpoints throughout the levels that help ease the difficulty curve a bit but reaching each check point can seem like an entire levels worth of effort in itself. The good thing is that the game never stops feeling rewarding when you do eventually succeed making each little hell portion of a level feel rewarding when you finally butt stomp the next checkpoint.
You start to understand that a lot of care went into the visual presentation of Prinny:CirbtH the music is quirky and memorable and the setting is fresh and exciting. Prinny lives in a Gothic world not to far a stretch from Halloween town or something from Soul Eater. Demons & Overlords are everywhere and you learn that Prinny is the lowest form on the demo totem pole. Prinny’s are the reincarnated souls of wicked beings in the world who (upon revival) are forced into slavery of the larger and more important demons. So disposable are the Prinny’s that they explode when handled roughly and are normally used as cannon fodder in lue of traditional cannon balls. The story revolves around Prinny finding and retrieving the Ultra Dessert for super bitchy boss Princess Etna. She’s given just 10 hours to return her meal to her or she will obliterate the entire Prinny Squadron forcing our hero to venture out through numerous stages collecting ingredients for this ultimate dining prize.
Prinny does have some issues, mostly when it comes to jumping which in most platformers would be a deal breaker but here its really just a small annoyance. The problems comes in the way of the double jump once set off any momentum you have in this set way cannot be slowed or halted. Which leads to many a time when you over jump a platform or sail directly into an enemy attack. All in all though the game gives you more than enough lives to make up for your faults through any specific area in a stage and with enough time (and sadly trial and error) you’ll overcome this small obstacle on your way to the Ultra Dessert.
Basically, what I’m saying about Prinny is it’s hard but fun and the charm makes it easy to over see the games faults. You gotta stick with it Dood! Anyone looking for some oldschool challenge with a game with an amazing sense of humor shouldn’t think twice about picking up Prinny: Can I really be the Hero?
