A new review saunters onto SuperPhillip Central for a game that released just under a month ago: Princess of the Water Lilies. This currently PC-exclusive game takes players on a short and mostly sweet puzzle-platforming adventure. Let's sink our claws into the game with the SPC review.
Cat's Quest, Too.
It's generally agreed upon that the AAA space in gaming typically sticks to the tried and true, while indies do a lot more in the way of innovation. Part of that is out of needing to in order to survive on the market--for both big publishers and indies. Take Princess of the Water Lilies, for example. It's an artistic adventure featuring puzzles and platforming, environmental storytelling, and a beautiful game world to explore. It's something that fulfills a niche that isn't a road already well traveled by other games. That's commendable, for sure, but does it make for an engaging game? Good question!
The story of Princess of the Water Lilies begins with an unassuming cardboard box drifting along a river, upon which a grey kitten pops out. She slowly climbs over to the shore before collapsing from exhaustion. Fortunately, a nearby frog stumbles upon the tired kitty and carries her to safety. The aforementioned amphibian is part of a larger family of frogs who not only nurture the kitten back to good health but also take her in as part of their family. Eventually what follows is an attack on the forest that the frogs and now the kitten call home, as well as abductions of animals throughout the world by strange mechanical beings.
Throughout the game, Princess of the Water Lilies uses no dialogue to tell its tale, going for a "show, don't tell" approach that works well overall. It's not an especially complex story, but it's one that is riveting enough to see it through to its conclusion--despite some gameplay frustrations here and there.
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| Right away you'll notice the beauty possessed by Princess of the Water Lilies. |
Princess of the Water Lilies is a 2D puzzle-platformer utilizing limited combat. Really, the only true battling is done against the handful of bosses--and I'll get to those in a little bit. There are five main zones within the game world, and each offers different environmental challenges as well as new mechanics to keep the experience fresh from beginning to end.
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While this purple mushroom moves about, the vines in its close |
For instance, the Caverns contain strings of web that our kitten heroine can climb up and slide down (though this is a bit clunky in execution, particularly when trying to let go of said web string) as well as moving mushrooms that can either be used for bouncing with the brown variations or used to appear and disappear vines and ivy from the path. Meanwhile, the Mountain features special cactus that climb up walls and on ceilings, which can be held onto. It also has dandelion puffs that can be grabbed and used to soar and sail into the air.
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| These cactus squares are purr-fect to sink this cat's claws into and ride! |
Despite the different mechanics used in each area of the game, Princess of the Water Lilies basic gameplay loop remains similar across them all. You go from--for lack of a better term--room to room, and in each room you are need to find a "key" to open a locked "door". I put quotes around each term, as the form of the "keys" and "doors" change with each area. In the first area of the game, the Forest, you take Beetles (the keys) to Frogs (the doors) to have them allow you to pass and progress.
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| For our feline's frog friends, nothing beats a beetle! |
Our feline friend doesn't have a huge repertoire at her disposal, but it does the job for what the game world requires of her. She can swipe her paw to interact with characters and switches, she can purr to stun enemies that would otherwise defeat her in one hit, and she can climb up mossy walls, vines, and the previously mentioned strings of web.
Being that it's one hit and kitty no longer sits pretty--instead she essentially perishes--you might think that this is a recipe for frustration. The answer is contextual: yes and no. With generous checkpoints in both exploration and the boss battles, there's seldom too much progress lost upon death. That said, boss battles do feel out of place by virtue of their difficulty. While veteran platforming fans shouldn't have too terribly much trouble taking down each beast thrown at our feline heroine, less skilled players may see themselves needing a lot of patience, constant redoing and repeating albeit short segments and sections of battles, and getting aggravated by the difficulty jumps that these fights possess.
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| Most are alright, but some boss battles are a particularly strong part of this game... in annoying me. |
Whether it's scurrying from a pursuing camel that breathes flames and launches fireballs in your path, scaling up spider webs all the while evading balls of silk shot from a gigantic spider chasing you, or attempting to swim safely through patches of toxic bubbles blown out from a huge mechanical seahorse in an almost bullet hell-like fashion, these battles definitely up the ante in challenge to what is otherwise a relatively breezy game. At times, I was enjoying the level of challenge, but other times I felt I was having fun despite these fights. It seemed like RNG was a factor in whether I succeeded or failed a section of battle.
Besides boss battles and searching for "keys", there are a fair amount of secrets within the game--chiefly optional animals that can be rescued from cages, usually placed behind secret walls with telltale signs of their hidden nature. Now, these are generally not too taxing to find if you're keeping an eye on your surroundings and little "hints" in the environments, but they're also not exactly easy peasy to find, either.
Princess of the Water Lilies is not a lengthy game by any stretch of the imagination. It took just over three hours for me to complete the game with every discovery found. An additional hour-and-a-half of playtime was dedicated for me to a speedrunning achievement--beating the game in under the three hours that I barely missed out on my first run--as well as some miscellaneous tasks that one wouldn't think about doing in any playthrough, really. (Seriously, who would think about slapping a cute and precious seal 100 times?)
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| This area of the game features currents, toxic water, and other lots and lots of swimming. |
What Princess of the Water Lilies lacks in duration, it definitely makes up for in its presentation. It's a gorgeous game with beautifully drawn visuals somewhat reminiscent of Rayman Legends, which if you know my love for that game's art direction, that's a hefty compliment by virtue of comparison! The music, too, is impressive, offering a superb symphonic sound that can hit the heartstrings occasionally with its stirring moody melodies.
Whether it's tacky of me to try to make a value proposition on an artful game like this or not, in the end, Princess of the Water Lilies is a relatively short experience that might be best to wait on a sale before delving into. Taking less than five hours to complete all of its achievements and factoring in its modest amount of frustrations gameplay-wise (but when they hit, they DO hit hard--looking at you, bosses), and you do have some negatives, for sure. On the opposite side of the spectrum, it is also worth noting how the game offers a great deal of charm, rather clever ideas in its puzzles and mechanics, and how it kept me engaged from start to finish, as well. All this amounts to is a title in Princess of the Water Lilies that is worth at the very least experiencing--anyone's playtime versus price proposition notwithstanding.
[SPC Says: C+]
A Steam code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
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