Princess And Princess Games

Getting Started With Lesbian Romance Visual Novels From Japan

I've spent more years than I'd like to admit digging through the Japanese dating sim scene, and the Princess And Princess Games series keeps coming up in conversations among people who are specifically looking for content that treats female-female relationships as something other than a fetish or a plot device. That alone makes it worth your time. The series is developed by CLOCKUP, a studio that has been around since the mid-2000s and tends to make games with some dark edges even when the premise sounds sweet. Understanding what you're actually downloading before you fire it up saves you a lot of disappointment later. Princess And Princess Games is a visual novel series by CLOCKUP that revolves around royal women and romantic relationships between them. The first game, Princess And Princess, came out around 2007 and was well-received enough that the studio continued the line with sequels and spinoffs over the next decade. Unlike a lot of western dating sims that slap a romance label on something that's really just a slideshow with a menu, these have actual branching routes, multiple heroines, and genuinely different endings depending on how you play through each character's story. The art is by Sairiki Chibaku, and the animation work in later releases includes a decent amount of motion sprite work, which isn't common at this price point in the doujin space. There are multiple entries in the series, and they're not all direct sequels to each other. Some share the same universe, some don't. The main titles are Princess And Princess (2007), Princess And Princess Evil (2010), and Princess And Princess Game (2012). Each one has a different focus and different tone. If you jump in order, you'll get a more coherent experience, but it's not required.

How The Games Actually Work

These run on Kirikiri, which is the standard engine for most Japanese doujin visual novels. If you're on Windows 7 or newer, it should just run. The interface is typical for the genre: text box at the bottom, character sprites in the center, background images behind them, and a menu you pull up to save, load, or skip. There's a CG gallery and a music player built into the menu system. Nothing fancy, but functional. The gameplay loop is straightforward. You read through a route, make choices that are presented as clickable options, and those choices determine which ending you reach. Each heroine has three to five endings depending on the game. Good endings, bad endings, and somewhere in between. The Evil entry has a different mechanic where you're essentially playing as an antagonist pushing narrative in a darker direction, which changes how you approach the choice points entirely. One thing beginners miss: these games are not short. A full playthrough of the main Princess And Princess route takes about four to six hours if you're reading every line. Multiple routes mean you're looking at thirty to forty hours for completionists. That's before you account for the fact that some paths branch in ways that make backtracking necessary to catch alternate routes. The skip function is your friend, but don't overuse it early because you will forget which choices matter and waste time replaying sections.

Technical Setup And What You Need To Know

The official releases are Japanese-only. If you can read Japanese, great. If not, you have two real options: fan translations or playing through a patch. The English fan translation for the original Princess And Princess is widely circulated and reasonably complete, though it has the usual translation quirks you'd expect from a volunteer project. Pronouns can be inconsistent, some jokes don't land, and there are places where the translator clearly made a guess about context. It's playable, and it's better than nothing. I ran into a specific issue when trying to run the game on Windows 10. The executable doesn't always handle high-DPI displays correctly, and the text would render at weird sizes or clip through the UI elements. The workaround is simple: right-click the executable, go to Properties, then Compatibility, check "Override high DPI scaling behavior," and set it to "Application." This forces Windows to stop messing with the rendering and lets the game handle its own scaling. Fixed it completely for me. Another thing to watch out for: some of these releases include adult content flags in the files. If you're using an emulator like Wine on Linux, you may need to pass certain compatibility parameters or use a wrapper like Winetricks to get the audio working. The audio engine in Kirikiri can be finicky outside of native Windows. On macOS, your options are more limited. You can try via CrossOver or similar compatibility layers, but that's hit or miss depending on the specific version.

Common Problems People Run Into

The biggest issue I see new players hit is the save system. These games sometimes fail to save if you've moved the extracted folder after your first save was created, because the path gets baked into the save file. Always extract to the same location and don't rename the folder or the game won't find your saves. Another frequent problem is the lack of auto-save. There's no continuous auto-save unless the game explicitly includes it, which means if your computer crashes or the power goes out, you could lose several hours. I started making manual backups of my save files in a separate folder just to be safe. Takes ten seconds and prevents a lot of headaches. Audio dropouts are also common, especially on older hardware. If the voice lines cut out or stutter, check that your DirectX installation is up to date. The Kirikiri engine relies on DirectX audio components, and a stale runtime will cause silent audio or crackling. Installing the latest DirectX End-User Runtime from Microsoft fixes this in almost every case I've seen.

Why This Series Stands Out

Most lesbian romance games in the western market fall into one of two categories: they're either stripped down mobile apps with minimal story, or they're indie PC titles with limited budgets and unfinished scripts. Princess And Princess sits in a different space entirely because it's a commercial doujin release from an established studio with a real production pipeline. The writing is consistent, the character development across routes is real, and the voice acting is professional. This isn't a solo developer working on this in their spare time for three years. The counter-intuitive insight here is that the darker games in the series are often more accessible to newcomers than the lighter ones. Princess And Princess Evil deals with political intrigue and psychological manipulation, which means the plot moves faster and the choices have clearer consequences. The original Princess And Princess has more contemplative, slower scenes that some players find boring by comparison. It depends on what you're looking for, but if you're new to the genre, starting with Evil might actually be the better call. There's a limitation worth being honest about: the visual novel format doesn't age perfectly. Some of the tropes are very much products of their era, and the narrative approach to gender and identity can feel dated by modern standards. The games do their best within the constraints of the dating sim structure, but they're not attempting sociological commentary. If you're looking for something that deconstructs the genre or pushes thematic boundaries, this isn't it. It's a well-made romantic drama that happens to center queer women, which is already more than you get in most mainstream releases.

Where To Find The Games

The official releases were sold directly through CLOCKUP's website and at doujin events like Comiket. They're out of print now, which means you won't find them at retail. The English fan translation is available through various visual novel distribution sites. I'd recommend checking with the VNDB (Visual Novel Database) for current links since URLs change and mirrors appear and disappear constantly. Pay attention to the version numbers on any download page. Some older patches have bugs that were fixed in later releases, and you don't want to start with a broken version. There are also some unofficial ports and patches floating around that add things like text speed options, better skipping, and optional music playlists. These are community projects and shouldn't replace the official translation. Use them as supplements if they help your experience. The core game should run fine with just the fan patch.

Final Notes On Playing Through The Series

Keep a note of your choices. I know that sounds obvious, but the branching is deep enough that you'll forget which route you took and end up replaying content you've already seen. A quick text file or spreadsheet listing your name, the route you chose, and the ending you got takes maybe five minutes per playthrough and saves you an hour of frustration later. The games don't tell you what you missed, and some endings are easy to accidentally skip past if you're not paying attention to the dialogue cues. If you end up liking this series, CLOCKUP has other titles in a similar vein. Their work outside the Princess And Princess Games line includes games with different tones and mechanics, so exploring their catalog is a reasonable next step. Just be aware that their style tends toward the dramatic and sometimes disturbing, so the warning labels on their store pages aren't casual.