Chronicles: Fate of a Princess

Chronicles: Fate of a Princess is a game that every new RPG Maker MV user should play, as it perfectly showcases the type of game an average user can make without going deep into the scripting/plugin territory or custom art assets. It's most likely a much better learning material than an actual game, but even there it's still pretty solid. It's also short and fast paced, with about 2 to 3 hours playtime if you know what you are doing. No extremely high encounter rate and the max level is only 10 and easily reachable, even before the first boss if you want it. Automatic recovery of all HP and MP after each battle only serves to keep the fast pace of the game, while sacrificing tension and some strategic depth.

The game uses the RTP assets in an interesting way and each map felt unique, which is no small feat to do. The boss fights are interesting, with unique mechanics and thought went into each and every one of them, some even have multiple phases. However, they have too high magic resistance, too much HP (even if you use the OP Rogue and Ranger damage, it still takes quite a while) and all of them except one apply one particular debuff that is the source of much difficulty and imbalance in the game. Said debuff entirely prevents HP and MP regen and recovery for 5 turns, which makes half the classes (not to mention items) pretty much pointless. And it's not a rare occurence, the skills that inflict this status are AoE and more than 60% of the boss fight are spent with said debuff applied to your whole party.

The game doesn't have a fixed party system, you can replace party members in the menu at any time, even during the battle (so long as they aren't KO'd or replacing a KO'd member). Thus, it's less about picking the right party composition for the current fight, more about picking the main party, then switching in the other characters when needed. Interesting in concept. However, the fact that the main character can't be switched out of the party at any point is a great handicap that severely limits the viability of most classes for her. If anyone wants to know which classes to pick for the main character, then the best one is Rogue (it even feels like the canon choice), the other two good picks are Warrior and Ranger (worse than Rogue, but still great). The one class you most definitely should NOT choose is Mage. Don't repeat my mistakes.

One thing I have to note is that although the game has 8 classes, it could really do with less of them. Certain ones are just underpowered and some skills don't work as they should.

So, which ones are good?

Good classes:

All TP using classes (The ubiquitous boss debuff doesn't prevent TP generation or restoration in any way)
Paladin

Bad classes:

Everything else, especially Mage


To break it down further:


Four tiers:

Essential

Rogue
Ranger (if the main character isn't a Rogue)
Warrior
Bard

Situational

Paladin (High Tier, switch with the Bard when needed)
Priest (Low Tier)

Bad

Warlock

Absolutely Worthless

Mage


Thoughts on individual classes:

Rogue

Rogues and Rangers are the ultimate DPS. Rogues especially combine this with awesome utility. Mass Stun on everything is great since all bosses summon minions that deal quite a bit of damage. Combine this with a Critical Chance boosting status, mass Evade buff and really great damage (Multiattack deletes normal enemies, Backstab with exploit/stun status does wonders against bosses), the Rogue is pretty much a must.


Ranger

Ranger is like a bit worse version of Rogue. The damage of both classes is comparable, can't really say who is the better one on that front. Maybe Ranger with that special skill from their ultimate bow gets an advantage. However, the utility the Rogue provides raises them above Ranger.

One area where the Ranger is definitely worse is their HP, which is lower than the Rogues (still serviceable though), however they appears to have a higher agility than the rogue, which makes them a better candidate for using items (also bacause rogues always have something to do).

The design of Charged Shot and Prepare is a bit iffy. It works fine when you only have one action, but this falls apart when you get multiple, since you can't use one action to prepare and then other action to use a skill you will have TP for after Prepare or use Charge, then Charge Shot with the second action (the skill wont show in the options until after the state is actually applied). Same with all the other classes MP/TP charge skills. They are best used as the last action in the round.


Bard

Bard is probably more overpowered than the Rogue. Not on its own, but the buffs the class can bestow makes the others absolutely silly. Especially that song that gives all party members one more action for five turns, but there are others. Like the one song that makes the whole party Guard in addition to whatever else they were doing. I only discovered that song only after beating both bonus bosses, but it might be the most overpowered skill in the entire game.

Bard also has a chance to randomly gain an additional action each turn, so with the +Action song on (which is very easy to keep up), it could act up to 3 times a turn. With this, its naturally high Agility and that special dagger meant for Bards that boosts its Agility even further, the Bard becomes the ultimate item user, capable of supporting your party even more with potions.
The Warlock might heal a bit more with one potion due to its bonus, but the Bard can ensure the potion actually lands when it's needed. Bard can also do other things during that same round.

Bard is also the ideal member to switch out for other party members, in case you find yourself needing one of those "mass ressurect/immortality" spells from Paladin or maybe you need to use some Priest spell for one turn. Since you preserve state duration after being switched out, the Bard can resume their job after being switched back in with all their buffs.


Warrior

Warriors are the ultimate tanks and as they level up, they eventually outperform the Paladin. They have great gear they can use, much better than a paladin, and passive bonuses they get as well as their usage of TP ensuring they can always use their skills.

What makes them ideal for boss fights is the fact that they can get the highest MAX HP in the game with their level 10 skill (about 1600 Max HP with the skill active), and in a game where you spend more than half of all boss fights unable to heal, outlasting the damage and being able to survive afterwards long enough to avoid being downed with one weak attack is the key.

Warriors aren't perfect, most of the abilities they have are worthless (like the one that sacrifices all TP for mediocre damage). The worst offender is probably Strong Guard, which is meant to be a stronger version of the Guard skill. However, unlike Guard this skill uses the Warrior's base Agility instead of happening almost always at the start of the round. Thus, due to their terrible Agility score, Warriors frequently activate Strong Guard after everyone already had their turn, making it worthless. But their passive abilities and max level skill are really good. Unlike Paladin, they also aren't shut down by that Corruption debuff in boss fights, since unlike MP you can generate TP normally even with that one debuff, even using Mead to fully charge it.


Paladin

Paladin is a good tank and the best one you have for a good while unless you start out as a Warrior. Their true bane is that one annoying debuff that shows up in all boss fights (except the General I think, but that one is easy anyway), which halts HP/MP regeneration and prevents any healing/MP restoration from working on the character. When it happens to the Warrior, they can still use all of their abilities. When it happens to Paladin, they can only work with whatever MP they have left for 5 rounds. Outside of that, however, they have the best MP restoration skill, since it has an additional effect that you should be maintaining anyway, that being increased target rate. So you dont have to go out of your way to replenish MP.

Late game, they are better as a situational character that gets switched in to cast one of their high level abilities (like the delayed Full Heal on all party members), then replaced with bard again. Their high level abilities are really good though. The most important skill a Paladin has is the one that fully heals the party after a turn passes. Since this skill seems to set the character's current HP to max instead of actual HP recovery, it works even with that annoying debuff up. This makes a Paladin the only character that can break the rules of the game and save you in fights you'd otherwise lose.

I have to say though that the "MP cost of skills halved" Mace from the bonus dungeon boosts Paladin a lot. I think that one is supposed to go to the Priest, but Paladin makes a much better use of it.


Priest

Priests are way too one-note, the definition of a switch-in situational character. All they have is various version of the heal spell and one ressurection skill. Most of the time, you dont even need them, normal encounters are easy, pretty much a case "high HP/mediocre damage", and thus best DPSed down as fast as possible to avoid dragging it out even further. And since the party is restored to full health and MP after winning, it doesnt matter if you lose someone. And during a boss fight, you suffer from the 0 healing debuff most of the time, making the Priest unable to actually do anything of note. Like Paladins, can be switched in occassionally to cast a spell when you happen to actually need. They really should have more to them.

The Priest class could have been scrapped and replaced fully with the Paladin class and the game really wouldn't lose much.


Warlock

Warlocks suffer from the "no mana regen" debuff like all MP using classes, but what brings them down even more is their weird design. Most of their skills either cost health to use or do higher damage if the Warlock is on low health.
What exactly constitutes "low health" is unclear, but their damage is barely better than a rogue/ranger using the normal attack command, no matter their HP, and only gets worse in comparison as the game goes on. Thus, the only spell that actually has a use is that one that debuffs attack in addition to mediocre damage. The Warlock also has the highest max HP and an item effectiveness bonus. So, unlike Mage, it can still have a use as a supporting item character, but theres no need for that once you have the crazy OP bard. And even before that, the other characters can do the job just fine.

As a sidenote, even if the Warlock's skills did a lot of damage at low HP, it's unlikely the class would be good, since the "no healing" debuff that happens more then half the time during boss encounters makes that playstyle unviable.


Mage

Mage is the definiton of a worthless character. I know, because this was my choice for MC's class for my first time through. I expected a glass-canon damage dealer with some utility spells. What I got was a class with all the traditional Mage weaknesses (very low HP, weak at start, low defenses, skills cost MP) and none of the advantages (great damage, great scaling, variety of utility spells, large MP reserves).

As other MP using classes, Mage has a hard cap of 100 max MP that stays the same from start to finish (few items boost it by a bit, but still very low). Unlike the other classes, who generally have high cost spells and one ability that restores their MP to full (sometimes with an additional effect), Mage has most of their skill cost the same amount of MP and instead of a skill that restores their MP to full, they have a passive MP regeneration of 5 per turn. It's not that much of an issue. You could use Magic Water to instantly replenish their MP if there would be the need for it.

However, you will run out of MP sooner or later and if you dont have Magic Water, the Mage has no way of getting back that MP like the others. And since the MP cap is fixed, you can't compensate with higher MP storage. You are just stuck with it. Also, MP regeneration is disabled by that ubiquitous boss fight debuff and the other classes can get it too through items, mage just has a bit more of it.

For the Mage's skills, they are decidedly underwhelming. Especially since the bosses appear to have very high magic defense. For the skills themselves: The first, gained on level 2, is basically the attack command, except it uses magical attack for damage and costs MP for some reason. At the time that could actually be a bit useful, you have an overpowered sword that ensures your Mage princess does more damage with a simple attack command, making it pointless. And the Mage companion you get appears near the end of the game, making it a wasted skill slot.

The elemental skills suffer from the fact that there don't seem to be any elemental weaknesses to exploit (or if there are, they are too low) and they all deal roughly the same damage. Thus, the spells are basically all the same "deal damage with an additional effect". If the additional effects were very powerful, it could still work, but they arent. The most powerful ones are the Thunder spell inflicting the Exploit status (which the Rogue can already do, with more damage) and the Ice spell debuffing Agility (only unique effect, but entirely unneeded since the bard can boost your party's Agility to stratosphere).

The Fire spell inflicts a status that makes the target take more damage from fire spells. Meaning the Fire spell and the mages level 10 AoE spell. The damage is mediocre even with the debuff (which doesn't seem to be that strong) AND the Paladin's Holy Strike debuffing magic defense. The Wind spell is just a damage spell with a higher priority, something that the Ranger has already, except stronger and even for him, there are better options.

The Earth spell is a damage spell that deals Physical damage instead of magical, which is a bit more powerful than Paladin using Attack and leagues below what Rogue and Ranger can do. The fact that the Fire spell with the debuff deals more damage anyway makes it extra obsolete. The Water spell could potentially be useful, it heals the Mage for half the amount of damage done. However, with the Mage's terrible Max HP, that's unlikely to make a difference. If it healed the whole party or if the Mage actually had atleast Ranger-tier HP, it might have a use.

The level 10 skill is a fire-damage AoE ability I was waiting for the whole game and when it finally became available, I didn't need it anymore. And even if it was available earlier, the very high MP cost compared to other skills ensures you can't spam it even in normal encounters. There are much better options for situations where you might want AoE damage.

Now, if it was just the skills, the Mage would still be salvageable. About as strong as the Warlock, maybe better, since the Warlock seems to be even worse skill-wise. So, aside from the skills being decidedly terrible and boring, what puts the Mage down?

Well, when it comes to level 10 stats (which is max level), Warlock has 935 HP. Warrior has 880 HP (almost 1700 with buff), Paladin has 715 HP, Rogue and Bard have 605, Ranger 485 and Priest 440. Mage has the lowest amount with 385, coupled with low defenses. One attack from a boss, single target or AoE, is enough to down a Mage or almost down the Mage, which means they will get KO'd very soon anyway from minions/extra attacks/AoE. And since they dont have reduced target rate like Ranger, it is very likely to happen. Priest atleast has Magic Reflect chance and skills that can be useful and the extra HP over Mage actually makes a difference.

If a Mage gets affected by that Boss debuff, their passive mana regen stops working and unlike the other classes, they have no way of restoring themselves to full MP with one skill after unless they use the Magic Water item. This presumes that the Mage actually survives, which is unrealistic, as with their terrible max HP, being unable to be healed turns the Mage's chance of survival from "very unlikely" to "almost impossible", especially with all those AoE boss abilities.

This gets especially bad if you choose the Mage class for the main character, since in that case you can't even replace the Mage with a better character. During boss fights, you will either have to be ressurecting the Mage every couple of turns or basically play with 3 party members.

I played through the game three times. The first time, it was a tale of Mage Princess taking a nap while her friends did all the work, and I could not manage to defeat the bonus boss despite numerous tries (managed to reach phase 3 once).

The second time, it was a tale of Warrior Princess being the backbone of the team, managing to beat both the bonus boss and the boosted version of final boss quite easily. The third time was a tale of Rogue Princess easily plowing through the game, stacking Stun All and damage/critical debuffs with her other Rogue friend and defeating both bonus bonus and boosted final boss so easily it made them look like generic random encounter.

The first two times times, I used the same party members and gear, the only thing that changed in the third go was that Ranger got replaced with a second Rogue. I am serious. The Mage class is THAT bad.



It is a bit difficult to talk about the actual story, seeing as none of the nameable characters seem to have default names. They really should have them tbh. Coupled with the fact that you are often asked to name multiple people one after the other (especially during the first half of the game), it would make it less annoying and provide an option for people who maybe don't care but still want some coherent names.

Well, now for the story itself. Spoilers, obviously:

Summary: The Princess lives a sheltered life in a castle with her parents and older brother. Her father is a good king who rules the realm well and her brother is a great warrior and talented general. She is attended by her trusty servant Nana, who tells her a story of an evil wizard Dark'anoth seeking the power of four elemental crystals. The princess isn't interested in Final Fantasy spoofs and thus she learns of the current events. There is a rebelion in the south, so the king sent his best general, Lord Pentas, to deal with it. Now, Lord Pentas is due to return to the capital city as a war hero after a great victory against the the rebel forces occupying the city of Darmton. According to Nana, it is possible that Lord Pentas might become the princess's future husband.

After choosing how to spend the rest of her day (which determines her character class, a cool concept), she gets a gift from her brother the prince, which turns out to be a dagger. Confused, she hides it in her room and goes to the throne room after receiving summons from her father. In the throne room, she meets the rest of her family and lord Pentas. However, instead of praising him, the king condemns Pentas's cruel tactics and is about to punish him for the attrocities he committed at Darmton. Pentas then stages a coup, takes out the king and attempts to do the same to the rest of the royal family. The only one who escapes is the Princess, thanks to her brother who passes his overpowered sword to her before dying.

The princess then defeats a soldier even if she's not a Warrior (that sword is that OP I guess) and escapes with two companions: a Paladin who was in her father's services and a Rogue working in the castle kitchen. The Rogue gets them out of the castle through an old tunnel leading to the sewers and leads them to the safety of her house. There, the Princess and the Paladin get new disguises, the princess is forced to abandon her OP sword (WHYYYYY) and choose a cover name. In order to get out of the city, the Rogue tells them her friend the Ranger can help them, however he is part of the rebellion and hates the royal family as much as Pentas. Thus, the princess and the Paladin are forced to hide their true identities.

The Ranger helps them get out of the city after they promise to join the rebellion and leads them to his contact in the village of Arbas, the Priest, who joins the party. They are to go to Benel, the city that houses the remaining rebel forces. The Paladin wants to abandon the rebels and lead Princess to her uncle, who could raise an army to overthrow Pentas, however the Rogue convinces him and the Princess it's too risky and to hide out amongst the rebels for a time. They go through with it.

In order to get to Benel, they have to pass through the city of Darmton (because you can't walk through the forest tiles on the world map), a city that was recently razed and all its inhabitants pretty much wiped out by Pentas. The Paladin senses demons inside. He tells everyone that someone probably summoned them in desperation during the attack and that they have to be prepared to make some hard choices for the greater good (everyone else disagrees with the "hard choices" part). The city of Darmton is inhabited only by demons and ghosts.

After a while, they enter the place where the demon summoning occured. They discover that it was indeed done in desperation by some young woman, the Warlock, who can only speak three words at a time. They then fight the main demon. After they defeat the demon, the Paladin doesn't want to bring the Warlock with them. He thinks that someone who got possesed by a poweful demon and inadvertedly caused the entire city to be infested with demons might cause problems. No one seems to think his argument has any merit, not even the Ranger, who only helped the Princess and her friends after they promised to join the rebellion.

Anyway, they take the Warlock with them to Benel. The rebel guards only want to let the Ranger and the Priest inside the city, since they think the others are not trustworthy. The Rogue argues that her brother, the Warrior, is part of the rebellion and he can vouch for her and her friends. Just then, then Warrior bursts out of the town gates and lets all of them in in spite of his orders. The party gets nice lodgings at the inn and the Warrior immediately takes a liking to the Princess, showing her around town. Apparently, Lord Pentas was the ruler of Benel and the revolution started spontaneously, after Pentas's latest tyranical act drew too much ire from the citizentry and Pentas fled rather than face the uprising. After they heard that the king placed Lord Pentas in charge of the army, they thought he was no better than Pentas and thus decided to liberate the rest of the kingdom.

After some sightseeing, flirting and an encounter with a future party member, the Bard, you can also talk to the other party members. If you ask the Priest about the Paladin, he calls him a "zealot that gives them a bad name" that doesn't seem to fit in with either of their characters or previous events (or the rest of his dialogue). The Rogue and Princess have a nice chat and then they all go to sleep, only to be woken up in the middle of the night, with Benel under attack by Pentas's forces. The Princess gathers her companions and after they regroup, they notice that the Bard is in trouble. They defeat the sorcerer who captured the bard (most likely after they grind to the max level from the infinitely respawning weak soldiers). The attack ends after the sorcerer's defeat.

The princess decides that hiding her true identity wont help her get back at Pentas and that she needs to ally with the Rebels to take revenge. So she tells the Warrior about her true identity and says she intends to speak about it with the rebel leader, a woman named Ameline (who uses a default portrait meant for a male mage btw, not sure if that's intended). The Princess doesn't care what happens to the kingdom and doesn't want to rule, she only wants revenge against Pentas. Thus she plans to abdicate after Pentas is defeated and give the control of the kingdom to the rebels (which is highly likely to cause a civil war). The Warrior warns her that this likely wont end well for her, but the princess has her mind set.

So, the Princess speaks to Ameline and it doesn't go well, but the Warrior bursts in and with some surprisingly logical arguments convinces Ameline to ally with the princess. Thus, a new plan is set. The Princess is to travel to Arafel, the city ruled by her uncle and convince him to ally with the rebels against Pentas. Since Benel is now besieged by Pentas's army, they use a secret tunnel leading out of the city from Pentas's old mansion. After a mandatory boss battle, the Paladin is convinced that the Princess watched a lot of Game of Thrones in the meantime and intends to use the rebels against Pentas only to weaken both of her enemies. However, the Princess disappoints him and tells him she doesn't care about politics. She cares only about avenging her family, though not to the extent that she would show any discomfort with the Ranger's hostile attitude against both her family and herself or even attempt to defend them, even now that there's no point in secrecy anymore.

Anyway, after the Paladin makes a few good points about how such an attitude is disappointing and harmful, the conversation turns to the topic of the Paladin's son. Apparently, he was part of the royal guard and the Paladin doesn't know if he is still alive. The princess feels guilty and tells him to return to the capital city and find out, giving him her permission to do so. So the Paladin leaves the party.

The rest of the party arrives to Arafel. The guards dont believe the Princess really is a Princess, but take her to see her uncle anyway after some bargaining. The uncle was convinced that the princess was dead and is happy to see her. He reluctantly agrees to ally with the rebels against Pentas and sends an army to Benel to break the siege. Princess and her group of RPG heroes accompany the army and fight in the battle for some reason (I guess her uncle saw her stat sheet and noticed she leveled up from level 1 Princess to level 10 Warrior since he last saw her). Joining them in battle is the Princess's cousin, the Mage, who is useless.

The princess and friends battle the general leading the army, who turns out to be pure evil like Pentas, so the princess doesn't have to feel bad about fighting him (and so are all the regular enemy soldiers that get dialogue). After defeating the easiest boss in the game (I think I actually defeated him in one round once, with both Rogues criting with Backstab), it turns out that while the Princess barely got past book 1 of ASOIAF, Ameline has been playing 4D chess this whole time. Instead of sending her forces to support Princess's army to crush Pentas's forces as was agreed, she decides to hold back and let her "allies" fight on their own, convinced that this way she gets rid of both of their enemies. However, the common rebels realize they are anarchists and decide to join the battle despite Ameline's plans. However, it's too late and while Pentas's forces are defeated, a large portion of them, including Pentas managed to retreat due to Ameline's decision to hold back. Thus, they lost the chance to win the war in one battle.

So, they meet Ameline and the princess is immediately like "I don't care about what just happened, just do what I tell you and I will give you everything you want". Afterwards, she shows no doubt in Ameline or entertain the thought that giving her all the power might be a bad idea. Either she is surprisingly forgiving (or naive) or she just doesn't care what happens to the kingdom. Afterwards, Ameline costing them the battle is never brought up again and no one else seems to care much. Making it a very infuriating and sadly also depressingly realistic moment.

After the meeting with Ameline, the Paladin returns. Unfortunately, his son is dead, but he has news that the Queen is alive. Seeing that the last zime the Queen appeared in the game, she was still alive, just stopped from escaping by a soldier, this seems believable. Of course, people that played a lot of RPGs most likely atleast suspect how this will turn out, but that doesn't really detract from the story if it's told well (though the foreshadowing of it was a bit too forced in some cases, like with that "zealot" comment earlier).

Anyway, the princess decides to go with the Paladin to rescue her mother from Pentas's dungeons. They take the Rogue with them, because she's the perfect person for this sort of mission. They seem to head to capital city on their own, immediately, without telling anyone else, however with the way the main character has been portrayed so far, it's not really out of character. They sneak through the streets in a pretty annoying way with permanently missable loot if they choose the wrong way.

Upon arriving to the dungeons, the Princess notices what looks like her mother in one of the cells and rushes inside with the Rogue. However, it's a trap, the Queen died on the same day Pentas seized power. The Paladin closes the cell door behind the Princess and the Rogue and Pentas arrives. Apparently, the Paladin decided that supporting Pentas is the lesser evil. He convinced him to spare the Princess and instead marry her, so that he might become a king legitimately (surprised Pentas didnt think of that himself, but oh well).

The Princess then has a chat with the Paladin inside her old room and what could have been the coolest scene in the game is entirely wasted. The Paladin's story so far made sense and there were plenty of arguments for why what the princess wanted to do might not be good and why it might cause more issues then it would solve. Not to mention the Princess's attitude. She honestly seemed like she doesn't care about anything and I had trouble believing even her "revenge" motive. At the same time, the Paladin decided to cast his lot with a cartoonishly evil villain, which prevents him from being too sympathetic and thus there's still a valid reason to oppose him.

However, instead, the Paladin turns into a strawman who only did this because the royal line has to be preserved whatever the cost, purely for its own sake, and that's all the reason he has now, apparently. Anyway, the wedding is happening right after and the princess solves everything by backstabbing the backstabbing Pentas for massive damage. It's basically what would happen in an actual bossfight, except this is a cutscene. She uses the dagger that her brother gave her as a gift at the start. No one really cares that much, the Princess declares herself to be Queen and afterwards, the Warrior bursts into the Chapel. Apparently, while Pentas was busy getting married, the Rebel-Arafel alliance managed to take over the city, making it seem like Pentas would be history even if the Princess did nothing. Pentas's army disbands because everything he had were mercenaries apparently (despite the fact he was told to have been very popular among his troops earlier in the game, but whatever) and the armed men with no lord to follow don't cause any trouble for some reason.

At this point, the story is pretty much racing to the finish line with no care how it goes. Anyway, Ameline shows up and the princess immediately puts her in charge, which goes a lot better than expected. The nobles, including Princess's uncle and mage cousin don't know about her plan to abdicate and give the power to the rebels, but the inevitable civil war once that gets out is not the focus of this plot.

The important thing is that the Paladin somehow escaped and plans to travel to a nearby Empire and convince the Emperor to invade, since his wife is related to the royal family and thus he does technically have a claim to the kingdom through her. Presumably, if the emperor cared that much, he would have realized it himself and invaded anyway, even without the Paladin telling him to, but whatever. I guess he's like Pentas in that regard and only does what the Paladin tells him to do and thus the Paladin must be stopped. The princess and friends go to the north pass that leads to the Empire, accompanied by the Paladin's Wife (also a Paladin), who wants to get him to see reason. Before doing that, they can also visit the bonus dungeon and defeat the evil Dark'anoth sealed there for an item that makes the actual endboss harder.

Once they reach the summit of the snowy mountain at the North Pass, they find the Paladin lying in the snow, weak. Apparently, the icy weather proved too much for him, he prayed for help and some demon in the guise of an angel answered. The Paladin warns you to leave before the demon gets you, but the Princess wants to fight it, because why not. And so they fight, in an anticlimatic boss battle that comes out of nowhere. It really feels like an over-the-top-epic random encounter. The Paladin aids the princess and her party. After the demon is defeated, the princess can either choose to spare the paladin or execute him on the spot, which changes the ending slightly.

Anyway, the ending: 1 year later, Kingdom of Barran is now a democracy. Everything went surprisingly smoothly. The nobles didn't like the Princess's decision, but for some reason went along with it, even though she abdicated and wasn't technically their Queen anymore. So, no civil war. The Emperor also apparently doesn't care, so no invasions. Thankfully, Ameline "4D chess" Lannister didn't become the ruler of Barran. Instead, the Rogue became the first ever president of United States of Barran, something I am ok with, since atleast she seems like she cares and has a brain.

Most of the ending is meeting all your party members and learning what's become of them since and everyone gets a happy ending. Except if the Paladin is executed, in which case he's dead and his wife refuses to speak to the Princess. If she spares him, we learn that he's apparently been sentenced to lifetime imprisonment in a small, dinky cell (atleast a well furnished one), though both he and his wife are ok with it and praise the princess the whole time she's with them.

After the princess pays respects to her family at a graveyard and gets an apology from the Ranger, she goes home and we learn that she's living with Warrior now. But they have some work to do, dealing with pesky raiders. And so the game ends with a hint that the Princess is going to have many more offscreen adventures with Warrior, but not before the Princess says she's gonna get her SWORD. I know this is a very tiny issue and it most likely refers to the royal sword she got from her brother. However, as someone who suffered as a Mage the first time through, this made me feel even worse, like my choice didnt even matter. Having something class dependent or even something neutral like "I'll go get my gear!" would have been much better.

And so, that was the story.



The princess herself seems like a really passive character at first, feeling more like an NPC dragged along for the ride until she chooses to reveal her identity in Benel. It improves a bit after, but not by a whole lot. As I already mentioned, she doesn't seem to care about anything past avenging her family, she doesn't want to rule and doesn't seem to care much about what will become of the realm. And even then, I had a hard time buying her one motivation. She is surrounded by people who hate her family and talk badly about them, yet she never seems to mind or show any real signs that it makes her feel uncomfortable. She always seems a bit apologetic, in fact. I was waiting for a confrontation between her and the Ranger after her true identity was revealed, yet it never came. Atleast it was somewhat resolved in the ending though.

The Paladin feels like a missed opportunity, he could make a great antagonist, but the other party members seemed unnecessarily hostile towards him (even the Priest, who came off very judgmental of him out of nowhere) and all the potential he had was wasted in the end. The Mage really should have been used more a gotten much earlier, maybe he could have been introduced as a prisoner of the rebels in Benel. Benel is where most of the character development in the story happens and by the time the Mage is introduced, that game is basically over anyway.

I actually had an idea on what would have been a better ending. Scrap the part after the wedding, where the Paladin escapes to go convince the Emperor to invade, but fails to get there and it all ends with a random boss fight. Instead, the Paladin is dealt with along with Pentas, one way or the other. Then, the story goes to the day of said big proclamation, where the Princess is supposed to abdicate. There would be a choice. Either she will abdicate as agreed and turn the whole kingdom into a democracy or she will announce that she is staying as Queen, but promises concrete reforms and passes the laws the rebels want passed, including greater rights for commoners and creating a council of representatives with the high ranking rebel members. Then, the final act would depend on this decision.

If the Princess chooses to abdicate and hand control to the rebels, her uncle becomes convinced she's become a puppet of the rebels and a civil war is imminent. The Mage leaves the party. The princess and the rebel forces invade Afarel and fight both the Mage and the uncle, ending the civil war before it could start. If the princess chooses to stay a queen, most rebels would be appeased by her reforms, but the hardline ones like the Ranger and especially Ameline wouldn't. Ranger leaves the party and the final battle takes place in Benel, where you battle the Ranger and Ameline.

The "one year after" ending would change too, the abdication would be similar to the current version, except it would be obvious the freedom came at a huge cost and there is a threat of invasion from the Empire. Still, people are optimistic for the future, yet prepare for war. The Princess is happy and living with the Warrior.

In the Queen ending, the kingdom is stable and princess's reforms improve life for the common folk considerably, though there is still some dissent among the hardline rebels. The Princess herself isn't as happy as she is in the other ending. She and warrior are no longer together. Princess chose a diplomatic marriage to the Emperor's son to protect the kingdom's interests and Warrior perhaps isn't over the fact that she didn't abdicate as she was supposed to, despite standing with her against Ameline. Still, she has the Rogue by her side as her chief advisor.


As for my final rating, 5 Stars. It's definitely too high if you were to rate it as an actual game. I am mostly adding a star or two for the potential playing this game has as a learning resource for new users. Playing it really helped me in my RPG Maker beginnings!