Slay the Princess originally launched a year ago to a fair amount of acclaim. Case in point, the game has an overwhelmingly positive rating on Steam. Alongside its console launch, called Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut, the Steam version of the game is also receiving the upgrade for free. The game’s PC install has increased from about 8 gigabytes to 12, so you might be expecting a hefty amount of new content. If you already played the game, you may be wondering if the content here is worth the reinstall, plus many people on console are likely wondering if the visual novel is worth picking up in he first place.
In the event you’re not familiar with the game, Slay the Princess is about a dragon man that has been tasked with killing the titular princess, whose very existence poses a threat to the world. He has to simply enter a cabin, grab a knife off a table, head into the basement where she’s chained, and end her life. If he decides to free her for whatever reason, it’s said that the world will end. If this doesn’t sound like a strong enough premise to sustain an entire story, be assured that there’s a lot more to it than that. We’re going to have to get into some spoilers as to the structure of the game, but these will be necessary to explain what the new content is.
The game, which is purely a visual novel, is set in a series of loops. Depending on your choices, you end up with one of several versions of the princess, known as vessels, and you need to deliver a certain number of these to another character to get to the ending. While Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut can be beaten easily in just two-to-three hours, there are enough different vessels to make for multiple full playthroughs. It’s a very unique structure that goes brilliantly with the visual novel format. The game is fully voiced, although there are just two actors playing a large number of different variations of their characters.
The voice acting is terrific and the black-and-white artwork is as well. The actual plot is pretty out there as well, but this is a very good game. Trying to actually deliver all the vessels can take a pretty solid chunk of time and, with this update/version, that amount of time has increased substantially. At first, it doesn’t seem like much has changed. The most immediate difference is that there’s now a CG gallery that clearly indicates which vessels and CG art you’ve found, as well as hints that can nudge you in the right direction to finding everything you’re missing. It’s a very welcome adjustment that massively helps with getting 100% completion.
While there aren’t really any all-new vessels, three of them do get brand new third chapters. Many of the vessels in the original release tended to have just two chapters and these new ones are fairly substantial and unique. One of them gives the Damsel a really excellent third chapter that I really enjoyed, but the other two are similarly unique. One of them even shows things from the Princesses’ perspective, giving us better insight into what the Hero looks like (I’m not sure if any of the other main game routes show any of this.) All of the new stuff fits in perfectly and both voice actors return.
In addition to these chapters, four of the already-existing third chapters have been hugely expanded upon. There’s also a new ending that can only be achieved by selecting hostile options with The Shifting Mound. The dev’s estimate that the overall game length has been expanded by 35%. The new content here is very much well worth experiencing for returning fans and will only make for a more compelling purchase to new players who want more bang for their buck. As such, it’s easy to say that Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut is well worth it.
Check out our previous impressions piece:
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