Re-release this: Princess Crown
And do it in English this time.
This column is “Re-release this,” which will focus on games that aren’t easily available, or even available at all, but should be once again. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.
You might not know Princess Crown, but it’s likely you know who was behind its development. George Kamitani was the director of the Sega Saturn action RPG, which was at one point in its creation so obscure that we don’t actually know the name of the company he was developing it at before they closed down. Atlus ended up keeping the project alive, however, and Sega published it after requesting it convert from a life simulation game a la Princess Maker to an action RPG so the Saturn had more of them.
Kamitani, of course, is one of the founders of Vanillaware, and also the director and designer for a number of their projects. Princess Crown is, in many respects, the game that eventually launched Vanillaware. The large, detailed characters, the style of fighting — though Princess Crown is more focused on one-on-one fighting game-style encounters than with mobs — the way you collect and use items, the way exploration is mapped out… if you’ve played Odin Sphere before, you have a sense of how Princess Crown works, even if you’ve never actually seen it in action. There is also, too, that Princess Crown’s commercial failure led to it being difficult for Kamitani to go any route other than forming his own studio if he wanted to lead development. So, after bouncing around working on projects for Atlus and Square, Kamitani ended up forming Puraguru, which would become Vanillaware. The name and the company have both stuck.
George Kamitani had been an artist and designer in his game development career prior to Princess Crown, working at Capcom and then in a freelance capacity — Princess Crown was his chance to branch out beyond that role. With Capcom, he worked on side-scrolling beat ‘em ups and fighters like Saturday Night Slam Masters, and the kind of attention to detail that you see in the animation for those games carried over into his own projects. In the present, that means Kamitani’s and Vanillaware’s moving painting animation in 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, but back in 1997, it meant detailed, massive sprites that made use of all of that extra size.
The Sega Saturn might have sometimes been iffy when it came to producing 3D games, but it was 32 bits of beauty when it came to sprites, and Princess Crown took full advantage of that. The background art is bright and colorful, but it’s also pretty repetitive and doesn’t necessarily stand out. The sprites, though, the sprites! There’s incredible detail in them, with the team of artists making sure to do something with the fact these sprites were so huge, and they animate so well.
Sure, nothing in here stands up to what Vanillaware would eventually do, no, but two things to consider there: we’re comparing earlier work to some of the most gorgeous video game art going in this century, produced on and for more powerful platforms, and as is these are still some of the finest 32-bit sprites around, right up there with not just the best of what’s on the Saturn, but on other comparable systems, too. Any deficiency in Princess Crown’s look has more to do with how much better the art design would get in games Kamitani was involved in than anything that’s actually wrong with this game itself.
The way Princess Gradriel acts as she runs or eats — she’s fully armored, with heavy metal gauntlets on her arms and a skirt that can deflect a blade, but she runs all proper-like as a young, noble lady would — is as charming and character-affirming as it is visually impressive. Her sword is huge, and is carried to her by her fairy friend at the start of each encounter, which is its own visual entertainment. Enemies move so fluidly as they come at you or back away, and while the backgrounds are just kind of there in comparison, everything moving in front of them has had life breathed into them by the animators.
Here’s video of the game running on a Saturn, showing off the game’s intro, initial cutscene, and early gameplay running around the castle, fighting, traveling between destinations, and within an early town:
If you can’t read Japanese, what was going on in there was probably a little tough to follow, even if it was pretty. Here’s the basic setup for Princess Crown: Gradriel is the youngest of three royals sisters, but she’s in line to inherit the throne, anyway, because the older two are twins. And in this fantasy world, twins are considered a bad omen; it would be ruinous for the kingdom if one of them were to lead it. So, the youngest inherits the crown instead, assuming not just that but also the role of her mother as the defender of this kingdom. She repelled demons back in her day, as you saw in the video above if you watched it, and her daughter is now going to have do to the same. Even if she has to start out her quest by sneaking out of the castle to do it. She is 13, after all, inheritor to the crown and its armaments or no.
Battles aren’t overly taxing here, and since encounters aren’t like they would be in Vanillaware’s own titles where gangs of enemies can overwhelm you if you aren’t careful — or at least shave off enough health consistently that you don’t have enough of that or healing items to recover it left for the massive and far more difficult boss encounters — they’re usually pretty simple to get through. You’ll also find you almost always have more healing items in your inventory than you need, thanks to how plentiful they are out in the world. Money might not grow on trees, but Princess Crown’s healing items do, and your health is refilled whenever you gain a level, as well.
The one thing you do need to watch out for in battles is to avoid button mashing, as it’ll use up your POW meter, which drains and refills within each battle. Standing around refills the meter quickly, but your actions (including blocking) will all drain it, and if it’s drained, you’re merely a target until it refills. Getting the hang of the timing of it all can be tricky — especially when it comes to using healing items mid-battle, since that can be interrupted — and you’ll need to maybe relearn some of it again when you do end up fighting more than one enemy at a time. Groups of enemies will tag team against you, not attack you all at once, which mostly means lengthier encounters with more potential for taking damage. The early fights are real simple, however, so you have some room to tinker and get a feel for it, at least.
Boss fights are tougher, but again, healing items are plentiful and you won’t find yourself underpowered or anything so long as you visit shops and spend what you’ve earned in encounters you can’t skip, so you can work your way through these bouts regardless of the climb in difficulty there. Assuming the bosses aren’t constantly knocking your healing food out of your hands, anyway. The real and continual struggle in the game is simply figuring out where to go, which is partially due to it being in Japanese, and partially because of the repetitive backgrounds combined with a map that kind of just implies directions you can take rather than actually, well, mapping things out.
Once you’ve finished the main game with Gradriel, you can play additional stories featuring the other characters that she interacts with regularly during her own story, told from their perspective. Each of the three (Edward, Prosperpina, and Portgus) has their own familiar, none of which resemble Gradriel’s fairy, and while the existence of these stories does mean more Princess Crown to play, they also aren’t in English, so, the enjoyment really stems from more of the fighting and exploring, if you’re still happy to be doing all of that by this point.
There is an unofficial translation in progress, and as implied above, it’s necessary. Princess Crown is fun, but it is a bit lengthy and repetitive in its current form if you can’t read Japanese. Any of the flavor that could push you on as battling becomes a little stale or same-y isn’t around, otherwise: you can figure out some story beats, sure, but this is a game with a ton of conversation, side missions, and character, and you can experience basically none of it other than through nonverbals and character animations if you can’t read Japanese. You end up kind of having to talk to everyone simply to trigger new events — you must speak with both of your sisters before leaving the castle, for instance, as well as try to leave and then come back inside before actually being able to exit, and you can unlock side missions through conversation without knowing just what those side missions actually are or entail — which can leave you feeling a little emptier than you should. I only know about why Gradriel is the crown princess instead of her older sisters because I went out on my own to read story details, not because I could figure it out from the game itself. Until a translation is out, official or otherwise, you’re probably going to need to follow along with a FAQ to see who you missed talking to or where you might need to head next when given branching paths.
While Princess Crown remains obscure in the west, it’s seen a few releases in Japan. There is the original, of course, as well as a port for the Playstation Portable that probably needed a bit more work done to it, and Atlus also released it as part of a bonus with 13 Sentinels in Japan. While there is a following outside of Japan, it’s not so large that an unofficial translation already exists: this is a project that’s been picked up and put down a couple of times over the last decade-plus, but also appears as if it’s finally nearing the end. Whether that means a release in 2023, or much further down the line, is unclear: these kinds of projects are done by talented folks on the side and not for money, so… life happens, you know? That’s why the people who originally worked on it aren’t all still working on it, and why projects other than Princess Crown end up changing hands a few times before they end up released in a playable form. What is known, though, is that Princess Crown will be more enjoyable when that translation patch finally does release, and the expectation is that there will be one for both the Saturn and PSP versions of the game.
In the meantime, Odin’s Sphere and Dragon’s Crown are both basically spiritual successors to Princess Crown and available in places that aren’t Japan. Odin Sphere (Playstation 2, digital on Playstation 3, remastered for Playstation 4 and Vita) carried on many of the gameplay elements and style of Princess Crown and was completed well before its release — despite GrimGrimoire releasing first, Odin Sphere was completed but had its release delayed until 2007 by Atlus so they could ride their Persona high a little longer. The first place Kamitani went on his own, basically, was back to Princess Crown in a different form. Dragon’s Crown has an even more direct relationship with Princess Crown, as it was supposed to be a sequel to that game all the way back on the Dreamcast, only it ended up being shelved for years and years until Vanillaware got Atlus to publish it on the Playstation 3 and Vita. The art obviously changed (in a way that was, let’s say, controversial to some) but the care and attention to detail that Kamitani and his team displayed in Princess Crown… well, you can easily draw a straight line from 1997 to 2013, is all.
Princess Crown doesn’t necessarily hold up quality-wise in comparison to what Vanillaware would eventually produce, but again, that’s mostly more on the high quality of Vanillaware’s work than anything seriously wrong with Princess Crown. It’s still a good time even if has its frustrations and isn’t as refined or engaging as Odin Sphere, with its larger cast of playable characters and fighting styles and also English script. Princess Crown has some problems, but it’s more than just a curiosity that gives insight into the origins of Vanillaware, and is a game that not nearly enough people have played because of the language barrier in conjunction with it being a Saturn game. If you haven’t played it yet, it might be worth waiting for that translation patch so you can experience the best version of it that can balance out some of its lack of refinement by getting you to laugh or at least keep you from getting lost, and if you have played it before, well, you already know you’re going to play it again once that patch hits, no sense denying that. You already bothered when it was just in Japanese, you’re in too deep to do otherwise.
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