A game best eaten with friends
The original Fat princess was a stylized take on two flag CTF. The large multiplayer community, humour and sharp look that strikes a nice difference between fairy tale purity and a splattering of blood from these fairytale characters.
Now a little less than a year later Fat Princess has been "remade" for the psp. The game is still tons of fun to play and most of the modes feel solid with the exception of "queens rules" which feels like a tacky add-on. The only real difference between the old game and the new one is that there are new maps and a new story. The new maps are quite large and fit right in with the rest of the original game maps, while the humourous story brings in new conepts with a nice difficulty curve and are only borught down by the game's faults(which I'll get to now) The gameplay itself is enjoyable though limited by the fact you only have one attack button. Your attacks consist of normal and strong attacks, with the latter activated by holding down the same button for a few seconds. Of course you have five classes to choose from(not including villagers) and you can upgrade the classes to get a second weapon for each. The classes all do well although some of the balance issues that plagued the original game persist in this one. The warrior can still slice through multiple enemies and instantly kill them with a charged up attack after being upgraded and the upgraded ranger's shotgun can kill enemies from somewhat long distance with only a few hits.
Unfortunately the PSP version has even more problems as the AI on your team is horrible. You can recruit groups of AI but if you recruit a mage to heal you he'll only help you if you're hurt the moment after you recruit him. After that he'll just follow you and heal teamates that pass by wheter you've been hurt or not. Enemy AI seems to work perfectly and stick to small groups that attack strategically, which makes me wonder why the AI on your team can't be just as smart. Your AI also doesn't understand the meaning of resources and nearly all your AI will switch to offensive classes unless you decide to play Invasion mode where each team is forced to gather resources to change classes. Strangely you always have AI come to fix doors or fix/upgrade your hat machines(class modifiers for new fat princess players). It's as if all the AI run to fight, and as soon as you've gathered enough resources they come back just to waste them.
A high point is the game doesn't lag much even when the screen goes a little crazy. On the other hand the characters themselves and some of the in game objects such as trees and rocks look anywhere from PSP prototypes to DS made. The look itself is nice, but when on the psp's market, there are shooters and brawlers both online and offline that look much better comparitively and probably make better use of the system's power.
The online mode is fun though. But only 4 of the sixteen players in an online match will be human. Also the online mode doesn't support voice chat and you can't play with specific people online. But this doesn't mean it's not fun to play online, as the inclusion of real people makes the game a much more working and fun experience. You can alternitively play the game with eight friends if you all have the game and PSPs, but most people don't have eight friends all with PSPs who are willing to buy this game and find time to play it together.
The last portion of the game is the story mode. The story is funny and finds a way to include the best parts of the game into a sensible but funny story that will make you chuckle, especially when the lines are read by the narrator. The game also has a nice difficuly curve throughout the story, but it's ruined by the AI's faults which become more and more apparent as you have to compensate for them over and over again.
I really find Fat Princess an interesting concept and game, and was looking forward to the PSP version as I'm one of the people who can't afford an HD console. Unfortunatly the AI and lack of polish on the game make it hard to recommend the multiplayer unless you have a bunch of friends who are willing to play with you. And It's pretty much impossible to recommend the story mode.
