Slay the Princess is a new horror visual novel that involves slaying a Princess to save the world. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Slay the Princess Review Overview
Slay the Princess Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Absolutely Amazing Art Excellent Voice Performances Insane Amount of Intricate Branching Paths |
No Map For Interweaving Branches Volume For A Handful of Voice Lines Are Unbalanced |
Slay the Princess Overall - 92/100
Slay the Princess has astounding surreal horror storytelling, stunningly unnerving visuals, exceptional voice performances, and excellent use of background music. As a visual novel, it sticks to the genre’s identity of simple point-and-click gameplay, but provides countless separate and interwoven branches all threaded from the simplest choices you make. Slay the Princess is a surrealist and philosophical experience that spans across emotions and perspectives.
Slay the Princess Story - 10/10
As a visual novel, the overarching story is the result of your choices. With the multitude of choices available, the story can be formed and twisted into so many variations and perspectives that range from simplistic, to romantic, to violent, to full-fledged horror. A wonderful blend of love, fear, compassion, anxiety, wit, and loneliness that will have you thinking for days on end.
Slay the Princess Gameplay - 7/10
As a visual novel, Slay the Princess doesn’t do much to innovate the genre, and that’s perfectly fine. Though there are other visual novels in the market that have other modes of gameplay, Slay the Princess sticks to traditional use of point-and-click to choose options that serve its purposes well.
Slay the Princess Visuals - 10/10
Slay the Princess has astonishingly delightful hand-penciled art throughout the course of the game. Every single frame was illustrated so well that my eyes stayed glued to the screen trying to admire every little detail. The backgrounds, the rooms, and of course the Princess, are given so much care and thought in their designs. Their details, textures, "transformations," expressions, and the use of shading and color are all so meticulously crafted that overall serve as a superb feast for the eyes.
Slay the Princess Audio - 9/10
Consisting of only TWO voice actors, Slay the Princess’ voice performances are exceptional in every sense of the word. The various personalities they personify with subtle changes in their cadences, inflections, and lexicons make it out like there’s a full-fledged cast. The background music rises, falls, and changes for the most niche scenarios that all further bolster the eerie feeling of your every move always being observed.
Slay the Princess Value for Money - 10/10
For $17.99, Slay the Princess does not have the most interactive gameplay that needs your full engagement. That doesn’t mean it won’t forcefully grab all of it with its unnerving visuals, exceptional voice acting, and seemingly hundreds of branching paths that might take dozens of playthroughs to get through. If you crave psychological and cosmological horror, Slay the Princess is well worth the money you’ll spend, and more.
Slay the Princess Review: She’ll Take Your Breath Away
I could go all day and night about how magnificent Slay the Princess is, but unfortunately we’re not all stuck in a loop of infinite time. Or are we?
Slay the Princess is a fully-voiced surreal-horror visual novel by Black Tabby Games. Chock-full of chilling and distressing hand-drawn art, witty dialogue accompanied with excellent voice acting, and a seemingly infinite amount of time loops. Slay the Princess is full of heart and soul that make for an amazingly existential experience.
The story was immediately captivating, as I was tasked to slay an innocuous Princess chained in the basement of the cabin. Of course I outright refused, and chose not to slay her. However, I also couldn’t free her, since I had insufficient information on all sides. Ultimately, I decided to leave her be and leave on my own. What a horrible mistake that was, as she immediately made me realize. She immediately broke free from her binds, adorned a ghastly white mask, and hauntingly crept after me. Her mere presence caused all my vital organs to shut down. And then I was dead. Then I was alive, to do it all over again.
This is the main story loop of Slay the Princess, and was one of the many scenarios that could happen from the way you go about your choices. Every choice made truly matters. I had tried vastly different options among my first attempts, and all expectedly ended up vastly different. However, when I experimented and tried to recreate a previous attempt, I deviated by one specific choice. The end result went far longer than I had initially experienced. I proceeded to do the same "runs" but with slightly different variations, and the results were staggeringly broad. Multitudes of the tiniest choices were met with the wildest most distinct scenarios. That’s when I realized I was experiencing something greater.
The game wasn’t scary in the traditional sense, but was horrific in a surreal, psychological, existential sense. With each choice, experience, and perspective we gain, we grow more and more. Once fully grown, we look back at the paths we chose and reflect on what drove us to make those decisions. Did we regret them? Do we still stand by them? Do we mean to improve upon them when we try again? Would we keep wanting to try again, even for an eternity? It all gives way to heavy self-reflection on what you truly want. It could be applied to how we look at ourselves in reality, and it all works as well for the consequences of slaying or not slaying the Princess. There are still leagues of content I know I haven’t gone through in the game, and I can’t wait to play more.
I could go all day and night about how magnificent Slay the Princess is, but unfortunately we’re not all stuck in a loop of infinite time. Or are we?
Pros of Slay the Princess
| Things Slay the Princess Got Right |
|---|
|
Absolutely Amazing Art Excellent Voice Performances Insane Amount of Intricate Branching Paths |
Absolutely Amazing Art
To say "Absolutely Amazing" would still feel like an understatement. All illustrated by Ignatz-winning graphic novelist Abby Howard, she meticulously crafts each frame perfectly with her excellent use of scribbled outlines and cross hatching shadows. The varying designs of the Princess were not only signified from the great voice work, but were made solid and further distinguished from the detailed changes each one brought. Differences in facial expressions, body language, and even their facial structures outright indicate how she is never the same. So much work and care has been put into the Princess and Howard deserves all the praise she can get.
The lack of "vibrant" color throughout the game is an artistic choice that pays off in dividends. When actual color shows up in the form of blood, the sight induces an unsettling feeling of "That shouldn’t be here…" From great flowing amounts, to the tiniest of smudges, the use of blood has so much emphasis and unnatural connotation that provides a chilling experience.
Last but not least, the backgrounds are incredible pieces of work. Each one a haunting liminal feeling that provides uneasiness and discomfort. "There’s something wrong here but I don’t know what" would be an adequate response for most of the environments. Some are simple forest paths in the woods and normal looking cabins. Some are full blown cosmological nightmares consisting of a floating stone path and levitating trees, or winding staircases reminiscent of M.C. Escher’s iconic painting "Relativity."
The range, polish, and effort for the art is utterly remarkable, and I genuinely couldn’t stop taking screenshots of everything.
Excellent Voice Performances
"Excellent" doesn’t quite cover the great amount of work, effort, and quality put into the voice acting. Jonathan Sims (from the Magnus Archives podcast) and Nichole Goodnight(voice actress from horror podcasts such as NoSleep) provide stellar performances as the Voices In Your Head and the Princess respectively.
The Voices In Your Head include the main Narrator, the Voice of the Hero, and other variations of yourself that you encounter throughout the story. The Narrator makes up for a significant chunk of voices heard, and he never gets boring. The combination of his insistence for the player to carry out the task at hand, with the sassy wit and sarcasm he displays when disobeyed and ignored all make for a fun time. The other Voices are from different parts of You. They all inhibit extreme personalities and therefore differ greatly in what they speak, why they speak, and how they speak. It’s easy to forget that they’re all performed by the same voice actor when you get fully immersed in the story and believe them to be separate people.
Similarly, the Princess shares the same ordeal of having so many variations of herself that are outright unnerving. Some are dominating, some are regal, while others are innocent and uncaring. The tiniest changes in her cadence and inflection make for such convincing performances you would think that the several Princesses are truly different people.
Enough credit cannot be given to Sims and Goodnight, as their performances turn Slay the Princess from a great visual novel, to an excellent one.
Insane Amount of Intricate Branching Paths
There are so many choices that can be made in Slay the Princess that it’s almost overwhelming. A plethora of possibilities that further reveal more as you go along. It’s mind blowing to realize from repeat-runs that each choice DOES matter and could either subtly or drastically change the outcomes for you and the Princess. I tried to identically repeat an earlier run but only change one choice, and the outcome was completely different. It’s almost incomprehensible to think that all possible choices interweave so much with one another to the point that it’s all a beautiful, chaotic mess. I took wild out-of-the-box options that seem to lead to an inconsequential end, but instead showed more available routes for the narrative to go toward.
Slay the Princess’s intricate branching paths are beautifully chaotic, perfect for someone to spend their time playing it or, perhaps, dispose of their sanity.
Cons of Slay the Princess
| Things Slay the Princess Can Improve |
|---|
|
No Map For Interweaving Branches Volume For A Handful of Voice Lines Are Unbalanced |
No Map For Interweaving Branches
With the complexity and staggering amount of interweaving branches the game has, players will have a hard time mapping out Slay the Princess. With the presence of alternate routes and choices, the freedom to freely switch between certain points and experience other paths would be a huge accessibility win. Since there are hundreds upon hundreds of branches present in the game, the ability to look at a map and quickly select a branch you would like to start from would be highly beneficial and convenient. This feature won’t exclusively be helpful for normal players, though it could prove a helpful tool for completionists or the most die-hard fans of the game to exhaust every single possible line of dialogue.
Though the developers have no plans to add such a feature, the ability to have as many unlimited save files is a good alternative. It would ultimately fall onto the players to manually note which save file is for which route.
Volume For A Handful of Voice Lines Are Unbalanced
First and foremost I’d like to clarify I do NOT mean the way that the game utilizes the game’s audio levels in certain parts of the story. But rather, at random moments, some voices’ audio levels would dip in the middle of their sentences, as if the voice actor turned or leaned away from the mic while recording their dialogue. A few lines were noticeably quieter than the next and would take me out of the immersion for the briefest of moments. It’s not a particularly prominent concern that can be found every single minute or so, but it pops up every now and then as you play through the game.
Is Slay the Princess Worth It?
Yes, If You Enjoy Psychological, Cosmological, and Philosophical Horror With Magnificent Art
Slay the Princess isn’t an outright horror game as it is a multitude of experiences and perspectives. It all depends on the paths you choose to take, and if your choices lead you to places filled with horror, you must be getting what you deserve. There’s a seemingly insurmountable amount of branching routes where you can weave your own story, and thus has so much replayability.
Besides all of that, the game has literally over a thousand hand-pencil portraits and backgrounds illustrated for the game, each as intricately detailed and stylized for countless scenes. Lest I forget to mention the terrific voice performances that make you believe the game has a full voice cast, only to be gobsmacked by the revelation that there were only two in total.
$17.99 is the perfect price for which you can experience the brilliance of Slay the Princess, developed with hard work and passion from the people at Black Tabby Games.
Slay the Princess Overview & Premise
The story revolves around a princess shackled in a basement under a cabin in the middle of the woods. The player is tasked with slaying her, as keeping her alive would mean the end of the world… or so the narrator says. The princess objects to being slain, but shows hints of being more than an innocent princess waiting to be saved. Will you abide by the Narrator’s instructions, or will you slay the Princess?
Slay the Princess FAQ
How Many Routes Are There in Slay the Princess?
There are 10 major routes and possibilities for Slay the Princess. However, these routes do not have straightforward endings. Depending on all your choices, they will often lead to niche and unexplored finales, or interweave with each other and fall into similar endings. There are some endings which can only be attained by specific routes, while some endings can be reached from different ones.
How Many Endings Are There in Slay the Princess?
It is currently unknown how many endings exist in Slay the Princess, as there are at least 10 starting potential routes that branch out into more potential endings. We have observed that a single route could hold at least 5 possible endings, with maybe more undiscovered from each. The only thing we can say for sure is that players will have to play for countless hours through countless runs and playthroughs to try and exhaust them all.
Who Are the Voice Actors in Slay the Princess?
The two voice actors in Slay the Princess are Jonathan Sims from the "Magnus Archives" podcast, and Nichole Goodnight, who has been a voice actress from horror podcasts such as "NoSleep." Sims voices the Narrator and the several Voices, while Goodnight voices the Princess.
Game8 Reviews
Slay the Princess Product Information
 | |
| Title | SLAY THE PRINCESS |
|---|---|
| Release Date | October 23, 2023 |
| Developer | Black Tabby Games |
| Publisher | Black Tabby Games |
| Supported Platforms | PC |
| Genre | Visual Novel, Psychological Horror |
| Number of Players | Single Player |
| ESRB Rating | N/A |
| Official Website | Official Website |
