Review – Slay the Princess: The Pristine Cut (Switch)

Very often, it bothers me when people recommend going into a game blind. The concept is clear: you want to make sure someone experiences a grand, epic revelation without spoilers or another person’s influence. But some people need to at least have a rudimentary idea of what to expect when they set out on any sort of new engagement. If someone told my daughter to go into a Thai restaurant blind, she’d get carted out in an ambulance due to a massive nuts allergy. If I told literally anyone to go into Deliverance blind I’d probably lose a friendship for not giving proper warning about certain events beforehand. So why on earth should Slay the Princess get a special pass? Why should people go into this acclaimed title knowing nothing about it?

If all you want is someone to tell you whether you should or should not go into Slay the Princess: The Pristine Cut with no knowledge, just go for it. Frankly, I’d say that for 90% of games because most of them are better without someone casting their own opinion onto your interaction. But that’s not how the world works, not really, and if you just picked up Brutal Legend without a bit of foresight you’d probably be as disappointed as many were when the game first dropped over a decade ago. So, sure, if you want to know nothing, go play Slay the Princess and I’ll keep writing for everyone else. You know, the whole reason you came to read a game review. 

One last bit of sidequest before we get into this review of an incredible, memorable, heartstopping creation by Black Tabby Games. I’m going to be spoiling things. It’s unavoidable in trying to review the game and also talk about what makes The Pristine Cut a definitive edition, and not just because it’s on the Switch. I’ll be talking about characters and voices. I’ll talk about settings and turns. I’ll absolutely talk about at least ONE ending because I think it’s important to the overall critique of this game. So if you’re trying to eat your cake and have it too, then jump down to the score, get the blurb and go from there. But if you want some context, some meat, some visceral tenants that make this game one of my favorites of the year, then read on.

For Slay the Princess, this is little more than a visual novel that has more choices than the last five Japanese VNs that I’ve played combined. You are an unknown character, possibly a knight or a hero of some kind, and you’re on a path in the woods. You are told by The Narrator that the path will lead to a cabin, the cabin will have a basement, and in the basement is a princess. Your job, as the title implies, is to slay said Princess. You are told, in no uncertain terms, that the Princess will bring about the end of the world if she is allowed to live. So trot over to this mostly empty hovel, grab the knife near the door, descend the stairs and end the Princess’ life. Do that and you’re a hero, full stop, and the world is saved.

And it really can be that simple. I think all of us are aware that games sometimes try to trick you and pull the rug out from under you, but there’s no deceit in Slay the Princess. With unfettered determination, you can walk into the cabin, head down the stairs, stab the Princess without engaging at all and you can end the game. Look at you. Such a great little goon, listening to the words of what your master tells you to do without a single extra thought. Don’t be down on yourself: I tried the same thing. I got a great ending, there was confetti, and all was fabulous. If I was excited for a game with a black and white aesthetic with five minutes of gameplay, then I could tick the box off and simply move on with my day. 

But…why? Why is this all happening? What comes from this assassination? Who is this Narrator telling me what to do? Where on earth am I? And what does the Princess have to say about all this? I know, we traditionally shouldn’t engage with our marks to find out why we are putting them in the ground, but there’s only so many options in this game. And what’s the worst that could happen if I simply want to set down the knife and talk for a moment?

This impulse, this very human idea of curiosity, is the release of all that is complex, mysterious, terrifying and brain bending about Slay the Princess: The Pristine Cut. The act of our protagonist wanting to find out more and making choices other than the most obvious ones lead to an ever increasing, ever confusing spiral of events and ideas. The Princess, as you might have guessed, is not what she seems, and her grim approach to getting released from the basement will shock you if you end up on the right dialogue tree. She is a being that shape shifts and changes her ideas, her approach and her demeanor based around how you approach her. It takes only one moment of hesitation for your world to be spun upside down, and, more importantly, for you to die.

From here, this compelling exploration of consequence brings players further and further into a tale that, in any other hands, might be boring, or text heavy, or simply too inscrutable to be enjoyed in any other medium. Though it emulates a lot of my favorite Choose Your Own Adventure ideas, the tome that would contain Slay the Princess would be bigger and heavier than the letter R edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. Picking only one path and turning it into a movie or tv series would completely defang everything that’s brutal and exciting about making your choices. This is a definitive example of not only why video games can be an artistic medium, but why some dreams and nightmares can be brought to life best through a game and a specific interface.

I was never bored. Not once, in all the incarnations, in all the times that I found myself back on the same path, was I ever bored or caught in a feeling of tedium. Even when the storyline slammed shut and I was now laden with even more lore and information that I could not decipher, I was always eager to get right back to heading up to the cabin and finding out what would happen next. My choices, my options, my direct actions were constantly in flux, being challenged by the Princess and the Narrator, and I was ready to hear next about what on earth I had done right or wrong and how it affected this new, wild reality.

Every iteration of Slay the Princess was a surprise that also had a clear threadline to my previous choices. My hesitation turns into a role reversal of power and submission. My attempts to initiate combat bring forth a true foe to do me in. My fear can craft a version of the Princess that is lethal, horrific and remorseless. My attempts to woo call forth a romance that is doomed from the moment it began. It’s not just that there are multiple incarnations of the game to face, but the fact that they’re clever enough to make sense and make me want to initiate these variants. It’s not just “let’s go back and try another dialogue branch,” it’s that there’s cohesion and a frightening logic to it all.

Amidst the careful exposition and upsetting descriptions of all the eldritch madness cropping up before me are moments of brilliant comedy, which bordered on obscene in a setting like this. Black Tabby Games has written a script that has beats and pacing that can positively blow you away at just the right moment. As the frustration of both the Hero and the Narrator increased, the sharp barbs of conversation and dry-as-desert wit made me laugh out loud even as I was facing my own death again. When you’ve surpassed moments of disbelief and incredulity and gone straight into the absurd, you have no real choice but to laugh at the entire situation. Yes, I’m being murdered down to my molecular level, but c’mon, it’s at least a little funny!

The brilliant design of Slay the Princess: The Pristine Cut is further enhanced by two key factors: the visuals and the audio. The choice to create something that’s inherently black-and-white with occasional shoots of red is a dynamic choice that only pops more on a screen that’s seemingly always in shadow. The stereoscopic effect makes the gyroscope of the Switch such a delight to view the game from multiple angles at all time, allowing you to feel a sense of disorientation and giddiness as you descend the stairs again and again, wondering what awaits you this time around. The shifts in your environment as the woods, the cabin and the Princess herself morph are often shocking, and always a delight to behold as your life begins anew.

The only issue I had with the game throughout my playthrough was the graphical effects, unfortunately. As I was playing on the Switch, this now seven year old system, that was arguably underpowered when it launched, had some issues when the environment started getting a bit chaotic. Most notably, when you enter into the Nightmare scenario and the Princess is able to sort of fade in and out of existence, the Switch begins chugging and, eventually, freezes and stops completely. It didn’t crash again when I reloaded, thankfully,but I was still wary.I only bring this up because there are settings to turn on and off the effects at will, so I recommend Switch players take the hit, tamp down the excitement until the exchange is finished, and then turn them back on later.

When the graphics stopped, I thought the game was happening because I was still entranced by the dynamic scoring that Slay the Princess proudly puts on aural display for the duration of the game. This soundtrack has as many faces and personalities as the Princess does, giving you a totally different ambience with each life lived, with each new approach. Best of all, a majority of the soundtrack chooses to stay sparse and minimalist, adding to the constant tension and anxiety that comes with the discovery of your new reality. When the soft, mournful vocals arrived at the end of each “life,” it sent a delightful shiver up my spine to know that I had reached a point of conversation, of reflection, and one step closer to some kind of end…or perhaps beginning.

Lastly, I cannot heap enough praise onto the voice cast of Slay the Princess. In spite of there being what feels like twenty different voices to contest with, there are only two voice actors in the game, and they do a magnificent job. Jonathan Sims takes on the mantle of the Narrator, the Hero, and all the different versions of the Hero who are splintered into being by your choices and your deaths. In spite of Sims clearly being himself, there is painstaking effort to make sure every single voice has its own personality, its own weight and importance, and, when an argument inevitably breaks out between upwards of eight different beings, it’s astonishing to realize it’s all the same person. To have to emulate yourself as several people who are arrogant, spiteful, cunning, broken, terrified and utterly fed up, each in turn, is magnificent.

But Nichole Goodnight. Oh, the voice of the Princess herself. This is an award winning performance, top to bottom. The Princess changes as wildly as the Hero does, but in an even more dramatic way. To shift from being a helpless, scared woman to a cold and cunning monster in the blink of an eye is a delight, and the shapeshifting doesn’t end there. I can feel the emotion just oozing through the speakers with each of Goodnight’s lines, whether she’s trying to intimidate you, enchant you, prey on your phobias or is just matter of factly letting you know she’s about to kill you. The Princess is a begin beyond comprehension, and Goodnight has made it known that her voice is something that is both beyond mortality and also far, far too human. Hands down, my favorite English VA performance in years and years.

Slay the Princess: The Pristine Cut is a game without peers and without comparison. It’s a visual novel for players who want to stay for a long time and hear, feel and grapple with a massive undertaking. It’s not nearly as long as some visual novels, but it has a tangibility and density that makes it a meal with every single interaction. There are so many variations to discover, so many lines of dialogue performed, but you won’t even know how many until you get your first “real” ending. Now finally on console, this is a game for everyone who enjoys an excellent story, and this is a tale that must be told again, and again, and again. Don’t worry if you don’t understand the first time around: the Princess has all the time in the world to educate you.

Graphics: 9.5 The way things are etched and crafted brings the environment to life, giving players moments of creeping dread even as it’s meant to be serene and peaceful. The Princess and her environment are ever changing and ever present, and I couldn’t imagine this game done in any other fashion.	Gameplay: 9.0 An ideal number of dialogue choices from the very beginning, the game does a superb job of expanding and compounding questions and answers at the right time, never leading you to a certain conclusion but letting you walk there yourself. Some of the best turns of conversation since Disco Elysium.
Sound: 10 I could listen to a playthrough of Slay the Princess any day of the week, all day long. Sims and Goodnight are a dynamic voice acting duo, and their words are perfectly framed by the chilly, ethereal soundtrack that seems to ehnance their words. Just a magnificent effort and my hands down favorite voice performance of the year.	Fun Factor: 10 I had to keep playing. I had to keep trying. What on earth is happening? Where is the cabin? Why do I keep seeing a mirror? IS THAT MY HAND? Where’s the door? Is she…is she made of KNIVES? I need to stop arguing with myself before… Everything goes dark, and you die.
Final Verdict: 9.5

Slay the Princess: The Pristine Cut is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC and Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of Slay the Princess: The Pristine Cut was provided by the publisher.