Steal Princess's entire structure is antithetical to exploration and its mechanics are more often infuriating than not. Far too many of its maps can only be completed by following a plan that tolerates no deviation, and the result is akin to making players run through a laboratory maze with the reward of only another laboratory maze at the end. Some of the puzzles are interestingly designed and a few elements of the game are fitfully entertaining, but they are not enough to salvage a frustrating experience. Based on this game, Climax climaxed years ago.
The Portable Gamer writes: "Steal Princess feels a somewhat old school title from the start. At times, due to its isometric perspective, it reminded me of Landstalker, which makes sense really when you bear in mind that Climax Entertainment developed both titles. Isometric titles are somewhat out of fashion now that 3D graphics have matured, but it does work quite well for this title. As you can see from the screenshots, the graphics have a certain charm to them although they could live quite happily a number of years ago. The main problem with the isometric perspective is something that has always afflicted some games, it makes the controls so awkward at times. As is typical with a DS title, you can use either the stylus or the D-pad and face buttons, but both methods bring about their own problems. The D-Pad makes precision movements difficult to achieve, while the stylus makes picking up and moving objects incredibly annoying and lacks responsiveness. In the end, I found that combining the two worked for the most part but it still felt annoying at times, certainly as the game progressed and levels became harder and more complicated."
kind of a shame. I really wanted to like this one. I hope it gets less expensive soon!
Surprised you didn't make any puns relating to the word 'Steal' in the title and the price.
GamerNode writes: "There is beauty in two seemingly disparate elements melded into one seamless creation. Steal Princess aims to accomplish this task by blending genres with puzzle solving and platforming components."
If you have fond memories of Landstalker on the Genesis, try to not let that influence you when it comes to Steal Princess, the latest game from developers Climax Entertainment, who were also behind Ladystalker, Time Stalker, and a few other RPG titles from various systems. On the surface, Steal Princess does seem to have some resemblance to the Stalker series, but that goes about as far as the isometric view, and there's not a lot of fun to be had with a pretty basic puzzle/platformer.
