Earlier this week, we wrote a story on Code of Princess’ potential reincarnation as a title on Steam. Degica employee Artie told a fan (who had posted on the subject four months ago) that a surprise was waiting in store for this week.
Lo and behold, Code of Princess just appeared in the Steam Store. It’ll be available for purchase in April, though you can add it to your wishlist now to show your friends how much you care. Who knows? Maybe a fellow beat-em-up connoisseur will buy it for you.
Watch the trailer below:
Code of Princess is an hack-and slash RPG that was originally released on the 3DS by Atlus and Agatsuma Entertainment. It follows the story of Princess Solange Blanchefleur de Lux, who has been exiled from her home Kingdom of DeLuxia because the royal family has been blamed by the Distron army for failing to prevent a recent monster attack. Princess Solange sets out to discover the real cause behind the monster attacks. Along the way, she meets a quirky cast of characters, including the necromancer Lady Zozo, the thief Ali-Baba, and the bard Allegro.
For those familiar with beat-em-ups, Code of Princess’ overall game design may resemble that of a certain Treasure title for the Sega Saturn, Guardian Heroes. The comparison is spot-on, as Guardian Heroes‘ director and character designer, Tetsuhiko Kikuchi, and its lead programmer, Masaki Ukyo, both worked on Code of Princess.
Acclaimed illustrator Kinu Nishimura, meanwhile, is responsible for the character design and art direction. She is primarily known for her work on Capcom titles like Street Fighter II and Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara (another fantasy beat-em-up featuring complex game mechanics and diverse playing styles).
Like Guardian Heroes, Code of Princess is a sidescrolling beat-em-up with combat that takes on a foreground, middle, and back plane. Players can choose one of four characters (Solange, Zozo, Ali, and Allegro) to play as in Campaign mode, and over 50 characters in several other non-Campaign modes. Each character possesses his or her own statistics, moves, and combos, which offer players a vast field for flexing their creative prowess. Combat is performed as if it were a traditional beat-em-up; the player engages an enemy, then chains together a variety of moves to vanquish hordes of enemies and threatening bosses. RPG elements, like stat progression and spell/item customization, are also present.
In addition to the aforementioned story and alternate modes, online co-op gameplay also exists. And if players are feeling especially combative, they can duke it out in Versus mode.
Fans of the original game will likely be delighted to hear that Degica has retained Code of Princess’ original Japanese voice audio and English subtitles.
Code of Princess will release on Steam sometime in April. As far as we can tell, this isn’t an elaborate April Fools’ joke, so go ahead and add it to your wishlist whether you’re an avid beat-em-up fan, or whether you’re just looking for another intricate and challenging game to play.