Shaun Munro reviews Mia and the Dragon Princess…
Though Wales Interactive’s most recent FMV game, Ten Dates, proved the rom-com to be a surprisingly snug fit for the medium, the publisher’s bread-and-butter is undeniably their more high-stakes genre outings, and so their new release Mia and the Dragon Princess sees them return to more familiar – yet disappointingly inconsistent – territory.
This martial arts-themed actioner revolves around Londoner Mia (Noa Bleeker), a waitress at the Dragon Princess restaurant with dreams of travelling. Mia ends up crossing paths with Marshanda (Dita Tantang), a mysterious woman running through the streets of London in nothing more than a hospital gown, with a tracking device attached to her wrist. When Mia helps hide Marshanda from her pursuers, it kickstarts a dangerous adventure involving Japanese royalty and legendary pirates, the origins of which date back 100 years.
The potential for an ass-kicking, staunchly feminist homage to classic action B-movies speaks for itself here, yet Mia and the Dragon Princess frequently struggles to make one care about its wafer-thin story and characters. Even with some animated asides interspersed throughout the game’s roughly hour-long runtime to detail Marshanda’s origins, there’s very little here that paints outside of the dead-cliched action-adventure playbook.
It at least doesn’t take itself even remotely seriously; in one genuinely hilarious moment, after a man is mortally wounded by a portable canon (seriously), he says “Clear my browser history” moments before expiring. The tone is relatively goofy throughout, bar a few surprisingly violent moments, yet sometimes lurches into toe-curlingly corny territory, especially where some of its more gross-out elements are concerned. Whether Marshanda tagging along on a hen do, doing shots, and using novelty penis-shaped lights to navigate a tunnel is funny or lame will likely vary from player to player. It feels like the filmmakers were shooting for a fish-out-of-water vibe akin to the first Thor movie, though it only sometimes lands.
As an FMV game, this is acceptably shot though not one of Wales’ better-looking titles; the filmmaking is relatively pedestrian throughout, from the flat colour grading to the personality-devoid camerawork and routinely rough VFX elements. Though Marshanda’s brief, stylishly choreographed fights are the game’s easy highlight, the generic coverage and excess of shaky cam undercut their impact somewhat. Also, this being an FMV game and all, it’s a shame there isn’t any interactivity focused around the fights themselves.
Ultimately this is clearly a project produced on a limited budget, most evidenced by the few and fairly bland locations – a restaurant, a brick enclosure, a cave – though that wouldn’t really matter much if the writing were more creative and finessed.
The performances are meanwhile a mixed affair; lead performers Noa Bleeker and Dita Tantang bring persuasiveness to the roles of Mia and Marshanda, though without naming names, some of the supporting performances deign to panto-level exaggeration. The two most famous faces among the cast, meanwhile, are unquestionably MyAnna Buring (The Witcher), who is basically here for a glorified cameo, and the great Paul McGann (Withnail and I, Doctor Who), whose quietly menacing performance as the primary antagonist is an easy highlight – albeit certainly not enough to compensate for the lackluster writing.
Mechanically this is absolutely standard fare for the FMV genre; though there are 10 possible endings to achieve, the game is largely defined by two main paths, and none of the game’s decisions offer more than two choices. While many of Wales’ previous games forced players to experiment in order to discover more of the available clips, Mia and the Dragon Princess presents a story tree right from the start, allowing players to see the various possible branching story paths at any time. If this perhaps undercuts the sense of discovery a little, it ensures that most players should be able to unlock all of the possible endings within three or four hours.
As usual, players are able to skip previously watched content on repeat playthroughs, though once again the manner in which the clips are indexed means that you’ll often still have to sit through entire scenes again, which quickly becomes tiresome when you’re on your seventh or eighth run through the story. But at the end of the day, there’s so little meat and intrigue to the story – despite two decently varying paths – that you might feel like you’ve had your fill after just a couple of playthroughs.
Fans of the FMV genre know what they’re getting with these sorts of projects and will probably get a few easy kicks out of this regardless of its middling quality, yet it’s unlikely to make much of a dent otherwise. A mildly amusing but mostly undercooked martial arts romp, Mia and the Dragon Princess is a strictly-for-enthusiasts FMV game that struggles to muster much interest.
Pros:
+ Doesn’t take itself too seriously.
+ Some fun fight sequences.
+ Story tree is a helpful feature.
Cons:
– Plot and characters aren’t very interesting.
– Some terrible dialogue.
– Performances are a mixed bag.
– Underwhelming production values.
Rating: 4.5/10
Reviewed on PC (also available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch).
A review code was provided by the publisher.
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more video game rambling, or e-mail me here.
