I’ve pre-ordered the physical versions of the Longest 5 Minutes and Penny Punching Princess. I’m definitely buying TL5M, I’ve wanted to play that for a long time and I wanted it on Vita. But now I’m wondering about PPP. You might be able to tell for yourself from watching a gameplay video on Youtube. It's an action game that is top.

Shake-down enemies with your fists or your wallet in this quirky beat-em-up by Nippon Ichi.

Time for Loan Sharks to get Karma

Money makes the world go ’round: an undeniable fact, and one that also pertains to the world of video games, both in and out. Overcooked 2 surf and turf. It’s probably no coincidence the first pick-up a lot of gamers saw were coins in Mario. Nowhere is this more true than in RPGs, I’d say. If you play one from either side of the pond odds are you’ll end up fattening quite a few wallets across whatever world needs saving. It’s common enough some genres have started lampooning the fact. Recettear for example, had you playing as the shopkeep whose wallet got fattened.

Penny-Punching Princess takes things further, making a game where money is a direct weapon. It’s by Nippon Ichi, creators of the Disgaea series, so right away it’s definitely going to be a quirky game that doesn’t take itself too seriously. In it you play as the titular Princess with a chip on her shoulder, wanting to avenge her father after he was ruined by shady loans.

Naturally. you do that by storming their lairs and pummeling them to a man. The gameplay is pretty self-explanatory with beat-em-up gameplay from a top-down perspective. You have a combo, a heavy attack, and special moves. Where it gets complex is the Princess’ secret weapon, a calculator gifted to her by the god of money in her universe. It charges over time, and when full you can pull it out, type out what an enemy or trap is worth and convert them to your side.

This doesn’t just remove them from combat of course, but also gives you access to them as a limited-use special attack. For enemies this just involves them popping up for a brief attack, but traps stay where they are and can be triggered after you’ve lured foes onto them, usually resulting in far greater damage. In-between stages, enemies you’ve bribed also serve to let you craft armor, which affects your stats and gives you different special moves, and create statues to the god of money. You can also find these in hidden chests during stages and they give you a skill point each to raise your attack, defense, and even special stats like how many times you can use bribed traps.

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Invest Wisely

This is a lot of potential advantages, and you’ll need to take advantage of them, as enemies in Penny Punching Princess can get quite brutal at times, taking off significant chunks of your health if they connect. Every encounter, of which there are several at each stage, pits the odds against you, typically surrounding you with enemies and traps which you’ll need to take advantage of to prevail. Using the calculator can be tricky though, as you have to do so in real-time, and while there is a shortcut you still have to be careful. Luckily as the stages get longer there are checkpoints on every floor.

As for the story, it’s about what you’d expect from a typical Nippon Ichi game. The characters lampoon the silly things about the story, the mooks you encounter in stages spread gossip with you, and your sidekick is a cowardly windbag. I wasn’t too amused by the dialogue, but I also never found it annoying either.

My only real complaint about the game is its cost, which is full-price for both its platforms, the Playstation Vita and Nintendo Switch. While I can tell there’s some replay value here in redoing the stages to try and get a maximum rank, and recruiting more monsters to make armor or statues, it may not be a Disgaea situation where you’ll get a ton of bang for your buck. It’s still a fun game, but whether you find that a fair price or not will probably depend how much of a fan you are of this style of gameplay, and maybe how appealing you find the gimmick. Still, NISA is no stranger to sales so there’s no harm waiting on it.

Verdict

Overall Penny Punching Princess is a simple game that does what it wants to do pretty well. The combat is satisfying and controls well, the presentation is nice, and it’s nice to still see sprites around in games. I give it a save.

When you look at an overhead beat 'em up with RPG elements, it's hard to know what to expect. Penny-Punching Princess features a unique bribing mechanic so get your golden fists ready and let's see how much of a punch this princess packs.

Penny-Punching Princess is set in a world where even weaklings can triumph if they have enough cash. You play as the princess while working through a succession of stages within a chapter-based campaign. It's played a lot like a beat 'em up although from a top-down perspective. As you run around the 2D stages, you'll encounter hordes of enemies in arena-like settings. The basic controls consist of a regular attack, a heavy attack that requires a bit of time to charge, and a dodge move that you can use to escape harm. You also have a special attack that depends on your currently equipped armour. It's simple stuff that's easy to learn.

Where Penny-Punching Princess sets itself apart is its use of the bribe system. Basically, every enemy and hazard has its price and you can pay them off by bringing up a calculator, targeting whatever you want to pay off, then giving them the necessary cash. Doing so converts them from an enemy to a useable item with a limited number of uses. It's a very clever mechanic that allows you to carefully strategize in order to emerge victorious without having to resort to brute force. Thankfully, you can earn money by shaking down enemies via the break touch system. Basically, you spin the right stick around whenever a foe takes a certain threshold of damage. You'll also earn money through finding it in treasure chests and defeating enemies so it's easy to maintain a wealthy balance.

When it comes to graphics and sound, Penny-Punching Princess both impresses and disappoints. For starters, the visuals aren't much better than a run-of-the-mill indie game with basic sprites and generic environments. However, the audio is very well done and surprisingly cute. The music contains many delightful piano-based melodies that provide an overall lighthearted atmosphere and the effects are downright adorable. Listening to the gentle comical patter of the princess' feet as she runs and dodges is so cute.

Back to the gameplay, Penny-Punching Princess features very innovative character progression. In order to increase your base stats, you must either find or create Zenigami statues. Each stage has a handful of them hidden around and they're usually rather obvious and simple to uncover. Also, as you bribe monsters, they join your castle's control center. From there, you can redeem them for pieces of armor or Zenigami statues but you need specific amounts of certain types so replaying stages in order to acquire the necessary foes can be a rewarding endeavor. Overall, I found these systems to be pretty satisfying and they added some significant replay value.

All of that being said, there is an extremely steep difficulty curve. Around the middle of chapter 2, you'll find yourself perishing far more often than you thought you would and it quickly turns into a super-frustrating mess. Even when you play carefully and prepare as much as you can, you'll still bite the dust after a few unfortunate powerful attacks. Because of this, you'll frequently find yourself grinding in order to progress which gets tedious fast. It's especially monotonous considering the gameplay is as basic as it is. After playing through only a few stages, everything begins to feel repetitive due to the simplistic combat formula. Even the bosses aren't very fun.

Penny-Punching Princess is a promising arena beat 'em up with RPG elements and an innovative bribing system. However, its repetitive gameplay and steep difficulty make it an exercise in tedium. Here's hoping for a sequel that remedies its unfortunate shortcomings.

• + Innovative bribing mechanic adds a fun layer to the otherwise simple gameplay
• + Rewarding character progression
• + Cute music and sound effects

• - Overall gameplay is very basic and repetitive
• - Steep difficulty curve requires grinding
• - Humdrum visuals lack distinct flavour