The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince – PS4 | Review

By John Hay
| 8th February 2019
| PS4, Review, Switch
| 0

The developers of my favourite series (Disgaea) have struck gold with The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince, a fantastic game which makes you feel like you are playing out of the pages of a classic fairy tale.

I’m not going to say much about the story because that’s part of the magic, but the setup is quite straightforward. Every night in the woods filled with danger a lone wolf sits upon a rock and sings. The wolf’s singing voice is so beautiful that it catches the ear of the young prince who lives in the nearby castle. The prince would brave the dangers of the woods every night to hear the wold sing and call out and applaud the singing, The wolf liked this and it made the wolf’s heart swell and it figured the prince could not see her so she would continue to sing and enjoy the attention.

However one day the boy was determined to see where the song was coming from and decided to scale the rock the wolf sings from to see who was singing.

At the last moment the wolf realised the prince was getting closer and knew if he saw her that he would be frightened and would no longer come to hear her sing, the wolf reaches out and attempts to cover the prince’s eyes, unfortunately, the wolf’s claws gouge the princes eyes and makes him blind.

Ashamed at a blind son the royal family lock him away with the intentions of no one ever seeing him again.

Ashamed, the wolf is wracked with guilt and wants to see how the boy is and breaks into the castle to see how the boy is. Upon learning of the boy’s fate the wolf decides that she will take the prince to see the witch that lives in the forest as she has the ability to grant any wish and she will restore his sight. Before she can take the prince though she has to go to the witch to have a wish granted for herself and in exchange for her singing voice the witch grants her the ability to morph into a human (and back to a wolf at will) and that’s where your journey begins.

Now straight off the bat the story does feel like a classic fairy tale, a lot of that could be to do with the fact the whole setup and stuff with the witch really leans on the story of the little mermaid, but the art style is also like a book come to life. The art has a sort of drawn look and the background art looks like the pages of a book that your characters are moving through. It also has a fantastic soundtrack that really matches up with what’s on the screen to weave the fairytale aesthetic.

Gameplay wise you get a blend of mainly action platforming but with an element of puzzle mixed in, but it definitely seems more action platformer than puzzle platformer. You directly control the wolf/princess and you will have to use your abilities to help the prince get from A to B.

Now you may have played titles like this before, it requires you to take the prince by the hand and move obstacles and dangers to allow the prince to move forward, as the game opens up you can issue basic commands to him but it’s not really much of a challenge and I think most people will coast through the game while soaking in the story.

The game has some hidden collectable items to help with replay value and there is a level select and platinum trophy, but overall this title won’t actually take you all that long (you can finish it in around 4 hours).

Final Impressions

Overall I loved The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince, it has a fantastic story, an amazing and unique art style and sound. Despite the game being a little on the short side, I’d still really recommend it to anyone looking for an enjoyable experience that’s not filled with stress.

*Code kindly provided by the publisher for review*

Developer: Nippon Ichi Software / Publisher: NIS America
Release date: 12/02/2019
Platforms: PS4, Nintendo Switch
Platform Reviewed: PS4