Slay The Princess - The Pristine Cut Review

At the open of Slay the Princess, you find yourself alone in the woods. You hear a voice in your head, dubbed The Narrator, who informs you that you must travel to a cabin and slay the princess imprisoned in its basement. If you don’t the world will end. Simple, right?

Well, it’s not that simple. The protagonist knows about as much about himself, the situation he is in, and the world around him as you do from reading the prior paragraph. What happens next, though, is (mostly) up to you. As you enter each scene in the game, all of which are rendered in a striking, hand-drawn style, you will be presented with a number of options. You can try to press the Narrator for more information, follow the instructions he gives you, or take other actions outside of his intent. Your actions might not play out as you intended, either. You’ll quickly learn this is no ordinary assassination mission and that the world you’re in is far stranger and more surreal than a simple cabin in an ordinary wood.

At this point I should warn you that it is impossible to further describe the game without having to rely on at the very least the most mild of spoilers. If you’re interested in the kind of game that will take you in unexpected directions and force you to make decisions with large consequences while working with only a small amount of conflicting information, you can stop reading now, buy the game, and start playing immediately. I went into the game blind and am glad that I did. I was quickly hooked on the game and loved how it kept pulling me deeper and deeper into its strange world, and highly recommend it. Those of you who are still undecided may continue…

The choices you make will lead you to an ending, but not necessarily the conclusion. You’ll find yourself back in the woods, but while The Narrator will begin anew as if nothing transpired before, your nameless character will carry the memories of what has transpired before. You’ll also find new voices have appeared in your head, each of which carries a moniker as generic as The Narrator’s, such as The Smitten and The Broken. Which voices you’ll hear will depend on your previous choices. These new voices have their own advice and agendas, and will often be at odds with The Narrator and each other. You’ll soon begin to question the sanity of your character.

Your choices are more than just simple actions designed to drive the plot forward to a good or bad ending, and as you choose your actions they may not be immediately carried out. You’ll often have your actions called into question by one of the game’s disembodied voices, or you’ll listen to them debate the consequences of taking or not taking the action that a few seconds ago seemed like the right idea to you. Do you trust the voices or your own instincts?

You will invariably encounter the Princess at some point, and she is every bit as enigmatic as The Narrator, if not more so. Even if you’re completely committed to killing her to save the world, you shouldn’t expect things to be as simple as plunging a dagger into a helpless woman chained to a basement wall. She’s far more skilled at rhetoric than The Narrator, and her powers extend beyond the spoken word.

Slay the Princess is not for those looking to make their way through an adventure game to enjoy a tidy little story. It’s the kind of game that will get inside your head, make you contemplate ambiguous moral and philosophical matters, and leave you with unanswered questions to contemplate and answer on your own. If those types of games are as interesting to you as they are to me, you’re going to love Slay the Princess.