Slay the Princess: Heart to Nerves

Slay the Princess is an evn, kind of. It kind of depends on how semantic you want to be but I’m putting it in the group. I was writing about it in a different post but the amount I wrote was starting to eclipse the rest. Anyways, it’s an evn but it’s more in the choose your adventure category. I’m not sure if those kind of books still exist, it was kind of a product of its time considering you can just make a game out of it.

The closest example I can give of Slay the Princess is if you mix the witty conversation of the Stanley Parable and the vibes of Baroque. And that’s probably an awful example because I don’t think Baroque was that popular when it came out. But for those who know and had some fun with it, you’re probably going holy shit that’s rad. I think it was first released on the Saturn and it got ported over to the ps1. There was a remake for the ps2 and I think that was ported to the Wii. The vibe was constantly ominous. I only played the ps2 version and apparently the feel of the game in the Saturn was even better. It’s probably some hardware limitation that became a bonus like Silent Hill 1. What was going on in Baroque and what you the player was and how it’d all connect was mostly vague and a good chunk of the fun was trying to figure it all out. Honestly there’s a couple of similar themes going on from that in this one.

I’m skipping the ones that would be considered spoilers but it kind of starts the same. You start with knowing nothing, somebody talks to you, tells you what to do and gives you the means to do it. Due to the nature of the scenery, you already don’t trust them but it’s not like you have any other ideas and it is the nicest thing going on right now. So you go with it for now. Just instead of using the Angelic Rifle to shoot the Absolute God to salvage the world, you use the knife to slay the princess that would destroy the world.

There’s more similarities going on, especially later on but it doesn’t really matter. Maybe I’ll talk about it in the spoilers but then it feels like I’m just gushing over Baroque. The largest difference between them is you actually have someone to talk to and bounce ideas off. He’s the Narrator, and that’s where Stanley Parable comes in. The dialogue is witty, it’s charming and for a decent while, the star of the title. Hell, for some people it remains the star of the show. The vn isn’t linear, there’s around 10 paths you can take. Technically there’s 11And each path has multiple endings and generally have an extra continuation of the plot depending on your choices.

Depending on your choices, you eventually get more voices in your head ala Disco Elysium. They kind of vary, some are great, some are kind if boring. There’s one you always get because he’s the one you start out with. A good chunk of the vn’s enjoyment comes from experimenting around. But my favorite ones are the simp, the contrarian and the opportunist. Though I guess there’s two simps and the best part probably comes when the paranoid shows up. There’s a couple of others, there’s some in there that I still like but those were my favorite. Also, maybe my definition of it is old but the contrarian is a weird one because while he is one, he’s more a clown or a troll. He goes against what the Narrator wants, but only for shits and giggles.

So while it’s kind of a horror game, it’s the type that makes you think. It’s more of a cosmic horror type of thing. There’s a lot of shit going on, but you don’t know any of it. The Narrator is your only source of information yet won’t tell you shit. He dictates and describes what’s around and the actions that you take. He just can’t decide your actions, but once made they won’t stop. Well, that’s generally the case outside of the first day. So basically it’s not the “shit your pants in 1 second” type of horror, it’s pretty tame and you probably scare yourself from all the warnings than what’s actually in the title. Honestly the levity that the voices bring kind of stop any dread from happening. Except for one branch and fair enough, it’s called Nightmare, lol. Even then it’s not all that bad, you still control the pace so nothing really kicks in.

I did the first run blind, and honestly I think I really lucked out with what I got because they were some of my favorite routes after I finished them all. Technically each path would grant you a couple of different lines each in the finale, but I didn’t go that far because I think each path has their own delineation. So I did two full runs and then a lot where I’d reset after clearing one of the paths. I went through Razor, Damsel, Specter, Witch and ended with Nightmare. I didn’t check around but Nightmare and Witch are probably the two of the better paths. Beast, Adversary and Tower were all kind of interesting but it didn’t hit the same highs as Witch or Nightmare. Beast actually hints at a few things on what’s happening. Technically all of the routes hint on what the princess actually is, just that Beast hints at a certain aspect of it better. Though by guessing on what the princess actually is can lead you to what the main character represents too.

There’s a couple of endings depending on your choices on the finale. It feels like most of the dialogue options aren’t necessary at all and it’s more of extra flavor. There’s also a couple of dialogue trees before this that you can’t finish in one run. So you either have to savescum or do another run, it explains what’s really happening and then the finale is like the confrontation of ideals. It’s all good fun but it’d be nice if there were fail states in there where you just fuck up. I’ll talk about some of the endings in the spoilers.

Overall

Overall, it’s well written and it has a lot of charm to it. It’d be a lot less effective if the narrator and the voices around you didn’t have any audio. I’ve talked about it before but it’s one of those things where I’d rather a vn cut out a route to get the budget for the main character. Anyways, the routes are fun and the princess has one voice actress that changes her tone depending on which branch you’re on. It works, it’s just that I find the Narrator more compelling. It’s also more that I enjoy those types of archetypes more.

It takes maybe around 7 hours to finish all of the paths, maybe up to 9~10 hours if you want to hit each of the path’s lines in the finale if you’re super into that but I wouldn’t find it worth it. Your first rotation is compelling enough that you could finish it in one sitting, and that’s kind of great considering my ass gets distracted all the time.

There’s a couple of other things but I’ll go through it in the spoilers. I’d give this around a 9 in terms of tone and writing, but more like an 8 in terms of what I’m looking for. It’s not a title for its plot, but a title about its ideas. And it’s cool, but it’s also not something I’ll probably remember in a year. The easiest way I can explain it is this was more of an experience than a traditional A to B plot. It’s refreshing but I’m not going to stay here. Compare it to being a metal fan and then you listen to Nanowar of Steel. Some of their tracks Norwegian Reggaeton just hits different, it’s funny and refreshing but you’ll go back to Iron Maiden tomorrow.

They are doing a large update eventually and I’ll probably pick it back up when they do. Maybe they’ll expand upon it a little bit here and there and give some more love to some of the paths where I felt like it ended kind of abruptly. The funny thing is when you get it, all those abrupt endings also makes sense in context. It’s one of those weird things where it’s a fine line between adding enough and adding or changing too much that will eventually hurt the experience.

Future Edit

After I wrote this, the devs forked part of what was going to be the pristine edition. It’s mainly additions to the finale and they’re all rather cool. There’s transitions for each of the paths you took and there’s a decent chunk of more dialogue happening. It still feels like it’s two walls just talking to each other. Basically, the amalgamation of the paths you took don’t really seem to change their tone towards the protag. When it’s the specific character during the interims, then you see your choices take into effect.

Some are angry at you, some forgive you and some are happy to talk to you. But as a whole, it’s still the same conversation with the main. As an example, I did a full run of me choosing the paths of being a total asshole and another where I overall got good paths and nothing changed. Which is weird because if you pick one good and one bad, by the end of the second, there is a conversation about the contradictions between them. Or if you’re going full aggro, there’s a conversation on why she’s not super pissed off and that he doesn’t want to keep doing it. But for the finale, that’s just kind of not there.

There’s also more dialogue options during the last phase where you have your last chat with the princess. The scene was already great so it didn’t improve it by much but it was still really nice. Though I guess I’m wondering if there’s extra changes if you did a full aggro run and a good guy run and see if there’s a larger contrast than before. It took a “yeah we were both toxic” approach.

Spoilers

So most of this is just talking about a couple of paths, some endings and I guess to the two main characters. The voice of the hero is always with you because that’s the character for the first route. It’s funny that he shows up if you decide to troll instead and now you have the hero and the contrarian in there. This is actually a condition for a set of different endings because everything is getting fragmented and you get a mesh of 3 types of princesses in one. I think it’s called the stranger.

The princess and the main character are basically gods. They were technically one being split into two. The Narrator is the one that artificially made him, so it’s a man-made god. The princess is the shifting mound, which just means change. Whilst the protag is the long quiet, which is just permanence. Technically you can say he indirectly has the power of perception. From what I can tell, it’s just the princess changing to what he perceives things as. It’s the reason why she changes her forms depending on your actions. If you go in without the knife, thinking she isn’t a threat, then overall she’s not a threat. But if you think she might have a hidden knife, then out of nowhere she has a knife. Or if you shit your pants and run back up the stairs to lock her down there, she becomes the nightmare.

So let’s say she randomly blows up while he’s asleep. And he goes, “oh yeah that tree is a dragon”, it’d stay as a tree. It’d only take effect if she’s still active. It’s the reason why the Narrator never gives any info. All info will influence what he thinks and changes how he perceives what’s happening. So if really just wanted her route, he could’ve just said that the princess was dead, you go “oh ok” and the story would be over. Technically if you avoid the cabin, she eventually comes to you and tell you what to do. But if he initially perceives her as dead, then maybe that wouldn’t be possible.

Either way, it’s why the adversary version doesn’t die, because “Stubborn” thinks she can’t die. And because she revives, “Stubborn” thinks the protag will also keep reviving for this endless fight. And to the dismay of the Narrator, the protag does revive and keeps duking it out. I don’t think the protag can change, his physicality can only be reverted back to its origin. So he can’t become a beast like the princess, but he should be able to shrink her ass back down if Stubborn would die. So again, the Narrator doesn’t say shit because he knows these are the things that would happen. If the protag would only get the “Cold” persona, he’d always win.

They’re always gravitating towards each other because they used to be one being. That’s kind of what the beast path is about and it’ll be your best bet to understand what’s happening before shit hits the fan. But it’s generally a toxic environment because their natures are opposite of each other. It’s not always the case, but it is for the majority, it’s pretty rare for them to have mutual understanding until the end of their path or the finale.

The finale is kind of weird because there’s this whole debate section where she summons all of the “vessels” that you went through to explain their line of thinking. The vessels are just the princesses you’ve perceived. Anyways, whatever you say doesn’t really matter outside of like, “ok you’re right let’s go”. It’s just two stubborn gods not agreeing with each other. And it kind of makes more sense with the protag because he’s permanence. But I think the idea is that she’s now her fully realized self, his perception doesn’t really matter anymore but it could be that he’s just too far gone to do anything about it. He’s in awe of this being and he can’t revert it, basically he’s fucked.

By the end, the voice of the hero comes back and he pushes you back to where it all began. This time you can meet the princess that has a sense of self. It’s different depending if you’ve did the stranger section or not, so she either has three faces or one. It’s basically the same amalgamation from what I can tell, it’s a mix of Prisoner, Witch and Damsel. It’s really sweet with the three faces if you choose to leave with her, because it’s the one time you see the Prisoner smile.

Anyways, there’s three endings you can get in here. One where you kill her and change is gone. No one can die but the world will now be stagnant. The one where they choose to start from the beginning, knowing that the chances of doing the exact same things are pretty high. And the one where the protag is tired and doesn’t want to be a god. He just wants to leave the cabin with her. At this point, the huge shifting mound that was outside of the cabin is gone, the perception that she’s anything out of the ordinary is gone. She’s now just a normal person and they’re going to figure out what’s outside of those walls. Because the basis was that change is everything, the chance that everybody else in the world is already dead is pretty high. Change consists of basically everything.

So was the narrator really lying? Not really, he was just playing with his words to help out his own cause. The cabin just contains her influence. If you do nothing, the house can eventually decay and then her influence is back in effect. This kind of happened in one of the Prisoner paths. Because just increasing the temperature a degree every minute and we’re basically all dead. And even without the extremes, death is just natural and it could be that the world was already in the brink of annihilation anyway. So she just nudged the ball into the goal.