Princess Story

Princess Story App for iPhone
     Want to be a princess?  Or perhaps you'd just like to dress one up?  This is an interesting game where you dress, train, feed and primp your very own princess.  make her look like you.  Make her look how you wish you looked.  Make her look crazy.  The sky is the limit!
     Before I get into this, I want to point something out.  You see how the princess is holding a fan in that launch screen?  The app page also has a screen shot of the actual doll in the game holding a fan... There are no holdable items in this game.  That is very misleading.  That's going to take points away.
     You start off in your princess knickers.  You have a steward who helps you to learn the basics of the game.  She gives you quests to complete while you are playing.  She stands directly outside of your bedroom door.  You can always find her when you are in the hallway. She is the only person out there, besides the chef.  If the book she's holding is glowing, you have a new quest.  If the book standing on a pedestal is glowing, you have a new prince.

     The quests are simple.  It usually consists of collecting clothing or jewelry.  Buying new hairstyles and planting roses.  You have plenty of time to complete each quest.  I don't believe there is a time limit.  You can check your progress at any time by going back to her and clicking her.
     When you complete a quest, you'll receive a photo of a prince.  I have to say that most of these princes are very questionable.  They look a bit androgynous.  Examine the photo and turn it around for information about that prince.
     I have to note here that I completed every quest.  There are no quests left.  However, I am missing the last prince.  After I completed the last quest the application didn't grant me the last prince.  So this is very unsatisfying.  I hate having the gap there. (There are 8 princes in total, I'm missing number 6)
     Along with your princes, you'll receive money and experience for completing quests.  Money is spent on purchasing hair, eye colour, makeup, skirts, crowns, shoes, etc.  You can also spend it to purchase food from the kitchen (Why am I paying for my meals when I'm the princess & I live here?...)
     Below are some examples of the princes.

     You may wonder what the experience is for, right?  Your princess has levels.  There are 10 levels total.  You begin at level 1.  You gain experience by completing quests, planting roses or studying your subjects.  Going up levels will open up locked items in the shoppes for your to purchase.  You will also get a special crown for free, for each level you achieve.

     You can see an example of this to the right.

     There are several things to study.  However, you can go straight to the tough subjects.  The princess unlocks more things to study each time she levels.  You can always go back and study older subjects if you like.  Studying gives experience and money.  You can also get stars for any subject.  Get 3 and you have mastered that skill.  The higher the level of the subject, the more energy it costs to study it.  I will list the subjects in order by level.  The level they are unlocked on is the amount of energy it takes to study.  So level 5's skill takes 5 energy to study.
     1. Smile
     2. Table Etiquette
     3. Singing

     4. Archery & Horseback Riding

     5. Charity Work

     6. Figure Skating

     7. Arts & Crafts

     8. Royal History 101

     9. Musical Instrument

     10. Ballroom dancing

     Energy replenishes after time.  However, if you want to gain more energy right away, you can do so by eating food.  Go to the hallway and click on the kitchen door with the chef standing outside of it.  In the kitchen there are 3 chefs.  Each with a different dish.  Each dish costs a different amount of money and will provide a different amount of energy.  You can see what the price and energy is by clicking the screen capture to the left.

     I mentioned planting roses.  This is something you can do at any time.  There are 2 kinds of roses (They look the same).  10 minute roses and 1 hour roses.  The 10 minute roses will take roughly 10 minutes to grow to full maturity.  The one hour ones, an hour.  Don't you wish it were that easy in real life?  After they mature you tap them or swipe across a row to pluck them.  I assume you sell the roses, because they give you money.  They are free to plant, however.
     While they are growing you can roam about, leave the application, etc.  Just come back at the right time to pluck them.

     Let's discuss the bedroom.  You will start in the bedroom when you open the application.  You have a few options that you can choose from, while in this room.
     The screen to the left is the default style bedroom.  Clicking the paint roller gives you the option to change the way the room looks.  You can spend game money (Not real money) to change the floor, window, wallpaper or purchase furniture.  Apparently she sleeps on the floor.  She's the strangest princess, isn't she?  There is also only one furniture set available.  I purchased it.  It's very cute.  But costs 500 money if I recall.
     The disc icon will start a memory game.  You get one free play a day.  You can purchase more plays by spending the game money on tokens.  Turning over 2 matching cards wins a set.  Each set gives you 10 money.  You have 3 failures available.  If you fail 3 times, it's game over.  I've managed to turn over all but 4 cards before game over before.  I love memory games.
     The last icon is a little camera.  You can take a photo of your princess and share it via Facebook or save it to your device.  This has to be done for one of the quests.
     Alright, I know that the important part to most people downloading this is of course the clothing, makeup, etc.  So let's discuss that part now.
     Starting in the hallway, the furthest door to the left is the Clothing door.  Here you can purchase Stockings, Shoes, Bottoms and Tops.  Most bottoms have corresponding tops.  You can mix and match them, but sometimes it looks odd.  I went through almost half the game without any shoes... I didn't buy any until I needed to for a quest.  If you wear a big skirt, you usually can't even see the shoes or stockings anyway.
     Here is the count for items available.  Stockings: 10 (I bought 2), Shoes: 10 (I bought all), Bottoms: 31 (I bought 9), Tops: 26 (I bought 10)
     In any dressing room, clicking the top right icon of the square will toggle back and forth between full view and portrait view of your princess.  This makes matching clothing easier.
     Remember that certain clothing is only available at certain levels.  You can always buy something from a level below your own, but you can't even try on clothing from a level above your own.
     The next door is the Beauty room.  This is where you play with the doll herself.  Her skin, eyes, hair, etc.
     The categories and numbers are as follows Base: 4 (I have 2), Blush: 6 (I have 1), Lipstick: 6 (I have 4), Eye Shadow: 14 (I have 1), Contacts: 8 (I have 1), Eyelash: 14 (I have none, I didn't like how they looked), Eyebrow: 2 (I have 1), Hair: 64 (I have 15).  The eye shadow, blush and lipstick have a toggle on the side to increase or decrease how strong the colours are.
     The next room (And last room to cover in this review) is the Jewelry room.
     This is where you go to find your crowns when you gain a level.  You can also purchase different hair accessories, as well as necklaces and earrings.
     The numbers for these items are as follows.  Necklaces: 31 (I have 12), Earrings: 20 (I have 6), Head Accessories (Crowns, etc): 32, (I have 18).
     Now that the basic game play is covered, I wanted to go over some technical issues.
     The game does crash now and then.  Once it crashed so badly it locked my iPhone up entirely.  I wasn't even able to power it down.  I couldn't adjust the volume, lock the screen, restart, nothing.  I had to sit there and listen to that bloody song until my battery drained (I forgot to mention, there's background music.  Very midi, very repetitive  gets annoying pretty quick.  However, the music itself isn't bad.  Just gets tiresome after a few loops).
     If you leave the app in the background for a couple minutes, lock your screen, etc... then come back to the application it's going to restart.  The load screen will pop up and you'll be back in the princess' bedroom. The annoying part about this is that when you start the application up you'll get a pop up advertisement.  it covers the screen and has to be closed to continue.  This can get irritating.  There's also an ad banner at the bottom of the Training room page.  It disappears after a few seconds though.  Which is good because it covers the button for level 10 training.  You have to wait for it to disappear before you can click it.
     During the intro to the game quest, the steward's talk box sometimes glitches and says "Null".
     I already mentioned the final quest not granting me my last prince.  I'll never know who prince number 6 was!... Or why I should even care... Because other than having their photos and info to look at, I can't do anything relating to them.
     In case you're wondering how to mute the music... you can't.  You have to mute the phone itself to do this.  There is no sound toggle on this application.  It desperately needs one though.
     Don't want to earn your in game money?  There is always a small icon in the top right to use real money to get in game money.  You can even do ad offers to get some for free.  However, I find this pointless.  You can easily get all the money you need by playing the game.  it doesn't take long to beat either (Gain every level, complete every quest).  After that it's just collecting items for your own enjoyment.  but that can be tedious after a while.
     The graphics in the game are lovely.  Though the artist could maybe work on making men look a bit more like men and not manly women.  The clothing and beauty variety is very nice.
     I enjoyed the application.  It has some issues.  I'd like to see them fixed.  I don't see it happening though. I feel like the issues will get worse with later versions of iOS, since it hasn't been updated since July of 2012..
Rating: 3/5

• Free
• Category: Games
• Updated: Jun 01, 2012
• Version: 1.0.2
• Size: 25.2 MB
• Languages: English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean
• Seller: Sino Joy Group Limited
• © 36 You Games

Rated 4+