Princess Waltz

Written by Jason Young  on January 22, 2009

Review: Hentai meets UnoЕ brought to you in part by the kind people of Japan.

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For loyal customers of Peter Payne's company JAST and their subsidies Peach Princess and G-Collections, the announcement of Princess Waltz's localization back in 2007 was big news for Сero' (erotic) gamers everywhere. Not only was it deemed a AAA visual novel title as a result of being one of the most popular games released in Japan in 2006, but it drew comparisons with one of the greatest visual novels of all time, Type-Moon's epic Fate/Stay Night. Did it live up to these lofty expectations? Well, it depends on what you're looking for.

Noted as one of the most story intensive games released in English, Princess Waltz tells the story of a royal dance where six princesses compete for the right to marry the Prince of Eldhiland. While this premise may seem more like something you would expect out of a pinkware title like Natsume's СPrincess Debut,' believe me when I say it's not. Instead the story is closer to an action genre anime like My-Hime where you have sexy anime schoolgirls fighting it out with each other using special weapons and powers. As a result you can expect plenty of twists and betrayals galore; as well as heavy themes about friendship and love.



The story itself can be divided into two distinct arcs: the 'Princess Waltz' arc and the 'all hell breaks loose' arc. In the 'Princess Waltz' arc, players are introduced to the main characters Fukamori Arata and would-be-prince Chris Northfield who end up getting caught in the middle of the dance. Summoning the power of Iris, Chris and Arata combine powers and fight in the dance in order to help Chris become a Сtrue prince.' In a number of flashy intense fight scenes, as well as having the princesses challenge their own faith and beliefs through their meeting with Arata, the arc eventually concludes when dark forces attempt to interrupt the Waltz. Although much of the first half is devoted to the actual fights between the princesses for supremacy, don't think for a minute that the game lacks character development. In between battles, players will get to know the princesses in order to set up the potential romances in the latter portion of the game. The few emotional moments in the game are genuine and the funny comedic skits are great. Lastly, as a hentai game, the naughty bits are few and far between; mostly being regulated as essential story elements. Most girls only have one long scene while Chris has two. Go figure.

While the story itself is solid, the problem with it is that there's only one arc and one ending no matter what, which is a disappointment as my favorite character Lun Lun lacked an ending. Aside from the choices on who will bear Arata's future child, players have absolutely no control over the story progression which greatly hurts any replay value for the game. Instead, the game focuses on integrating a mini-game card based battle system between Iris and the forces that would interrupt Arata's and Chris' quest.

Similar to a hybrid of Uno and poker and a hint of rock-paper-scissors, card battle is divided up into two different phases: the initiative and attack/defend phase. For the most part, your goal is to exceed your opponent's total in both phases. The cards themselves are divided into three different colors (red, blue, and green) granting bonuses to either the opponent or the player depending on which color is prevalent. Defeating opponents results in net experience points which allow players to spend them on either upgrades or skills, to help defeat your opponents. Two difficulties are present, easy and normal, in order to let players play any way they want. Although normal is still pretty easy in my opinion, especially once you're fully upgraded. Even though winning doesn't matter in story progression, losing will result in a game over screen. As enjoyable as the battles are though, the only problem is that they're few and far between. A better last boss, a few more battles, and the ability to play the game independently would have made it even better.

What makes Princess Waltz stand out from the rest of the G-Collections and Peach Princess catalogue though is the game's presentation. To be honest, this is the most beautiful eroge game I've seen as it's a treat for both your eyes and ears. From careful minute audible details to on screen special effects, the entire presentation is epic. Every cut-out is rich with detail and color and the number of backgrounds is superb. With multiple facial expressions for each cut-out and even CGs, you can tell that Pulltop had the goal to make the game look better than almost anything that was released at the time.

Audibly, every line, with the exception of the main character, is voiced; which is usually unheard of in visual novel games. The voice actors do a marvelous job at bringing the characters to life with each character sounding according to how they should look. The game's thirty track soundtrack is also pretty good with only a few sour apples; although they are repeated numerous times throughout the game. Most particularly, the game's opening theme УDissonant ChordФ by Nana as well as a Gregorian female choir chant played to a spiffy rock track stand out the most.