Developer: Zoo Corporation
Publisher: Zoo Corporation, EastAsiaSoft
Platform: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch
Tested on: Switch
Pretty Girls Escape – Review
In the course of the last few months, we have taken a closer look at two of the ‘Pretty Girls‘ games, namely Pretty Girls Speed and Pretty Girls Four Kings Solitaire. Both games proved to be fairly fun card games with a somewhat tacky ‘pretty girls’ theme plastered over them. Don’t get us wrong, the theme could work if it was properly fleshed out. Both games were merely solid card games and the pretty girls’ theme consisted of static images of busty anime ladies. The game didn’t have any animations and the content was also very barebones. Now, we are taking a closer look at Pretty Girls Escape, which ditches the card game gameplay and presents us with a more traditional puzzle-style formula.
Story
Like the other games in the series, Pretty Girls Escape does not have any story whatsoever. You’ll just pick a game mode or the Dressing Room option, and you’re good to go. We don’t think this game would have been any better with a dedicated story mode.
Graphics
As is the case with all the Pretty Girls games, this title will feature busty babes that stand on the side of the screen, while you play the actual game. In this case, you’re treated to a simplistic puzzle title. The overall visuals are colorful, the static images are detailed and the user interface is very clear. Like its predecessors, Pretty Girls Escape does not feature any animations when it comes to the cast of girls, and this feels like a missed opportunity. As it currently stands, it feels like you’re playing an old-school puzzle game, with an anime-like backdrop. More and more we are getting the feeling that the theme is just a lazy attempt to draw in a bigger crowd. For the first titles in the series, we could still blame it on inexperience, but the fact that there is no evolution in the graphical department is quite disappointing.
Sound
Once again, the girls of the Pretty Girls franchise will talk to you in Japanese without any subtitles. This is actually quite annoying, as you have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. We don’t expect the dialogues to be very interesting, but it would have been nice to have subtitles when playing the game (the menus are of course in English). This is also the first game in the series where we found the soundtrack to be terribly annoying, up to the point we simply muted the game.
Gameplay
Pretty Girls Escape steps away from the traditional card game gameplay of the other titles and instead offers us a fairly interesting puzzle game. In this game, you’ll have to clear a board of colorful blocks to have the block(s) that feature your character’s face on it reach the exit at the bottom. You’ll simply have to tap other blocks to make them disappear. You can only get rid of blocks if they are connected to another one of the same color. This means that if you’re left with single blocks of a specific color, you might not be able to finish the level. As the game progresses, you’ll have to avoid special blocks and you will also have to start thinking about your moves.
To aid you in completing the level(s), you can move the blocks on the game board to the left side or to the right side. This may open new options to get rid of certain blocks. Overall, the gameplay loop here is quite enjoyable, but there is hardly any content on offer here. You can simply play through the Stage Mode and the Challenge Mode. The Stage Mode will present you with a full field you’ll have to clear to reach the goal, while the Challenge Mode will present you with slightly harder puzzles. When playing through the Stage Mode you’ll earn points, and with these points, you’ll be able to buy new backdrops for dioramas as well as new outfits for the ladies. For some reason, you don’t get any points for playing the Challenge Mode.
While the puzzle gameplay by itself isn’t too bad, the game offers hardly any content. If you’re an avid puzzle fan, it probably won’t take you much longer than an hour to beat the game and unlock pretty much all things you can buy with points. We feel as if the card games in the other titles offered a lot more replay value than the puzzles of this title. We also regret that the game does not feature a local versus mode, as that would have also made things a lot more fun.
Conclusion
So far, Pretty Girls Escape has been the most disappointing entry in the series. You’re getting yet another carbon copy of the other games in terms of visuals, with the only difference being the actual gameplay mechanics. We found the sound design to be of very low quality and sadly did not see any evolution in the franchise as a whole. Of course, we didn’t expect this new entry to bring a lot of new content to the table, but it would have been a huge plus to finally have animated characters or a bit more content on offer.
Pretty Girls Escape - Review,
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