Reviews// Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess

I haven't touched a Deception game since the first one, but I could not have picked a better time to return to the series. There is something utterly delightful in waiting for the target of your torment to run up to you with the hope of clobbering you only to unleash a series of traps upon them that tosses them around like a mouse being played with by a demented cat.

In Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess you play as two ladies vying for the honour of being the Devil's right-hand lady. To accomplish this goal you are tasked with stealing the souls of humans through the manipulation of their dreams - the more suffering, humiliation and downright nastiness you can inflict the better you do in the whole soul stealing department.

It all sounds decidedly dark and devilish does it not?

On its own the premise could lead to a really depressing game and if it took itself seriously then it would be. Thankfully the game is wonderfully tongue in cheek. You start a typical game session by first choosing your load-out of traps and abilities, traps like falling pumpkin-heads that blind and disorientate your foes once dropped to land on their heads...

Imagine if Total Wipeout were a videogame and put on its Halloween costumes and instead of a chlorine filled pool of blue water for the contestants to fall into it was a seething torrent of their own blood.

If that last image hasn't sold you on at least trying the demo for yourself then let me just add that in this scenario you play the person using the fake boxing gloves to smack the contestants silly until they fall in the mud (that person arguably has the most fun on that entire TV show).

Anyway, back on topic. Whilst the gameplay is simple, intuitive and encourages endless experimentation, it isn't without its issues. The story is presented in a branching quest tree that offers short, replayable levels, the first few hours of which I am almost certain have been taken from a previous game in the series. They amount to a single room in a castle and the only real difference are the tools you get to use in each quest.

Story segments are presented with dull Japanese voice acting, speech bubbles and repetitive still images of the characters that represent three or four different poses. It is so incredibly lazy at times that if the trial and error nature of the game wasn't as much fun as it is I would have given up.

Luckily, the story is just context for the actual gameplay and even though the environments are boring and get reused far too often, the actual act of setting up elaborate traps is rewarding and potentially endlessly entertaining.

Overall there is a very fun nugget of gameplay with an incredibly dull wrapper. Imagine a surprise gift that you actually really like being given to you wrapped in newspaper and string. It takes a little while to get to the fun, but once you are there it is worth sticking with. I can happily recommend it to fans of the franchise because they likely know what they are getting in to and can look past the flaws, but newcomers may find it a bit tedious until they start to learn how to chain traps together.

Pros:
+ Darkly amusing individual traps
+ The satisfaction of a perfectly timed chain of traps
+ Levels are short and sweet with plenty of replayability

Cons
- Dull as ditch water presentation
- Ugly 2D character art
- Lazy environment design

SPOnG Score: 6/10