Much like Moogles and Chocobos are the Final Fantasy<\/em> franchise\u2019s mascots, the exploding, penguin-like Prinnies are the mascot for NIS America\u2019s cult-favorite Disgaea<\/em> franchise. Prinnies are the slaves of the Netherworld, tortured souls seeking redemption for their sins, often becoming the main source of comic relief throughout the Disgaea<\/em> titles with all their \u201cdood\u201d speak. But what if, for a change, the Prinnies were the stars of their own game? Could they rise up as heroes of the Netherworld?<\/p>\n

NIS America\u2019s new PSP game Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?<\/em> attempts to answer that very question. Master Etna has lost all her sweets, and in a bout of rage has enlisted her Prinny minions to seek out the ingredients to help her make the Ultra Dessert within 10 hours, or else\u2026<\/p>\n

Prinny PSP<\/em> is a hardcore 2D action-platformer \u2013 think Ghosts \u2018N Goblins<\/em> with an anime twist \u2013 filled with enough masochistically difficult hopping, bopping and hip pounding to please even the most elite gamer, and ample amounts of chuckle-inducing humor to help calm the nerves in between stages. <\/p>\n

The Prinnies really are quite capable creatures, despite their adorable appearance and limited intelligence. They have two blades to hack enemies to bits with; they can leap into the air and rain down death with a ranged air slash attack or crash down with a mighty hip pound to stun unsuspecting enemies; they can spin dash to zip past danger in a hurry; they can double jump to reach higher ledges and 3-point hop to change directions in mid-air; and mastering all of these moves is essential to surviving the game\u2019s 10 treacherous (though colorfully rendered) levels and even more treacherous bosses.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not joking, folks. This is one brutal game. So brutal, in fact, that you are allotted 1,000 lives (or Prinnies) to complete the game with \u2013 as one Prinny dies, another straps on the heroic red scarf in its place. While you\u2019ll really have to be lousy to come anywhere close to using all 1,000 lives (unless you play on the Hell\u2019s Finest setting with one-hit deaths; Prinny can absorb three hits on the standard difficulty), you\u2019ll certainly need to use up at least a good few hundred, which still equates to an awful lot of dying in a 10-level game. <\/p>\n

Enemies are abundant and devilishly aggressive, constantly attacking from all sides and hindering your progress. The bosses are even trickier, requiring you to first hip pound through their defenses to stun them before you can actually land damaging blows. What\u2019s more, each boss has a three-minute time limit, so you can\u2019t just sit there twiddling your thumbs. You have to analyze their attack patterns quickly and take advantage of every chance to break through their defenses. The regular levels are timed as well, but the timer restarts when you die so it never really becomes a factor.<\/p>\n

Amazingly, though, amidst all the dying and retrying the game rarely feels cheap. The levels are exceptionally well designed, and except for the occasional jumping gaff the controls are responsive and easy to learn. The difficulty is balanced perfectly too. You aren\u2019t bludgeoned to death from the start. As you progress, the difficulty gradually ramps up with each new stage and boss.<\/p>\n

This game also earns high marks for its presentation and replayability. While certainly not among the PSP\u2019s audiovisual elite, Prinny<\/em> holds its own with smoothly-animated sprites, vibrant and diverse level backdrops, an enchanting soundtrack (which is included on CD as a pack-in bonus!), and hilarious voice acting. <\/p>\n

You\u2019ll have plenty of time to savor all of this charm, too, thanks to the game\u2019s high replay value. Your first time through should take somewhere around six hours depending on skill level (my personal time was just over seven hours), which is plenty long for this type of game. But what\u2019s particularly cool is how each level has multiple layouts depending on the order in which you play them, so on return visits your experience is going to be different every time. On top of that, item hunters will be delighted by the abundance of secret goodies. By finding hidden items you\u2019ll be able to unlock neat bonuses such as a music player, a replay manager for saving and sharing video replays, the ability to replay completed stages, and more.<\/p>\n

For the first three quarters of the game, I couldn\u2019t get enough Prinny. I was dying a lot, but enjoying every second of it. But I must say, towards the end two things left somewhat of a sour taste in my mouth. The first thing that rubbed me the wrong was the game\u2019s use of the archaic length-padding technique of making you replay a bunch of the same bosses you already defeated earlier in the game. I hate this. It\u2019s one of my biggest pet peeves!<\/p>\n

My second annoyance was with the game\u2019s final boss. Compared to all the other bosses throughout the game, I found the end baddie endlessly cheap and frustrating, and completely devoid of fun. By the time I finished him off I was too exhausted to work up any feeling of satisfaction for my accomplishment.<\/p>\n

While these issues certainly annoyed me, the good news is they only made up a very small portion of what is otherwise a brilliantly, brutally fun 2D platformer. I can\u2019t stress enough how awesome a game Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?<\/em> truly is. It\u2019ll leave you battered, bruised, bloodied\u2026and begging for more, dood!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Pros:<\/strong>
\n+ Brutal but well balanced difficulty level
\n+ Superbly designed levels and bosses (most of them at least)
\n+ Intuitive controls
\n+ Endearing presentation and humor
\n+ Comes with loads of extras, both in-game and out<\/p>\n

Cons:<\/strong>
\n– Extreme difficulty and inherent trial and error may be a turnoff
\n– Final boss run is more tedious than fun<\/p>\n

Game Info:<\/strong>
\nPlatform: PSP
\nPublisher: NIS America
\nDeveloper: Nippon Ichi Software
\nRelease Date: 2\/17\/09
\nGenre: Platform
\nESRB Rating: Teen
\nPlayers: 1<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much like Moogles and Chocobos are the Final Fantasy franchise\u2019s mascots, the exploding, penguin-like Prinnies are the mascot for NIS America\u2019s cult-favorite Disgaea franchise. Prinnies are the slaves of the Netherworld, tortured souls seeking redemption for their sins, often becoming the main source of comic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[196,53,3],"tags":[6152,1353,6096,699],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4476"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8237,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476\/revisions\/8237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}