Review: Slay the Princess

destructoid.com:

Slay the Princess is both easy to describe, and difficult to truly dig into. The best I can offer is a word-salad of genre titles and inspirations: horror meta-narrative visual novel with hand-drawn visuals and strong voice acting, something akin to The Stanley Parable meets Mundaun.

And it can get even more difficult to pin down as it goes on. Slay the Princess feels dreamlike, constantly shifting but staying focused on the drama and tension between its characters. It is simple to get into, but Black Tabby’s words will linger in your mind long after journey’s end.

So let’s start at the beginning.

Slay the Princess (PC)
Developer: Black Tabby Games
Publisher: Black Tabby Games
Released: October 23, 2023
MSRP: $17.99

You find yourself in a forest. After you wake, a disembodied voice dubbed The Narrator tells you there is a Princess. And you have to slay her, or the world will end. You must truly Slay the Princess.

While this may seem straightforward, you don’t have to play along right away. A series of options lines up on the right-hand side. Do you ask questions? Do you argue with the Narrator? Do you despise the notion that violence must be enacted without reason? Or maybe you simply embrace the revolution. There are, after all, no right answers. Just answers.

Black Tabby Games may be choosing the text dialogues for you, but these responses were impressively elaborate, ranging from basic questions to flippant contrarianism to deep interrogations of the philosophical issues surrounding, well, killing a Princess. Even in the opening moments, it’s clear the player should engage with the text and react to it, in more ways than simply advancing a plot forward.

Eventually, you head towards the cabin, optionally pick up a