Game Info

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Developer: SuperVillain Studios

Genre(s): Action

Players: 8

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Release Date: May 4, 2010

Summary: Rescue your beloved princess through teamwork in this comic medieval battle royale. There’s a catch, though – the other team has been feeding her magical cake, making her harder to escort back to your castle.

Fistful of Cake takes the class based multiplayer fun that you loved in Fat Princess on the PS3 and brings it to the PSP, but does it take the cake?

If you’ve played Fat Princess then you will be happy to know that not much has changed here.  There are still the 5 classes.  Each class has a particular hat that can be worn to become that class.  If you want to become a mage, just head over to the hat machines and put on your wizards hat. Each character class can be upgraded to provide additional abilities or alternate weapon options. Resource management still plays a roll in allowing your team to upgrade your hat machines and build various ladders and spring boards around the map.  The core mechanics that makes Fat Princess fun are all still alive and well.

One change to the hat machines is they can now be dilapidated.  This means your hat machine start the round out of commission and will not produce hats.  A worker will need to  fix them to allow the other classes to be used in the round.  This was a nice new way to play the game and know that each team would have to mine some resources before committing to an all out attack.  This is an option that can be changed before setting up a game.  Another new addition is Stunt Double.  Stunt double can be used as a decoy.  The enemy grabs what they think is the princess until, BLAMO!, and she explodes in their face.  One of the funnier moments I have seen in the game was when my AI teammates would go and pick up the stunt double, and one right after another explode.  It was not helping my team any, but funny nonetheless.

It still controls virtually identical to its PS3 big brother.  All of the basic techniques that are used in Fat Princess still apply here.  Graphically it looks really good on the PSP’s screen.

All of the modes that released on the PS3 are back. Rescue the Princess, the quintessential mode.   Snatch ‘n Grab,  a variation on the capture the flag game type.  Team Deathmatch, Invasion,  Soccer, and Gladiate round out the returning  modes.  The story mode has returned and has been expanded, but don’t expect much more then a deeper tutorial, with its humorous narration.  The story mode still just places scenarios to help better teach you the basics of the game so that you are well equipped to tackle the multiplayer aspects of the game.  Some of the challenges can be rather challenging, because of the inability to properly control the AI’s strategies and tactics.

What makes Fistful of Cake different from the PS3 version are the addition of some new game modes. Demolition, where each team has a bomb.  To win the game all you need to do is take that bomb and place it on the other teams throne.  I found that these games can be over rather quickly and with some group coordination you can run another team within the first few minutes of the match. Jailbreak, where capturing jails on the map increases your team’s lives.  To win the game you need to get the other teams counter down to zero.  This game type can provide a good tug-of-war feeling to what is a variation of the classic Team Deathmatch.  The best of the bunch is Grim Reaper.  On the map, The Undercaker, the Grim Reaper hat will appear and that starts a mad dash to grab it before anyone else can.  Once a player has it they have an increased health bar and the killing begins.  The Grim Reaper needs to collect the souls (skulls from killed players) before he is killed by the other players.  The other players have to gang up on the Reaper to reset the hat and try to get it themselves.  This is a very satisfying game type, and a nice new interesting way to play Fatty P.

Now the online is made up of mostly 4 v4, with bots filling out the teams.  All of the maps that are in the PS3 version are here, but can sometimes feel a little large.  There were times that you could make it all the way across the map and not see anyone.  Another issue is the AI.  The AI teammates are rather important, but the way you control them seems to be rather simple.  There were times when I wanted them to follow me and the workers would stop and take a swing at every tree we passed.   They did a decent job of engaging enemies whenever they came by, but it would have been nice to move faster and get away from the enemy altogether.  Communicating should be key, but alas there is no voice chat, or any other way to communicate to human players.  This is obviously not a problem when playing adhoc, but is quite the bummer when playing infrastructure mode.

Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake is a worthy addition to the PSP.  It takes everything that you loved about the PS3 version and packs it into a portable package.  With great visuals that mirror its older brother and the same solid gameplay that you love, it captures the charm of the original Fatty P.  With the addition of the new game modes and options of dilapidated hat machines or the stunt double princess it brings you something new and isn’t just the same old game you’ve already played.  Sure, it has some online inefficiencies, but the game that you loved on the PS3 will still charm you, and have you smiling every time you play.

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