Right from the get-go, Slay the Princess immediately fools you. From its unique premise to how the story unfolds, and even how initially unassuming the game's art style is, Slay the Princess aims and succeeds in subverting expectations, taking the player along for a ride that is definitely unseen anywhere else before. In this Slay the Princess review, we'll look into the game's offerings: its parallel universes, terrifying sequences, and metaphysical romances, all rolled into a 3-5 hour experience that could leave you feeling existentially threatened afterward.

Slay the Princess Review: What is Slay the Princess?

Slay the Princess is a narrative-driven choose-your-own-adventure-style psychological horror visual novel. The game was released on October 23, 2023, on PC through Steam. It was developed and self-published by Black Tabby Games, best known for the episodic horror narrative game Scarlet Hollow. The game's premise is a subversion of the damsel-in-distress archetype, with the game's primary motif being a decision between killing the princess to save the world, as insisted by the game's narrator, or saving the princess, as what might appear to be the right thing to do. The game presents players with a lot of options, giving them what appear to be similar options that actually have a long-lasting influence on the game's narrative. As the player progresses through the story, the game evolves based on previous decisions. I would describe the game to be divided into multiple sessions, with each session lasting anywhere between 10 to 30 minutes, after which the game resets back to the beginning, transporting the player back to the start of the game, giving them the chance to explore other options and narrative branches. All-in-all, this loop repeats several times, after which the game collapses upon itself, leading to an epic conclusion that ties up the entire narrative together. Without spoiling anything, I would say that the game's overarching plot has elements of psychological horror, cosmic horror, romance, metaphysics, parallel universes, Lovecraftian horror, existentialism, and nihilism. The game, towards the end, touches on very deep topics, and it asks the player to analyze their own beliefs and proceed according to what they think is right.

Slay the Princess Gameplay

Slay the Princess's gameplay is straightforward and very intuitive. The player doesn't have to worry about any kind of inventory or stats at all. The entire game is self-contained within its choose-your-own-adventure style visual novel, with no additional gameplay elements to worry about. You simply click on choices and see how they lead to events in the game and watch the story unfold based on your decisions. There really isn't much to talk about in the gameplay department mechanically, so let's talk about how the entire game is structured and how it affects your gameplay experience.

As earlier mentioned, Slay the Princess' story plays out multiple times, giving players the opportunity to choose different paths each time. To finish the game, players will have to explore and uncover the ending of a new story branch. The game's conclusion is reached once the player has explored enough of these story branches, which will take them anywhere between three to five hours. This means that while the game has multiple story branches, the player is encouraged to explore all of them throughout their playthrough. The conclusion is reached once the player has done enough loops, which leads to the parallel universes fragmenting, unveiling the truth behind the game's setting, and placing the player in front of the game's metaphysical boss, which would then allow them to decide for the fate of the world and choose how they want the game to end. The game has multiple endings, but it appears that regardless of how you reach the concluding chapter of the game, you are able to reach any of the endings. It's worth seeing all of the variations of the final ending, so you can save state at the beginning of the ending chapter and you can find all of the endings in one playthrough.

Taken as a full package, the game does deliver on its promise to give players a unique experience. However, each individual story branch doesn't feel fulfilling at all to complete. At some point, knowing that I needed to explore all of the story branches anyway, it felt like I was chasing the completion of a checklist instead of actually feeling motivated to explore each story branch. It doesn't help that the effort given in fleshing out each story branch is uneven, leaving some of the story branches less developed and less interesting than the others. There would be times when I would just want the current session to end so I could go on to the next one. However, each session does end with an expository chapter that lets the player learn more about the game's lore and setting, helping to tie these sessions to each other in building a coherent whole.

Slay the Princess Graphics

Slay the Princess utilizes completely hand-drawn sketched art created by Abby Howard, the developers admitted that the hand-drawn pencil art style was initially utilized to save time and so that they don't need to go through inking and coloring, but ultimately the art style lent itself well to the game's themes. It also draws you in because of its initially unassuming nature, drawing you in until you realize that the game actually has more to offer. The sketch style allowed the developers to explore more abstract forms for its characters. However, the game's aesthetic value still is within the eyes of the beholder, and I'm not actually a big fan of most of the game's drawings. There are breathtaking scenes, sure, and they do look amazing and are rendered in-line with the abstract concepts that the game aims to discuss, but ultimately some of the individual pieces aren't as appealing as the rest of the product for me.

Slay the Princess Story

Slay the Princess's story is its strongest suit. Of course, for a game that has been stripped down to the most basic choose-your-own-adventure mechanics, it had to. Thankfully, the game's story is filled with good sections, and most of the time, the progression of the story is interesting enough to keep you engaged and guessing about what's going to happen next. While a full playthrough of the game would take about 3-5 hours to complete, the entire game itself has over 15 hours of content, and players will be able to explore a lot of story content in the game. The stories that players can explore in the game are also very distinct from one another, and the game really takes you to a lot of places narratively speaking.

Slay the Princess Music and Sound Design

The game utilizes rudimentary sound effects, and while its music is very thematic and atmospheric, it's nothing I would write home about. Most of the discussion about the game's sound design would fall under its voice acting, and there is plenty of it here. The game features the voices of Jonathan Sims and Nichole Goodnight, with Sims taking on the role of the narrator and of the unnamed hero, while Goodnight voices the Princess. The two also voice different iterations of the characters they initially portray. The two have very good voice acting skills, especially Sims who has a very good range of emotions he draws from. However, I can't help but notice the difference in the technical quality of the recordings of the two voice actors, with Goodnight's recordings having a lot more reverb than Sims. While her voice acting is good, the change in the recording's quality can't stop getting me out of my immersion, always reminding me that the characters' voices are only provided by voice actors and are not spoken by the characters themselves. I also can't help but think that Goodnight's voice does not really fit that of a Princess, but I can't pinpoint the reason why. Perhaps, I am just conditioned to associate princesses with a particular voice type, and in that regard the game successfully subverts my expectations again, but I'm just not sold that Goodnight was the ideal voice actress for the Princess.

Verdict: Is Slay the Princess Worth Your Time and Money?

Overall, the game offers a decent and unique experience that you wouldn't simply come across within a majority of the games you'd play today. It also offers some philosophical brain teasers for you to think about as you wrestle with the game's core topics. However, it's a game that you can easily exhaust and complete, and sadly Slay the Princess offers very little in terms of replay value. That's not bad by itself, especially since the game only aims to have you experience the story once and be done with it, but we also understand that replayability is an important aspect of a game for many of our readers. For the price of $14.99, you get very good value out of this game, especially thanks to its uniqueness, and the amount of effort that the developers and voice actors have given the game.

Score: 7.5/10

Editor's Note: ClutchPoints received a PC review copy of Slay the Princess to allow us to cover the game. These copies did not, in any way, affect this Slay the Princess review and score.