I wish we’d seen more progress with Volcano Princess. When this Princess Maker style game launched in Early Access back in 2023, the idea seemed sound. An approachable daughter-raising sim! But at the time, parts of it felt a bit clunky, occasionally linear, and poorly localized. Now the full game is here and, well, you could say some of those points are still valid. There’s a lot to do, but other games in the genre handle things a bit better.
As is common for the Princess Maker genre, Volcano Princess stars a single father attempting to raise his daughter on his own. It feels a bit different than contemporaries in certain ways. For example, the daughter is his actual child. We start out with her as essentially a preschool age toddler, before a big time skip that picks up when she’s 12 and registered herself for school to become a knight. It can also feel like dating and marriage is quite a focus in perhaps an unusual way, since right away at 12 she’ll also start getting letters from admirers. But in general, it remains a game focused on building up stats, keeping an eye on morality, and hopefully working toward an ideal ending for your virtual child.
The gameplay loop in Volcano Princess mostly follows that of other games in the Princess Maker genre. At the start of a week, you’ll get a chance to interact with your daughter, visit town, and engage in certain actions. The difference here is that there are set action points for these activities, which can involve things like visiting dungeon spaces, tending a garden plot, heading to a local tavern, or hanging around at home. These can also be minimally replenished, for example by relaxing under a tree.
Once you finish taking part in those potential excursions and activities, scheduling comes into play. You need to keep an eye on her attributes (charisma, mind, and stamina) and her stats (emotion, imagination, intelligence, and strength) to be aware of her progression, with her mood, current level of darkness (sin), fame, energy, and even motivation helping to influence what she’s capable of and how well she is as she heads toward different endings. When setting up her schedule for the weak, you can take classes in things like art, literature, science, and swordsmanship to affect stats. It’s also possible to take on jobs so you can work to earn money and influence stats (and possible darkness levels). It’s basically a balancing act, which involves picking the right plans to hopefully boost the stats you want for certain outcomes.
I also mentioned romance is a pretty big deal in Volcano Princess. There are a number of love interests, provided your daughter doesn’t end up with certain endings like becoming a nun. Male and female love interests appear for her. There are even endings where the daughter can end up in a polyamorous relationship. While it is a positive that it is open about possibilities, I can’t get over how weird it is for her to start getting love letters when she’s only 12 years old.
But more awkward is how Volcano Princess looks. The UI is incredibly cluttered and text feels littered across the screen. You’re constantly seeing numbers everywhere. )This even overlaps during combat.) There’s not one cohesive font or even font size used. Spacing feels awry and off as well, especially when you look at the calendar.
The localization also doesn’t feel exciting to read. Volcano Princess comes across as very dry. I’d even call it hollow sometimes when compared to a game like Magical Princess. It can read awkwardly! I will say the translation seems a bit stronger than it was a few years ago. But it doesn’t feel as flavorful and exciting as some similar titles.
Volcano Princess feels like a budget type of Princess Maker game. It isn’t bad! It just isn’t the best option. The thing is that we have similar titles that are offering the same sort of experience, such as Magical Princess, that are doing a much better job of it. What’s here isn’t bad, per se. It doesn’t feel as polished is the problem. Especially since, after two runs, it felt a little more linear and less beautiful to me than the more open-ended titles we’ve seen recently like Machine Child.
Volcano Princess is on the Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X, PC, and mobile devices.