Princess Crown #BestOfSaturn

Stylized 2D graphics and multi-arc storyline lovers, step right up to Princess Crown, a late 1997 Atlus side-scrolling action game laden with RPG elements.

Players take on the role of Gradriel, the young Queen of Valendia. Gradriel sneaks out of her castle to interact with, and help, her people directly. Her journey sees her battle demons and other unsavory characters, though thankfully, she makes friends along the way. Some of these friends unlock as playable characters for a different perspective on the same overall narrative.

Gameplay consists of side-scrolling exploration, interaction with NPCs, and turn-based combat, all presented in absolutely gorgeous 2D pixel art. Gather gold from defeated foes to buy better items and equipment in towns, or use seeds to grow ingredients to create restorative items.

Unfortunately, even the most beautiful games are difficult to understand with so much Japanese text in play. Princess Crown was fan-translated with playable versions appearing in 2024. Initially, CyberWarriorX and SamIAm began the project back in 2014 and made it available on GitHub, before ultimately pulling it and resuming work privately. At a later date, Eadmaster picked up the old open-source work and began his own fork, bringing it to a release-worthy state in 2025. This year, the original team abandoned their efforts, with Eadmaster’s version currently the lone complete and finished translation available.