Lads in Distress

Back in the day, princes and princesses did not really have too much of a choice when it came to marrying someone. As glamorous as the rest of their lives might have been, this decision was mostly based on various political considerations and the like, and it was the parents that usually decided anyway. Granted, this is still true to this day in some corners of the world, but not on a large scale.

Lads in Distress is a colorful and humorous visual novel in which you play the role of a princess that needs to choose her future husband. There’s more to it than just that, but the main idea is that you need to examine every candidate and see whether either one of them fits. Since the whole game is pretty light in regards to the dialog and the situations that are presented, you shouldn’t expect too much depth from the plot either.

As such, you play the role of Princess Charming, a beautiful girl who’s only days away from the ball of her 18th birthday. However, this occasion is usually regarded as more of a competition in which the young princess chooses a future husband, which is why she is a bit nervous. It’s not even a requirement to like him very much, at least as long as the marriage has other benefits.

Although the plot itself is pretty short and to the point, each prince comes with a separate story route, which means that you can replay the adventure at least three times and never experience the same events twice. There are also multiple endings as well, and it’s because of the decisions you make along the way that you reach one or the other.

The graphics are quite impressive when it comes to the character design and the sprites, but the backgrounds can be a bit lackluster sometimes. It’s not that they are ugly, but the rooms always seem to be virtually empty and devoid of any objects, which is annoying, especially in the case of a huge ball room. On the other hand, you probably won’t have time to notice all these things.

In the end, Lads in Distress is quite clearly not meant to change the world or alter your perception of reality, but it can be the perfect distraction for when you’ve got an hour to spare. The humor is pretty good most of the time.