Of all of the platforms NIS America publishes on, the PC has received the least amount of support over the years. While many games from the publisher got releases on various Nintendo and Sony platforms, only the biggest titles, such as the Ys and Disgaea games, get day-and-date releases with everyone else. This might be starting to change as PC players on Steam are starting to see the company's back catalog. The latest title to do so is The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince, a game that was released on PS4 and Switch in North America back in 2019.

The story plays out in a way that's reminiscent of a darker fairy tale. In a dark and foreboding forest lives a wolf who sings to the moon every night with her beautiful voice. Every night, a prince comes to the forest to hear the beautiful singing and applaud, despite not knowing the source of the voice. While the natural instinct of the wolf is to eat humans, she comes to appreciate the adoration and leaves the prince alone in the hopes that her real self won't scare him away. One night, the prince tries to climb the hill where the wolf sings, and the wolf tries to shield his eyes, but she ends up temporarily blinding the prince instead. With the prince now locked away in a tower out of familial shame, the wolf begins to feel sorrow for her actions and seeks out the help of the forest witch so the prince can regain his sight. The wolf also wants to turn into a princess, so she can help the prince since he's still traumatized from a wolf scratching at his eyes. The witch agrees to both requests and gives the wolf the ability to transform into both forms at will — barring the presence of moonlight — but she requests that the wolf give up her singing voice, and the wolf quickly agrees.

The setup is good, and the quality of the narrative is maintained throughout, from the humorous interactions between human and wolf norms to the various tragedies to the eventual ending. As mentioned before, this is a fairy tale of the darker persuasion, so while it isn't overly gory or disturbing, there are moments that would be hard to classify as kid-appropriate. What you can't help but notice is how story-heavy the game becomes throughout the adventure. The opening cut scenes take a very long time to get through, so you're well into double-digit minute territory before you have meaningful interactions aside from hitting the button prompt to reach the next bit of dialogue. The subsequent cut scenes aren't quite as long as the opening one, but they're lengthy enough. It's great for those who love a well-crafted story, but it's disappointing for those who want more gameplay.

The game is a purely 2D puzzle platformer where the main goal is to lead the prince from the beginning to end of a stage unharmed. The experience will remind you of Ico in that this is essentially a giant escort mission where you need to manually ensure the prince goes where you want him to go by holding his hand, so he has no choice but to follow you. Eventually, you can get the prince to move a little on his own, and he can later hold things like torches. The prince is also fragile, so he can't fall from slightly great heights unless he can land on something soft (like mushrooms), and he can't survive more than one hit from any creature.

While in human form as the princess, you share the same weaknesses as the prince, but you need to be in that state to guide the prince and get through small passages and activate switches. Switching to your wolf form means that you can attack creatures and use your claws to activate other switch types in addition to breaking barriers. Being a wolf means that you can jump higher and fall down further without getting hurt, and you're also immune to enemy attacks. You also weigh more in this form, which becomes essential in some platforming portions.

For the most part, combat is far from being essential to the overall game. You have some enemies to kill, but the game doesn't focus on this, so enemies usually take less than three hits to kill, and there are no bosses throughout the title. The focus is on puzzles and platforming, but even that feels limiting, since you only ever deal with one puzzle type at a time. Most of the time, you'll concentrate on hitting switches to raise platforms and open gates. Other times, you'll try to raise more platforms or figure out whether you stand on a weak platform to break it. Everything is pretty simple to decipher, and by the time the game gets comfortable with combining puzzle types, The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince has already reached its conclusion.

The only real challenge is in the collection of items throughout a stage. A few stages contain flowers to collect, while every stage contains golden leaves to obtain, usually through some out-of-the-way spots. Collecting these opens up a gallery that includes some notes about how the characters should be drawn and other behind-the-scenes tidbits. There's not much else aside from that, but it's neat.

While some people may not like the game's lack of challenge, there are more pressing matters. There are moments when you can't pause the game, and these all occur in small playable sections before a cut scene is about to play. The game saves often enough that exiting at this point doesn't result in any lost progress, but it is concerning to see basic functionality not work, albeit briefly. The physics system is also problematic at times, as there are moments when items for puzzles get temporarily stuck or barely move because the physics aren't working properly. The bigger issue has to be with the game's platforming elements, which can make it feel stiff. This is especially prominent when you need to hold the prince's hand and use a mushroom to leap across a chasm. Unless you get the jump at the tiny exact spot the game wants you to be on, maybe you won't jump but the prince will, or you'll both jump but only the princess will survive the leap while the prince falls to his doom. Like the pause feature, the game has enough checkpoints so not much progress is lost and load times are quick. It remains annoying that the game doesn't feel fluid enough that you can make jumps with any confidence.

The aforementioned issues perhaps explain the presence of a rather unusual feature: stage skip. Bring up the pause menu, and you can skip the current stage you're playing, but you will have to forfeit any items you collected during that run. The game will not simply let you skip everything immediately, as you have to wait 10 minutes before you can initiate the skip. That is 10 minutes spent playing, so going to the pause menu and waiting there doesn't count.  The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince expects you to put in a bit of effort before you can perform the skip. Again, it can feel like this mitigates some of the game's control and physics issues, but it's also a good way to ensure people see the end of the story without using outside sources.

As far as the presentation goes, the game is solid all around, despite being nearly seven years old. Graphically, the game looks gorgeous. It's a stunning mix of ink and charcoal draped across a color scheme with a parchment-like tone. The animations are good, even if it doesn't go for the ultra fluidity that some may have expected. The stylized characters have a Tim Burton-inspired look that makes this fairy tale-like setting feel otherworldly in a good way. The audio is also quite good overall. The voice work is limited to the narrator, but those looking for a dubbed track will be disappointed because the narration is only available in Japanese. The sound effects are fine but used sparingly, while the music does a great job of evoking the dark fairy tale aesthetic without leaning in too far.

The game is already Steam Deck verified, with the caveat that the game only hits a 1280x720 resolution instead of the device's full 1280x800. The title runs at a clean 60fps with no hitching, and the battery life on a launch version LCD Steam Deck hits around three-and-a-half hours on a full charge. Considering the short-ish nature of the game, the title and the device are perfect for one another. For those on Linux, the game also runs fine there with no issues.

The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince is a good game burdened by some unfortunate flaws. The story is engaging from beginning to end, and it can get pretty emotional at times. The concept of changing forms to deal with different situations is good, while the presentation catches your senses. Some will lament the game's lack of challenge, while others will hate how the game sometimes feels like it's limiting your controls so you'll encounter death more often than necessary. The narrative may compel you to play it, but you'll only enjoy it if you have the patience to deal with its issues.

Score: 6.5/10