I've known about Slay the Princess for quite some time now. Long has it taunted me from the top of my Steam wishlist, my curiosity bolstered by rave reviews and excited lip service when shocked fellow horror fans learned that, no, I hadn't yet seized Black Tabby's finest work with both hands. The truth is that, much like the fateful woodland prison holding our heroine-slash-antagonist hostage, something's always held me back from dashing toward it immediately.
That something is Slay the Princess' console launch. The point-and-click narrative adventure might have been made with PC setups in mind, but after watching a handful of clips and Let's Plays on YouTube, a thought struck me. This game looks perfect for the Nintendo Switch, and maybe if I'm patient enough, the port will land soon enough. Well, that day has come, because this Halloween saw me finally able to hunker down, grab some headphones, and come face to face with the world-ending princess – and it was not what I expected at all.
Fractured fairy tales
Playing indie horror games on the Switch always feels like the ultimate experience. Not only does the device feel made for smaller, less technically demanding titles like Slay the Princess, but the portable handheld element does something magical for immersion. Turning off the lights and pressing my nose up against the screen, all from the comfort of my own bed, fully ready to get well and truly spooked. What could be better? Not much, that's what, and I'm even more sure of that after playing Slay the Princess in exactly that manner.
I creep through my first playthrough with equal measures delight and intrigue. I love diving into the best visual novels for gripping tales to devour, and Slay the Princess's fully-voiced script facilitates that page-turning immersion to perfection. The brief taste I'd experienced by way of YouTube shorts had me prepared for its branching pathways, and time resetting with each chapter finale. But as the game warns me off the cuff that "this is a love story", I start to look at things differently. So, for our very first meeting in the basement of her cabin, I try to play it cool – despite picking up the pristine blade all the same.
Everything changes when I ask her if she herself is armed. Immediately, the princess gets to her feet, hands behind her back. "No," she trills sweetly in that emphatic, drawn-out cadence that is obviously a huge lie. I keep my distance, keep her talking, hoping to buy myself time as the voice of the Hero battles bitterly with that of the persistent narrator. I have to slay the princess or the world will end, he tells me. But how can I know that to be true? Anyone who has played the original Slay the Princess can probably see where this is going. I've walked head-first into The Razor variant's storyline, and it's not long before twin blades erupt from her arms, slicing the flesh clean off to fall like sleeves at the points of each elbow. She lunges for me and I return the hospitality, exchanging blade strikes like for like in a flurry of violence. The narrator makes sure to do his part, describing each rip and tear in grisly levels of detail. I'd have clapped my hands with glee if they hadn't been gripping my Switch so tightly.
Slay the Princess seems to be all about the journey rather than the destination.
After being cut to ribbons by her god-knows how many times, my first three-chapter stint comes to an abrupt end. I'm in a void of nothingness, with no more voices in my head to guide me – except Hers. The princess stands before me, except no she doesn't. Wreathed in clasping arms, covering her eyes, holding her back, the being speaks softly to me. More than that: she forgives me for trying to kill her. Here is when I realize how this game is going to work: I have to return to that woodland pathway to the cabin, memory wiped for the time being, and unlock more and more variants of the princess so that she may understand herself more. My mission is still plain – I have to kill her or free her, again and again, until the two of us reach a place of understanding.
It's 2am by the time I peel myself away from my Switch for the night, and I lay back in bed reeling from it. There's so much to unpack before even touching on all the additions made in the Pristine Cut, which expands the original experience to offer even more pathways to unlock to the variant princesses. Just how much has been expanded upon is a little bit lost to a newbie like myself, but the promise of such infinite possibilities was enough to keep me rooted to the spot for some five hours as I completed my very first Slay the Princess run.
With so much to see and explore, and so many philosophical questions to puzzle over, I'm surprised by how much Slay the Princess is making me think. Not only about right and wrong, unreliable narrators, or the fractious duplicity of the multitudes contained in us all, but of who and what both the Hero and princess actually are. I'm no closer to a firm answer, and perhaps I never will be. That's fine by me; Slay the Princess seems to be all about the journey rather than the destination, after all – especially since all roads lead back to that solitary cabin in the cold, dark wood.
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