Princess Maker 2

I've mentioned Princess Maker 2 in two of my previous articles on here. I've compared it to Long Live The Queen, and I also listed my top 10 favourite endings of the game. I've played both the refined version and the DOS version. I've been wanting to review this game for a very long time, but being unable to review it on Ciao made me put it on hold for a while. Now I feel I am ready to give it a balanced and fair review. Princess Maker 2 is the second and the most superior installment of the Princess Maker franchise.

Its premise is simple: you are a retired soldier who saved a kingdom from the hands of a demon prince known as Lucifon. The gods from above reward you with a naked girl and enforce you with the task of raising her. With the title, the main goal is to become the princess by marrying the prince. The game was made by GAINAX, the company behind Evangelion, one of the biggest and most successful animes of all time. So it's easy to say that I had high expectations for this game.

The game falls under quite a lot of genres. There's an element of a visual novel in there with how the choices matter. A lot of choose and clicking, slice and life, and there's also a pretty neat RPG feature where you can gain more money and fight monsters in public. It's also fun trying to max out as many stats as possible.

Your daughter's stats are very important. They determine what sort of career your daughter will have when she gets older. You also have your trusted little demon butler called Cube, who really does have a heart of gold. For an old game, they add so many lovely little details and the choices in this game is astonishing.

You can build or lower these by arranging her schedule. Her schedule can consist of lessons, part-time work, free time, and adventures. The lessons are normally expensive, so I would leave them until you have more gold. Part-time work is slow and some jobs do hinder stats, but if you know what you're going for, they can be useful.

Free time and vacations reduce stress which is good. Low stress is the key to success in this game. The adventures make the game more fun, varied, and balanced. Sometimes just clicking, choosing, and watching things go is a bit boring, so seeing the RPG feature made me happy.

I think when it comes to the original vs the refined version, I love the music in the refined version, but I love the graphics to the original more. The refine doesn't feel much of a refine as the only update is the polishing of the graphics. I would have rather they kept the original graphics because I love how the daughter's hair looks hand-drawn.

There are so many things I love about this game. I love the fact you can marry a dragon, the butler, or a demon king if you don't fancy a prince. There's also a few inconsistencies or ironic moments. It's possible to have your daughter become a nun or a churchgoer, but still be able to marry Lucifon the demon lord. That is because the daughter can marry the demon if her sin is twice as much as her morality, and if it is zero, she can still qualify for the ending. The father marriage is tricky, but sometimes it's worth not doing, seeing how creepy the ending is.

I've had over 200 hours gameplay and achieved all the achievements on Steam. This game is so cute and addictive. I've only played 1 and 3 from the rest of the series, but I feel that Princess Maker 2 is the strongest out of all three.