14 DAY TRIAL // 
The group, a ramshackle assortment of characters with different personalities and interests, is running from gunmen, trapped in a small room at the back of an underground bar. There’s some bickering on how to proceed and at least one nefarious character is ready to help our enemies and might get everyone killed. It doesn’t help that the person who has more knowledge about the situation is speaking Indonesian and nobody can translate.
Two potential paths reveal themselves. I have only one vague hint from a previous scene about which of them might lead to safety. I’ve so far played the game putting my trust into the Dragon Princess, real name Marshanda, and I do the same now.
After a too-long sequence of pipe crawling that features one attempt at humor that lands flat, we emerge in some extensive underground caves under London. I’m a little unsure of the motives of our opponents but they are hot on our heels. It’s time to make the right choices to save the lives of the group and maybe find a way to get to a long-lost treasure. I hope the princess gets one more occasion to show off her martial arts skills, which might be the key to making it to one of the good endings.
Mia and the Dragon Princess is developed by Wales Interactive, Dead Pixel Productions, and Good Gate Media, with Wales Interactive in charge of publishing. I played on Steam on the PC. The game is also offered on the Nintendo Switch, the PlayStation 5, the Xbox Series X and S, older platforms from Microsoft and Sony, as well as mobile devices. The title is a classic full-motion video experience centered around an unlikely central partnership.
As with most FMV experiences, the story is very important. This one starts with a short animated prologue about the Dragon Princess, her early life, her turn to piracy, and her partnership with Red Kat. It’s a nice way to deliver a premise, using a style that could have added more variety to the rest of the game. Then the princess, named Marshanda, wakes up in the present, pursued by a burly-looking man, and uses a magical compass to find a way to something linked to her past.
The other protagonist is Mia, a young resident of London working a basic job in an underground bar. She listens to people around her and seems genuinely kind. But she is entirely unprepared to work with Marshanda, who is on the run and speaks only Indonesian. She is the best-realized character in the narrative and her choices are the ones that players control.
Gameplay is limited, even by the standards of the genre. Players will be able to make choices at certain points, pushing the narrative towards one path or another. There are big and meaningful decisions to make and more trivial ones. It becomes clear which are which after about one full playthrough.
Mia and the Dragon Princess offers players a clear timeline that makes it easy to see the choices they made and plan future approaches. There’s also an option to skip scenes that players have already seen, although its functionality seems a little wonky. The decision timer can be turned off and I found that thinking about the two potential choices for as long as needed makes the experience better.
Other than that by making choices, players will not influence the narrative in any other way. The first playthrough reveals more about the game’s characters and their motivations. I consider my second one canon, although it’s unlikely that this experience will ever get a sequel.
There are ten different endings in Mia and the Dragon Princess. I highly doubt that even the most dedicated FMV fanatic will explore all choices to get them all. The game simply fails to make its main story enjoyable enough to keep them playing for that long. The core duo is fun enough and there’s a mix of action and buddy comedy that would serve them well. But Mia and the Dragon Princess cannot deliver the script required for that.
For an FMV title to stand out, it needs to innovate in some way. Simply stringing along clips and adding decisions is a very basic approach. I like some of the game’s elements, like the fight scenes and the budding link between Mia and the Dragon Princess. But more is needed to push the genre forward and to attract gamers who might not be familiar with it.
Mia and the Dragon Princess looks like a small-budget movie, complete with some wonky special effects and a limited number of filming locations. The actors, which include Noa Nikita Bleeker, Dita Tantang, and Paul McGann, do the best that they can with the material they get. But only the first two, who play Mia and Marshanda, come close to fully inhabiting their characters with some of the rest often phoning it in.
The one highlight is the way the fight scenes are choreographed. Dita Tantang clearly knows how to add physicality to her performance and the stuntmen involved create some brief but cool moments. The game sounds decent but, again, there’s a certain low-key vibe to the entire presentation.
The Good
- Classic FMV
- Solid central duo
- Multiple endings
The Bad
- Limited gameplay
- Characters aren’t engaging
- Relatively low production values
Conclusion
The biggest problem is the lack of narrative coherence. The villain is just a collection of ticks and tropes and, while I like the central pair, their characterization is also scattershot. FMV experiences can be interesting and engaging, both in terms of story and gameplay. Mia and the Dragon Princess fails to deliver on either of those fronts and would have worked better as a straight-to-streaming movie.
A review key was provided by the publisher
