A Little Lily Princess Review (English Original Visual Novel)

This review was originally published on Fuwanovel Forums on April 20th 2018.

Those that follow this blog for a while might have noticed that I like to complain about the lack of identity that many Western-made VNs suffer from. As a medium utilized pretty much exclusively by the fans of original Japanese visual novels, EVNs far too often borrow extensively from those when it goes to setting and story elements, to the point of replicating various tiring anime clichés and kitsch tropes. They also frequently copy elements that really have no interest being in a game created by someone living in the USA or Europe, more often than not having only very superficial knowledge of Japanese culture and reality of life in Japan. 
            A Little Lily Princess, developed by Hanako Games and published on Steam in May 2016 (under the "Hanabira" label, signifying an outside scriptwriter), is a game that I like bringing up as an example of a Western VN that was able to differentiate itself from the crowd and create unique experience exactly because of the ability to not be completely defined its “weeb” roots, creating a setting and a story far detached from typical anime tropes. Paradoxically, the classic English novel A Little Princess, that this game adapted into the VN/dating sim format, is not a title unknown to anime fans, thanks to the highly-rated series from the 1980’s, Little Princess Sara (it even inspired a few less known projects, such as the slightly outlandish Strain: Strategic Armored Infantry). Hanako’s version tries to differentiate itself from those other adaptations mostly by giving a yuri spin to the story – still, as I will try to show in this review, calling it a yuri romance is rather misleading and says little about the true appeal of this game.

 The games arstyle and writing does a very good job of creating an appropriate climate of Victorian London, making it stand out from typical VN settings

 

A Little Lily Princess, just like its source material, follows the story of Sara Crewe, a young girl sent by her father, wealthy colonial official in India, to a boarding school in London in late XIX-century. Soon after arriving at the institution as the star student, she's struck with a tragedy that completely changes her life and the social status she was benefitting from. The game does a very good job of creating a believable representation of its setting and gives a lot of attention to the social divisions and injustices that were among the core issues touched on in Burnett's novel. The school's internal hierarchy, dependent mostly on social standing and wealth of the girls' families is a major theme not only in Sara's story but also in pretty much every other character arc. The unusual artstyle (with characters and CGs drawn by Inma Ruiz, whose considerable talent definitely deserves more uses like this, as distant as possible from Winged Cloud's Sakura games), language used by the characters and music all give the game a unique climate, making it pretty far detached from the typical EVN experience (even if mechanically it's a fairly standard visual novel with dating sim elements).
            This feeling of reading something fresh and different is further supported by very usual dynamic present in many of the game's routes – while some of them are more or less explicitly romantic and involves girls in age similar to Sara, other include (among other things) her becoming sort of a mother figure for a much younger child, or creating a close bond of friendship with her significantly older Maid. Yuri romance elements are definitely present in the game, but they are not really in any way the true focus of the story or its strongest element – also, when they're actually present, they're definitely on the cute and tame side of things, very much appropriate for how young Sara and her schoolmates are. This creates an interesting contrast with the game's dating sim mechanics and the way it advertised itself – it rarely conforms to your expectations, especially if you don't know much about the source material. 

Maybe the biggest virtue of this game as an adaptation is exploring the characters that had only minor roles in the original, giving them their own, complex personalities and motivations

 

The stylization itself and the interesting structure of the game aren't all though – its true strength lies in the characters, especially Sara and her personal story. Her dialogues, thoughts and overall behaviour make a very convincing impression of a somewhat spoiled, but ultimately very kind-hearted and sensitive girl that the player quickly learns to adore – this makes the hardships she goes through often painful to see, but keeps you emotionally involved all the way through the main story. This is ultimately the real focus of the game and definitely its biggest asset, as all the character routes and story arcs connected to them pretty much an addition to the tale of Sara's rises and falls from grace and the core plot, apart from some dedicated scenes of the ending sequence, always plays out the same way, no matter what relationship you chose to pursue. Of course, it's not like the rest of the cast, especially the “heroines”, don't have interesting characteristics and backstories of their own. Some of them are developed in very intriguing ways, that surpasses their characterization in the original novel – that goes especially to Lavinia, who in the source material was simply a bully and Sara's main antagonist among the girls, but here became more much more ambivalent and complex character. They all simply feel like secondary, maybe even optional additions to the main story-arc.
            If I had to say something negative about A Little Lily Princess, it would mostly be about the "dating sim" resource-management mechanic, which require you to decide how Sara will spend her time every day and provide you with resource points, which you later spent to progress the character routes. It’s rather tedious and doesn’t add any real challenge to the game, apart from that coming from frustrating RNG – the only good thing about it is that it’s very thematic, adding to the climate of the whole VN, especially after the first plot twist. Other than that though, this is simply an excellently made and unique game – not a masterpiece, but an all-around impressive experience and a must-read for every OELVN fan, even if they’re not into yuri. That part, while a bonus for those liking the theme, is probably one of the less important elements here.

 
Final score: 4/5
 
Pros:
+ Unique, well-developed setting
+ Emotionally engaging, touching story
+ Interesting art and overall good production values
 
Cons:
- Romance sometimes feels forced and underdeveloped
- Shallow, RNG-dependent dating sim mechanics
- Can be extremely sad and painful to read

VNDB page
Buy A Little Lily Princess on Steam