Penny-Punching Princess
Nintendo Switch

Developed By : NIS
Published By : NIS America
Category : Beat-em-up
Release Date : Apr 03, 2018

Penny-Punching Princess for the Nintendo Switch brings us a rule world by Capitalism, where the true King is the almight dollar. Or…well coin in this instance. You play as the young titular Princess who’s entire kingdom was robbed by the Dragoloans. Through the power of fists and coin, she sets out to briber her enemies over to her side, and take back what’s rightfully hers. With the aid of her cockroach butler of course.

After a voice-over cutscene explaining the backstory within the game, you’re thrown right away into the first level which serves as the larger portion of a tutorial. Here you will quickly learn the mechanics of the game and how to use them over the course of a few battles. Once you’re through this first level, you’re mostly on your own, with the exception of your first time encountering new things.

Ultimately, your goal is to eradicate the Dragoloan family and reclaim the money and kingdom that were once yours. To do so you have two real approaches to the situation. You can bribe them over to your side, or just punch ’em until they fall. Bribing is fairly simple, as Princess always has her trusty calculator on her. Just take it out when an enemy is coming at you (just be careful, it won’t freeze combat) and doing so will display a price over the enemy’s head. If you have enough coin, just activate the bribe and they belong to you.

Combat, however, is a lot more involved. You’ll have light and heavy attacks to use, and a dodge-roll for when things get a bit too hairy. On top of the basics though, there’s a plethora of special areas that can feel incredibly overwhelming by how many there are. There’s special moves you can unlock, such as spirit bullets and summoning other fighters, special armor and Zenigami statues that can be crafted as long as you have the proper number of citizens (read as formerly enemies which have been bribed). Each armor comes with it’s own special move, however, so there are a lot of options for you as you play.

The game itself is divided up into chapters, which are then divided up even more into areas that you can travel to. In these areas you’ll have the ability to wander freely around, searching for battles. Most areas have a simple objective of just eliminating everyone (bribing will count as an elimination) but there may be more tedious objectives for you as well. On top of the enemies you’ll encounter, there are objects within the world that can be bought off too. Healing squares if you’re running low on health, gates that can be opened gaining you access to new areas, and statues that attack you until you pay them off and they start attacking for you.

What I liked most about Penny-Punching Princess is the fact that you don’t have to adapt to one playstyle or another. You don’t have to choose between being a brute and killing everyone, or bribing baddies over to your side. Sure, bribing is the best way to help yourself out by gaining access to a wider selection of armor and Zenigami statues. Outside of the specific conditions you can be given during certain battles, everything is up to you : throw fists or throw money.

Penny-Punching Princess releases on April 3rd, so don’t miss your chance to bribe this one out of the eShop or your game store of choice, as this game is seeing a physical release as well!

Playability

Every mode is supported and extremely fun to use with Penny-Punching Princess, I ended up feeling most comfortable having the game in handheld though. It made things feel less hectic trying to handle bribing in the middle of a fight.