Deception IV: Blood Ties asks a simple question: what happens when a princess decides to stop charming everyone and start killing them with traps instead? The answer, it turns out, is a lot of fun.
Koei Tecmo’s latest entry in the Deception series puts players in control of Laegrinna, an animated fragment of a Devil’s soul who fights by setting elaborate traps rather than swinging a sword. The premise is absurd, and the game leans into that absurdity fully. You are not a knight in shining armor. You are a trickster who rolls boulders, triggers spiked walls, and drops bathtubs from great heights. And the game is better for it.
Trailer, via KOEI TECMO AMERICA.
Laegrinna and the Devil’s Servants
Laegrinna is the daughter of the Devil, created from a fragment of his soul. Her task is to find the Holy Verses, twelve items scattered among the descendants of the Saints who sealed her father away three thousand years ago. To help her, she has three servants: Veruza, Caelea and Lilia. Each represents a different kind of cruelty — Sadistic Torment, Elaborate Death, and Humiliating Demise — and they hand out points and upgrades based on how an enemy dies.
The setup is classic fantasy fare, but the execution is anything but conventional. Instead of charging into battle, Laegrinna retreats behind her traps and waits for her enemies to walk into them. It is a clever inversion of the usual action game formula, and it gives the whole experience a distinct personality.
Traps, Timing and the Quest Mode
The core loop of Deception IV: Blood Ties is simple to explain and complex to master. You lay down traps, watch your enemy approach, and trigger them at the right moment. The trick is the timing. Set a trap too early and your foe avoids it. Set it too late and you might fall into your own creation. The game punishes haste and rewards patience.
The variety of traps on offer is impressive. Rolling boulders, electrocution, fire, spring boards, spiked walls, human cannons, falling bathtubs, banana peels, an iron maiden, and even locomotives are all available. Each trap can be combined into three methods: Brutality, Magnificence, or Humiliation. The method you choose determines which servant rewards you, and the best players learn to switch between them mid-fight depending on what the enemy is doing.
The PlayStation Vita version lets you select and activate traps using the touch screen, which adds a layer of convenience for portable play. The game’s bird’s-eye view gives you a clear picture of the battlefield, and the traps themselves are rendered with a dark, gothic style that fits the theme.
The Nightmare Princess Expansion
In 2015, Koei Tecmo released Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess, an expanded version of the game. This version introduced a new character, Velguirie, who can set traps and also directly attack enemies by kicking. Players can now stomp on fallen foes or kick them into traps, adding a physical element that was missing from the original. The expansion also includes a Quest Mode with 100 new quests, and an option called Deception Studio that lets players create their own characters, enemies, and missions.
The expansion was made available digitally on the PlayStation 3 and Vita on the same day it launched in Japan. The expansion is a worthy addition for fans, though it requires ownership of the base game first.
Characters and Their Fates
The game draws on a rich cast of characters from earlier entries in the series. Allura, the Branded Princess, was wrongly accused of murder and branded as a traitor by her stepmother Catalina, and her charges were eventually dismissed. Reina, the Tragic Princess, was kidnapped and sent to Hades Jail, where a boy named Marco gave her the power to use traps. Both are playable after completing certain quests in the Quest Mode.
Millennia, the child who wandered into a mansion chasing an orb of light, also appears. These characters add depth to the world, even if their stories are sometimes truncated to fit the game’s focus on traps.
Where It Falls Short
Deception IV: Blood Ties is not perfect. The difficulty curve can be steep, especially when enemies start chaining traps of their own. Some levels feel repetitive, and the pacing can drag during longer sequences. The game’s presentation is solid but unremarkable, and the humor occasionally misses its mark.
The Vita version’s touch screen controls are a nice touch, but they are not essential. The game’s bird’s-eye view can be cramped on smaller screens, and some players may find the camera awkward during busy fights. None of these issues sink the game, but they keep it from reaching the upper tiers of the genre.
The Verdict
Deception IV: Blood Ties succeeds because it commits fully to its own weirdness. It takes a silly concept — a princess who kills people with traps — and builds a complete game around it. The traps are creative, the servants are memorable, and the quest to free the Devil is oddly compelling. It is a game that rewards creativity and punishes carelessness.
The Nightmare Princess expansion extends the experience without feeling like a cash grab, and the Deception Studio mode gives players a reason to keep coming back. For fans of puzzle games or anyone looking for something different, this is a solid purchase.
Deception IV: Blood Ties earns a score that reflects its ambition and its flaws together. It is a strong entry in a long-running series, and it stands as a reminder that sometimes the best way to fight is not to fight at all.
- Rolling boulders
- Spiked walls
- Spring boards
- Iron maiden
- Human cannons
- Falling bathtubs
- Banana peels
- Brutality: Rewards Sadistic Torment from Veruza
- Magnificence: Rewards Elaborate Death from Caelea
- Humiliation: Rewards Humiliating Demise from Lilia
The game’s strengths outweigh its flaws, and its unique identity sets it apart from anything else on the market.
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