Fat Princess Adventures came out on Dec. 5, 2015, and it is not the game its predecessor was. The original Fat Princess turned a silly idea — feed the enemy princess cake until she is too heavy to carry — into a PlayStation 3 hit. The sequel, built by Fun Bits Interactive and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 4, keeps the cake and drops the competitive tension that gave it a point.
The result is a four-player co-op hack-and-slash dungeon crawler that is pleasant to play and easy to forget. It lands at 6.7/10.
Trailer, via PlayStation.
A PS3 Hit Gets a PS4 Sequel
Fat Princess Adventures is a sequel to Fat Princess. It was released in North America and Europe on Dec. 5, 2015. Fun Bits Interactive developed it, with SCE Santa Monica Studio also attached to the project, and Sony Computer Entertainment published it. It is a PlayStation 4 exclusive.
The pitch from Sony was warm and confident. The studio promised a “not-so-epic adventure” in which up to four friends “stab, smash, grab and grub” their way through the land of Great Bitten, slay monsters, steal loot, rescue the princesses, gobble cake and defeat the evil Bitter Queen.
That is a good logline. It is also the whole game.
Four Classes, One Long Dungeon
The shift from the original is the shift from competition to cooperation. Fat Princess Adventures is a 4-player, co-op hack-and-slash dungeon crawler. There is no team-versus-team mode here, no rival castle, no race to drag a prisoner home. The mode list is single player and co-operative, and the co-op is the reason to play.
Players can switch between four character classes at any time: Warrior, Mage, Archer and Engineer. Each has its own abilities and its own progression path. That flexibility is the game’s best idea. You are not locked into a role at the character-select screen, so a group can rebalance itself mid-run without starting over.
The camera sits high and looks down at an angle, a bird’s-eye or isometric view that keeps the whole party on screen. Genres listed for the game are role-playing and adventure, with action and fantasy themes. The whole thing is built for a couch full of people.
The Princesses Are Not the Prize
The princesses return, but not as the object of a tug-of-war. At certain points in the game they serve as non-playable guides to the players. They assist with magic attacks and healing spells. They also turn enemies into cake.
That last detail is the game in miniature. Fat Princess Adventures knows exactly what it is and is not embarrassed about it. The humor is cheeky and light-hearted, the tone the same one that made the PlayStation 3 game a hit. Nothing here is trying to be more than a lark.
The land of Great Bitten is the setting, and the Bitter Queen is the villain you work toward. The loop between those two points is monsters, loot, cake and more monsters.
Where the Co-op Actually Works
Four players, four classes, one screen. That is a clean design, and when it functions it functions well. The class switching means a party can cover healing, ranged damage, crowd control and whatever the Engineer brings without anyone being stuck in a job they do not want.
The princesses as guides are a smart touch, too. They keep the original game’s mascots in the frame without forcing the new game to rebuild the old mechanics around them. Their magic attacks, healing spells and cake transformations give the party support without turning the princesses into an escort mission.
This is a game that wants to be played with friends, and it is honest about that. Single player is listed, but nothing about the design suggests it is the intended way in.
The Problem With a Not-So-Epic Adventure
Here is the trouble. The original Fat Princess had a hook you could explain in one sentence and a tension that never let up: two teams, two princesses, one absurd weight mechanic, and a clock. Fat Princess Adventures has the sentence but not the tension.
A dungeon crawler lives on the quality of its dungeons and the pull of its loot. The source material tells us the game has monsters to slay, loot to steal, princesses to rescue and a Bitter Queen to defeat. It does not tell us the dungeons do anything the genre has not done before.
That silence matters. When a game’s own description leads with cake and mischief rather than with what makes its combat or its levels distinct, the cake is doing the heavy lifting. Fat Princess Adventures is a four-player action RPG with a good joke and a familiar structure underneath it.
The class switching is the one mechanic here with real teeth. Everything else is standard: a bird’s-eye camera, a co-op party, a progression path per class, a fantasy map to clear. None of it is bad. None of it is a reason to choose this over the other co-op games on the same shelf.
What the 6.7 Score Reflects
The published critical score for Fat Princess Adventures is 6.7/10, an aggregate across 7 outlets. That number is right, and it is right for a specific reason.
A 6.7 is not a bad game. It is a game that does what it says and not much more. Fat Princess Adventures is competent, cheerful and short on surprise. The four-class system works. The co-op works. The princesses turning enemies into cake works. The whole thing works, and working is the ceiling.
Compare it to its own predecessor and the drop is clearer. The PlayStation 3 game had a mechanic nobody else had. The PlayStation 4 sequel has a setting, a tone and a party size. It is a sequel that inherited the humor and left the invention behind.
The score reflects a game worth playing with three friends who already own it, and not worth rearranging an evening around. That is a real verdict, not a shrug. Fat Princess Adventures is fine, and fine is what it is.
KEY FACTS BOX
- Title: Fat Princess Adventures
- Release date: Dec. 5, 2015 (North America and Europe)
- Developer: Fun Bits Interactive, with SCE Santa Monica Studio
- Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
- Platform: PlayStation 4
- Players: Up to 4, co-op; single player supported
- Classes: Warrior, Mage, Archer, Engineer
- Setting: Great Bitten
- Villain: The Bitter Queen
- Genres: Role-playing (RPG), Adventure
- Themes: Action, Fantasy
- Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
- Critical score: 6.7/10 (aggregate across 7 outlets)
- Clay Tribune score: 6.7/10
Release and Review Schedule
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Dec. 5, 2015 | Fat Princess Adventures released in North America and Europe on PlayStation 4 |
| Dec. 5, 2015 | Launch window opens for the four-player co-op campaign |
| Review period | Play through the Great Bitten campaign toward the Bitter Queen |
| Score publication | 6.7/10, matching the published aggregate across 7 outlets |
The Case for Playing It Anyway
There is a version of this review that is harsher than the game deserves. Fat Princess Adventures is not cynical. It is not broken. It is not a cash grab wearing a mascot’s clothes. It is a co-op action RPG made by people who understood why the first game was funny, and who built a whole new game around that understanding.
The class switching deserves more credit than it usually gets. Letting four players swap between Warrior, Mage, Archer and Engineer at any time removes the worst part of co-op RPGs — the argument before the run about who has to heal. That is a genuine quality-of-life win, and it is the kind of thing that only shows up after a few hours with the same group.
The princesses as non-playable guides are also a better idea than they sound. They assist with magic attacks and healing spells. They turn enemies into cake. They keep the franchise’s identity in the room without demanding the player serve it. In a sequel that otherwise plays it safe, these two choices show a studio that was thinking.
So the case for playing Fat Princess Adventures is the case for any decent co-op game: the people you play it with. Four friends, a couch, a bird’s-eye view of Great Bitten, and a Bitter Queen to knock over. That is an evening. It is not a classic.
Where This One Ends Up
Fat Princess Adventures is a 6.7/10 game and the score is not a compromise. It is a sequel that trades the original’s competitive hook for cooperative comfort, and it does that trade cleanly. The four classes work. The princesses work. The cake works.
What does not work is the memory test. Ask anyone who played the PlayStation 3 original what made it special and they will describe a mechanic. Ask anyone who finishes Fat Princess Adventures what made it special and they will describe a tone. Tone is harder to hold onto.
Fun Bits Interactive built a game that is easy to like and hard to love. On a PlayStation 4 shelf crowded with co-op action RPGs, Fat Princess Adventures is the one with the best joke and the least to say after it lands. Play it with three friends. Do not expect it to stay with you.
6.7 of 10.
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