Over the past several years Wales Interactive has cornered the market when it comes to FMV games. Of the 29 games in their current library, Mia and the Dragon Princess is the sixth game I have personally reviewed, and while all my previous video adventures have taken place on the PC, this time I decided to give the PS5 version a try. Spoiler Alert: Absolutely no difference.
You can definitely see the evolution of this genre, as each new game seems to get some more polish and quality of life features. This is the first (that I’ve played) where Wales has offered up a Story Tree option that allows you to track your progress through the twisty narrative. Anyone who has played Detroit: Become Human will appreciate the flowchart design that lights up your path for your current and previous trips through the game. This makes it easy to chip away at the scenes you have yet to experience, as you try to make your way to any of the ten possible outcomes.
Personally, I found Mia and the Dragon Princess to be a bit light on the interactions. I made less than a dozen choices during my one-hour adventure to reach the “bad” ending; some choices guiding the narrative while others were more conversational. I opted to enable streamer mode which disables the timer for your choices, and takes a bit of the pressure off. You really do get caught up in the story and performances, and it’s easy to slip into spectator mode and forget you are playing a game at times.
I’ll keep the story bits brief to avoid spoilers, but basically you are playing Mia, a barmaid who stumbles upon a mysterious women dressed in a hospital gown running down the street fleeing a group of thugs. As the viewer, we know this woman is half of a legendary pirate duo from long ago as told through a brilliantly designed animated intro. Figuring out who she is, how she got here, and why she is being chased are all great motivation for playing the game multiple times. Thankfully, a quality cast of actors have been assembled to give this “movie” that added level of polish. And while the acting is quite good, I just have to give a special shoutout to Aaron Gassor who did the fight choreography. Some fight scenes were approaching John Wick levels of quality and execution, causing me to audibly yell at my screen in excitement.
Mia and the Dragon Princess also has some real-time attribute tracking that will adjust these sliders based on your actions and conversations. This part of the game was never properly explained, but it’s easy enough to figure out what the icons mean. I was just never sure if those attributes were impacting the game. The one good thing is that the bars would appear a few second ahead of having to make a decision, which gives players a brief heads-up if you are playing with a timer.
Other than a few new features, the game plays pretty much like any other FMV adventure. The video and audio quality are excellent. The editing was mostly smooth but there were a few noticeable hitches and stutters when switching scenes based on a choice. I would have though the superfast access speed of the PS5 hard drive would have negated this.
Mia and the Dragon Princess is only $13 on the PS store – same on Steam but there is often a bundle option that lets you purchase multiple titles at a good discount. This is certainly one of the more average experiences in the Wales Interactive library with only a dozen or so choices per path and only a hour completion time. There is a good incentive to replay, and the flowchart is a great tool for making the most out of those replays, but the story is cryptic and it will definitely take multiple passes before things start to come together. Even after I had uncovered most of the plot points, I still came away feeling like this was the first chapter in something potentially greater.
There is a demo on Steam if you want to check it out first, but PlayStation gamers will need to go full in and for those I would say to wait for a sale or see if it becomes part of the PS Plus library. You can also check out my first pass through the game in my first-look video with commentary. Obviously, there will be spoilers.
