Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero available now exclusively for PSP

24 February 2009

Posted by:Josh

Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero? (called “Prinny: Is It Okay If I’m The Main Character, Dood?” in Japan) is Nippon Ichi’s side-scrolling “ultimate hardcore action game” that was released exclusively for the PSP on February 17th, 2009. A premium version of Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero is available for purchase at a cost of $37.00 at Amazon and comes with an exclusive soundtrack CD and an exclusive Prinny Comic by Penny Arcade while supplies last.

Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero is an action side-scrolling game in which you control one of 1,000 Prinnies traveling from world to world defeating all enemies in your path with various basic attacks, special attacks and combos. The game is the first time the Prinny characters have starred in their own game title and is a spin-off of the popular Disgaea series of Strategy RPGs that made them famous.

Prinny’s are servants – human souls sentenced in the Neverworld to repent for their sins – which take the appearance of small penguins with peg legs, and have a strange tendency to spontaneously explode and have made many appearances in Nippon Ichi titles but have never been given a starring role, until now.

Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero is an intense side-scrolling action game in which your Prinny has a range of moves he can perform in order to take out the game’s hordes of enemies. The game plays more similarly to something like Metal Slug than it does to say a Mario game.

Prinny HQ serves as the game’s hub where you can access the rest of the game’s worlds. There are six areas of The Netherworld that you can enter and each of them has their own unique visual style and themes, these include Nethergrasslands, High Tome Forest and Magma Hideout. During the course of each stage in addition to fighting the game’s various monsters and defeating bosses you’ll need to collect small orbs to unlock additional characters whom will subsequently appear at Prinny HQ. You’ll also unlock additional gameplay functionality such as enemy reports, battle data and the ability to customize the game’s soundtrack. You can also unlock special items by finding hidden Lucky Dolls.

One very interesting aspect of Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero is how time plays into the game. The time of day will effect the layout of the game’s levels including the enemies and bosses you will face and the rewards you get for defeating them. If you couple this with the numerical points tally the game keeps then you can see how it encourages multiple playthroughs before you can see all that the game has to offer and earn everything.

In another interesting twist, the player is awarded 1,000 lives at the outset of the game, which while it may seem like a lot the game is extremely challenging as it’s “ultimate hardcore action game” moniker suggests. This is due to the precise jumping the player needs to perform in addition to the ease at which you cna die (hits knock you backwards which can call you to fall off platforms) and you can only take four hits before being killed. Checkpoints though are set at certain junctions throughout the stages.

Here is a video of the Japanese version of the game in action.