Review | A Little Lily Princess

LifeisXbox’s A Little Lily Princess Review | Another visual novel? Yes, but you should know it’s wonderful in every way imaginable. Playing the main character Sara, who was raised as a princess in India, you have been sent to Britain to be placed in a prestigious London boarding school. During your time here, there will be other students for you to form bonds with and possibly those you wish to stay well clear of. In A Little Lily Princess, be mindful and cautious as with anyone, your world may just turn upside down in a flash, leaving you in an endless cycle of ruin and despair. Make varying daily choices each week that affect your overall resources. These are then used to allow you to see a particular dialogue with the main six girls. This recent interactive visual novel has been developed by Hanako Games and published by Ratalaika Games S.L. to bring us an interesting story that truly shows how a princess can lose everything in the blink of an eye.

VicciVulpix played A Little Lily Princess for five hours on Xbox One S. This game is also available on Xbox Series S/X, PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, Steam, macOS, and Linux.

What we liked!

• Overall story idea | Based on the novel a little princess, the story behind A Little Lily Princess is one that will have you questioning life and what happens to those who go from having everything to being left with almost nothing. The game certainly takes a dramatic turn, leading players from good to bad. You are treated differently depending on which side of the game you’re playing and because of this, I became gripped by what I found to be an emotional title. I was invested the entire time, through the good and the bad. I could not get enough of the brilliant portrayal that lead me back and forth.

• Work towards your next event | Each week, on either side of the story, you will be given a screen that allows you to choose which activities you want to carry out in that week. This can go from going for a walk to tea parties, running errands to dusting duties. Each of these has three ‘resource rewards’ for you to obtain but this is RNG-based. For example, if you don’t have many points in knowledge and you’ve noticed one of the events of the characters requires this, you may wish to spend a couple of days reading books but if you know you need other resources, you can spread out your activities for the week, giving you a mixture which I found always comes in handy.

• Delightful music | Playing through a visual novel and having it combined with the correct music is a fantastic combination. Not only do you get to listen to this during the game but there is also an extras menu on the main screen which credits the artist as well as letting you listen to any of the songs separately was a nice touch. I even spent quite some time after completing the game listening to the songs as I found peace and calm with them. It just adds more ambiance to the overall mood that is always a pleasure to hear.

• Beautiful imagery | Visually, I could not find any fault in A Little Lily Princess because everywhere I looked, I would find happiness. The scenes, although somewhat simple, gave an idea as to how serious the game wanted to be seen with its Victorian outlook. With the colours switching between bright character clothing and seemingly toned-down backgrounds most of the time, it gives off the feeling of uncertainty that worked exceedingly well due to the overall plot of ‘everything or nothing’. I’ve said it before, you can’t have a good visual novel without highly pleasing imagery.

• Exceptionally well written | The use of modern and older English literature brought the game together. Using the two meant we got to experience the difference between the two. I did not find any issues with the writing – no mistakes or grammatical errors. Everything was easy to read and that made the game even more enjoyable as it didn’t become a chore to read or understand as others have been. Because there are around 30+ small chapters, you were also given a short break in-between, making it subtle and not like you were reading big chunks of text each time.

Somewhere between

• Different routes creating replayability | During each week in your playthrough, you will be given optional choices for each character to play a scene out, providing you have enough of the required resource and you’re on the correct week. Some can only be unlocked later into the story but each has there own unique scenes and routes for you to go down. Admittedly, once you’ve played through the story once, you will have read the majority of the dialogue. The only parts you will not have read through are these separate instances, should you wish to return to see each route. Being that there are six different endings for you to uncover, there is replayability however if you skip what you have already seen, it doesn’t take very long to visualise each outcome.

What we disliked

• Main character became wearisome | I did like playing Sara but unfortunately, she did become bland quite quickly. I do think this may be down to her calm and relaxed attitude being used too often, even in circumstances where anyone else would be incredibly furious. I often found her speaking very similar text as well sometimes, making me wish her dialogue was perhaps switched up more in certain scenes. Maybe it’s just me but to have the main character whose charm becomes eye-rolling is not appealing. I believe there could have been more effort incorporated into Sara.

How long to beat the story | Approximately 4 hours
How long to achieve 1000G | Approximately 6 hours
Similar with | Interactive Visual Novel Titles

CONCLUSION

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