Mia and the Dragon Princess Review
Mia and the Dragon Princess
Publisher: Wales Interactive
Developer: Dead Pixel Productions
Genre:
PEGI: 18
Comments:
I’m a sucker for the old school FMV games. Playing them on my PC in the mid-late 90s and occasionally we get some on consoles now. The latest of which being Mia and the Dragon Princess, which don’t let the name fool you, the game is full of greatly coordinated fights, explosions, and action. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Mia dreams of adventure, but her feeling of responsibility to her workmates – who have become her surrogate family – keeps her working at a job she’s bored of, living a life she didn’t want.
When a mysterious woman (Marshanda) turns up scared and on the run, Mia’s decision to take her under her wing and try to discover her identity leads her down a path of intrigue, mystery and danger. When a group of thugs, led by the quietly terrifying, Walsh (Paul McGann) turns up at the bar, Mia and her co-workers are taken hostage along with a group of customers.
When Mia’s boss, Matthew (Brian McCardie) is injured, the stakes are raised and the struggle becomes real when Mia and the group end up on the run and battling for their lives. The viewer’s choices will guide Mia through the adventure and will determine her fate, as well as that of the whole group. Throughout the game, your interactions could increase your knowledge around the identity of the mysterious woman, but the way Mia deals with the rest of the group will also have an impact, so each choice needs to be carefully considered.
The beginning of the game takes place as a fully animated intro which then jumps into the real world where the action begins, to which I do not want to spoil the story, as that’s really what the game is I won’t get into details.
However this game is exactly what you think it is, an interactive movie. You watch through the action and are presented with choices that honestly don’t give you time to ponder, just act, and make your choice, changing the direction of the story. The writing is a little off the wall which is expected honestly, so some of the acting comes off pretty ham-fisted.
However the fight scenes are truly something to behold and VERY fun, the entire game has almost an Indiana Jones meets the Goonies feel to it, which is pretty darn cool. If you are expecting something earth shattering or game changing as far as the industry goes, I would look elsewhere. But if you are looking for a fun night with your special someone or friends, this is a fun experience.
With additional playthroughs you can keep track of decisions you made and make changes to unlock the other scenes you didn’t see. It also allows you to skip ones you did already so if you really want to see all of the options you are more than welcome to. Just keep in mind that this is really more of a movie with a couple of choices to make and not an actual “game”.
I played it on the Nintendo Switch, which we often see sometimes some issues in translation however given the nature of the title I had no issues with the hardware playing this game.
Mia and the Dragon Princess is available now on PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, Mac, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Mobile via iOS and Android.
Trailer
Article By Kevin Austin
Kevin Austin has been in gaming journalism in one way or another since the launch of the Nintendo Gamecube. Married and father of 3 children he has been gaming since the ripe age of 6 when he got his first NES system and over 30 years later he is still gaming almost daily. Kevin is also co-founder of the Play Some Video Games (PSVG) Podcast network which was founded over five years ago and is still going strong. Some of his favorite gaming series includes Fallout and Far Cry, he is a sucker for single player adventure games (hence his big reviews for Playstation), and can frequently be found getting down in one battle royale or another. If it's an oddball game, odds are he's all about it.
Follow Kevin Austin on:
Twitter: @PSVGKevin