When I play a smaller game that really has an effect on me, I’m usually cool with not getting more of it. The advantage of artful, smaller-scope projects is that they can concisely say what they need to say without being beholden to all the forever-game nonsense that infects the AAA space. However, I’ll make an exception for Black Tabby Games’ horror visual novel Slay the Princess, one of the best games from 2023. The Pristine Cut expansion incorporates its new material smoothly with that of the original release, giving you more of what makes it so great and serving as a welcome reminder that this is an incredible game.
For the uninitiated, Slay the Princess is, on its face, about killing a monarch. Your character wakes up in a strange forest, told by a narrator that he’s meant to find a cabin where a princess awaits, locked in its basement. Allegedly, she will destroy the world if she’s allowed to escape, but do you just take the narrator’s word for it? Whether you do or not will see the story go down one of several different paths. It could end in the princess’ demise, she could retaliate and kill you, or a number of other things could happen, but one way or another, someone will leave the cabin forever changed…until the entire scenario starts over from the very beginning.
Slay the Princess’ time loop starts the same way each time, but it never ends like it did before. Each time you descend the stairs of the cabin, you’ll find that what was once an unassuming princess has turned into one of several different unspeakable horrors. Some you’ll slay, others will slay you. Each route preys on different fears and disgusts, as the princess turns into monsters, animals, ghouls, and other terrifying creatures, all punctuated by Black Tabby’s stellar, evocative writing and the game’s excellent voice cast. The Pristine Cut mostly just offers more of all that good stuff, and the new routes it introduces are worth seeing. If you’ve never played Slay the Princess before, these new horrors are woven into the game for you to stumble upon, flowing naturally in its time-loop structure. Slay the Princess is the kind of game that can get swaths of new story without stepping on the toes of its core premise, so even after I’d had my previous experience with it, I was more than happy to dive into what new horrors Black Tabby had concocted.
One of the new routes The Pristine Cut introduces to the game utilizes its time-loop structure to show the unspeakable horror that is monotony in your love life, and it reminded me that Slay the Princess’ horror comes not just from the terrifying forms the princess takes, but from how its situations play into human fears and phobias about our relationships with others. I spent a lot of time in 2023 singing Slay the Princess’ praises but after a year away, I wondered if I might have cooled on Black Tabby’s brand of romantic, psychological horror. It turns out coming back only solidified for me that this is an incredibly special game. If you’ve never played Slay the Princess, there’s never been a better time to walk down the stairs of the cabin.
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