Fat Princess is a semi-competitive MMO/RTS... or, rather doesn't belong to any category. It is online compatible and supports up to 32 players at one time. It is a PS3/PSP-only release and for PS3 users it is a download-only game.
Gameplay: 9.0
Unique gameplay concepts - What drives the game, and what is it similar to?
Fat Princess is a rather obscure game to try to classify, and the best way I can explain it is each player gets to choose a class and enter the battlefield in order to either harvest resources, focus on the game objective or fight the other team.
You are set one one of two teams and pit against each other on symmetrical maps. Your objective can be to either kill the other team, or capture the princess residing in the enemy castle.
The reason the game got the name "Fat Princess" is because anybody can pick up cake spawning around the map and feed it to the Princess. The fatter the Princess is, the slower the person carrying her will move. If she is at her max weight, it will take more than one person carrying her to make any reasonable progress. And, instead of typical capture the flag games, you must move your princess back to her starting point if the enemy team drops her, rather than defending that position and waiting for it to return.
You begin the game with 5 or more classes available (depending on downloaded content) and you pick up a hat in order to choose your class. Hats are made in your castle by hat machines, or can be picked up on the battlefield from a dead teammate or enemy. The classes are Warrior, Mage, Priest, Ranger and Worker (Pirate, Ninja and Giant if you have all of the Downloadable Content). All of the classes are pretty self-explanatory, except the Worker.
The Worker is the class that carries objects the fastest and harvests resources the fastest. They can also build objects like castle doors, ladders, catapults, bridges and springboards to help their team get around the map or prevent the enemy from easily entering their castle, and they can upgrade their team's hat machines to make their classes gain extra abilities and become more powerful.
Overall, pretty much every class is fun to use, and you can usually choose your niche in the game in terms of how to be effective.
It would be nice if feeding the princess was more long-lasting, because one person focusing on running cake during the entire game still isn't much to keep her fed and fat enough to slow the enemy team down. You're better served just fighting or harvesting resources, instead. If it were up to me, I'd make cake spawn in your castle, closer to the princess, so one person could focus on keeping her fat and the trade-off would be a more defensive strategy, while you lose a person harvesting or fighting. In online games, rarely ever do people run cake, and it's for a good reason. Considering the basis behind the game is making the objective item more difficult to carry and how difficult they made that objective, that was a little disappointing.
Presentation: 10.0
Graphical and audio presentation (animation, texturing, overall look & artistic style)
Fat Princess is a cel-shaded game, which as I've mentioned before usually is odd, but in this game it is perfect because it is a simple game, a silly game and a more cartoon-like premise. The audio goes right in line with making a cute, quirky game.
Theatrics: 8.5
Story, Dialogue, Cut-Scenes and Artistic Use of Camera
The story in Fat Princess is pretty simple, and actually kind of non-essential to the game. Their campaign mode is playing a normal game, each on a different map, until the campaign is over. Between games, you're told a chapter of their story book, and it really has nothing to do with the games you're playing. It's as if you were playing any RTS and between the different fights you were told a part of an unrelated story. Meh.
The announcer's dialogue and the random things you'll hear on the battlefield are entertaining and clever, though. Overall, not bad, considering there basically isn't a story to this game.
Controls: 10.0
Ease of Use and Smoothness of Controls
Very good controls. No real complaints considering the simplicity of the game.
Replay Value: 7.5
Total Gameplay Time versus Expected
I rated this a little low because of their limited networking capabilities making playing online less enjoyable than playing against computers.
But, the problem with playing against only computers is that their behavior is very predictable and often going against common sense.
There are problems on both sides, and overall it adds up to the game still being overly simple and bigger games will likely take your time over once the novelty of the game has worn off.
Fun: 9.0
How much fun was the game?
Fat Princess is a pretty fun game, with pretty innovative concepts. It's a simple game so it's easy to pick up and play.
My Overall Rating: 8.5
Appeal and Recommendations
It's a fun little game. Download the demo on the PS3 because it's free and simulates the full game pretty well. It's cheap, and you'll get a reasonable amount of play-time out of it.
I think it's fun, but I don't play it a ton. My wife plays it more than I do and she'll rarely pick up new games. It seems like it has pretty good range.
I would also play it on Hard, since even on Hard the computers aren't as good as an actual person. Any lower difficulty would be far too easy.
Gameplay: 9.0
Unique gameplay concepts - What drives the game, and what is it similar to?
Fat Princess is a rather obscure game to try to classify, and the best way I can explain it is each player gets to choose a class and enter the battlefield in order to either harvest resources, focus on the game objective or fight the other team.
You are set one one of two teams and pit against each other on symmetrical maps. Your objective can be to either kill the other team, or capture the princess residing in the enemy castle.
The reason the game got the name "Fat Princess" is because anybody can pick up cake spawning around the map and feed it to the Princess. The fatter the Princess is, the slower the person carrying her will move. If she is at her max weight, it will take more than one person carrying her to make any reasonable progress. And, instead of typical capture the flag games, you must move your princess back to her starting point if the enemy team drops her, rather than defending that position and waiting for it to return.
You begin the game with 5 or more classes available (depending on downloaded content) and you pick up a hat in order to choose your class. Hats are made in your castle by hat machines, or can be picked up on the battlefield from a dead teammate or enemy. The classes are Warrior, Mage, Priest, Ranger and Worker (Pirate, Ninja and Giant if you have all of the Downloadable Content). All of the classes are pretty self-explanatory, except the Worker.
The Worker is the class that carries objects the fastest and harvests resources the fastest. They can also build objects like castle doors, ladders, catapults, bridges and springboards to help their team get around the map or prevent the enemy from easily entering their castle, and they can upgrade their team's hat machines to make their classes gain extra abilities and become more powerful.
Overall, pretty much every class is fun to use, and you can usually choose your niche in the game in terms of how to be effective.
It would be nice if feeding the princess was more long-lasting, because one person focusing on running cake during the entire game still isn't much to keep her fed and fat enough to slow the enemy team down. You're better served just fighting or harvesting resources, instead. If it were up to me, I'd make cake spawn in your castle, closer to the princess, so one person could focus on keeping her fat and the trade-off would be a more defensive strategy, while you lose a person harvesting or fighting. In online games, rarely ever do people run cake, and it's for a good reason. Considering the basis behind the game is making the objective item more difficult to carry and how difficult they made that objective, that was a little disappointing.
Presentation: 10.0
Graphical and audio presentation (animation, texturing, overall look & artistic style)
Fat Princess is a cel-shaded game, which as I've mentioned before usually is odd, but in this game it is perfect because it is a simple game, a silly game and a more cartoon-like premise. The audio goes right in line with making a cute, quirky game.
Theatrics: 8.5
Story, Dialogue, Cut-Scenes and Artistic Use of Camera
The story in Fat Princess is pretty simple, and actually kind of non-essential to the game. Their campaign mode is playing a normal game, each on a different map, until the campaign is over. Between games, you're told a chapter of their story book, and it really has nothing to do with the games you're playing. It's as if you were playing any RTS and between the different fights you were told a part of an unrelated story. Meh.
The announcer's dialogue and the random things you'll hear on the battlefield are entertaining and clever, though. Overall, not bad, considering there basically isn't a story to this game.
Controls: 10.0
Ease of Use and Smoothness of Controls
Very good controls. No real complaints considering the simplicity of the game.
Replay Value: 7.5
Total Gameplay Time versus Expected
I rated this a little low because of their limited networking capabilities making playing online less enjoyable than playing against computers.
But, the problem with playing against only computers is that their behavior is very predictable and often going against common sense.
There are problems on both sides, and overall it adds up to the game still being overly simple and bigger games will likely take your time over once the novelty of the game has worn off.
Fun: 9.0
How much fun was the game?
Fat Princess is a pretty fun game, with pretty innovative concepts. It's a simple game so it's easy to pick up and play.
My Overall Rating: 8.5
Appeal and Recommendations
It's a fun little game. Download the demo on the PS3 because it's free and simulates the full game pretty well. It's cheap, and you'll get a reasonable amount of play-time out of it.
I think it's fun, but I don't play it a ton. My wife plays it more than I do and she'll rarely pick up new games. It seems like it has pretty good range.
I would also play it on Hard, since even on Hard the computers aren't as good as an actual person. Any lower difficulty would be far too easy.
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