Prinny Party: Going Overboard! Review – Party Hard, Dood

Prinny Party: Going Overboard! Is a creative, if somewhat uneven, party game that sets itself apart from its popular peers pretty well. The lack of online multiplayer combined with single-player mode having some strange bumps complicates what could be a solid home run, but for people with local pals to play with, this is a pretty pleasant party title.

While I’m not an enormous fan of Mario Party, I am definitely an enormous fan of Disgaea, so I figured Prinny Party: Going Overboard! seemed like it could be a nifty way for me to see if my view of party games has changed over the years. Though it’s certainly a bit bumpy, I can respect how Prinny Party tries to be its own thing, even if it doesn’t all come together the way it intends.

Rather than the tried-and-true board game/minigame split that so many party games before it have done, Prinny Party: Going Overboard! opts for a more Dokapon Kingdom-inspired style of play, revolving around building facilities on squares, gathering money and stats, and battling other players and enemies. This feels much more in line with Disgaea’s style, and it works well enough at its core. 

The additional layers of strategy that come with juggling enemies and building beneficial facilities like stores, hospitals, and cannons to damage foes are very welcome. I’m also a fan of how Prinny Party: Going Overboard! implements “Throwing” – an iconic Disgaea mechanic that fits well into the board game genre. Being able to toss other players, enemies, and facilities around adds complexity and allows for some goofy moments, making it parallel to how it’s used in the main series. 

Familiar faces pop up throughout Prinny Party: Going Overboard!.

The concept of taking on powerful Protago-Knights, who are memorable characters from across Disgaea, is a great one, though they feel a bit too powerful given how weak you are at the beginning. This makes it easy to get wiped out early, which hurts the game’s pacing. Still, trying to boost your stats through experience points and landing on specific panels makes for a rather creative experience that skillfully meshes RPG mechanics with the inherent chaos of party games to create overall enjoyable results.

Strangely enough, there isn’t traditional online play in Prinny Party: Going Overboard!, meaning you’re limited to local multiplayer or single-player. This hurts the game for a couple of reasons, the biggest being that party games really hinge on playing with people, so one would think online multiplayer would be essential. The other reason is that this limits you to playing alone if you don’t have friends over, leading to single-player being the most consistently viable mode, despite it not feeling like the ideal way to experience the game.

You can enjoy the game alongside AI players, but they take a while to get through their turns and aren’t the most thrilling to watch. It beats playing alone – which will repeatedly lead you to dying to the super-powered Protago-Knights in a couple of hits, followed by resets to recent autosaves – but it’s just not nearly as fun to play alone or with AI as it is with actual people, making the lack of online multiplayer a confounding choice.

The visuals of Prinny Party: Going Overboard! will be familiar to any Disgaea fans who have played recent entries in the series. Several 3D models are reused, which isn’t a bad thing, but it does feel a bit repetitive with each title that comes out. They’re expressive and charming, though, and the board designs are pleasantly colorful, so it all feels very fitting for such an off-the-wall, high-energy party game. There’s lots of delightful Disgaea music throughout, and the wonderfully overdramatic voice acting that the series is so known for permeates the whole thing, so there’s definitely no shortage of Disgaea flavor.