(English translation: ''Princess Holiday: Rolling Apple Pavilion's One Thousand and One Nights''), usually shortened to Princess Holiday, is a Japanese

adult An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a " minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of major ...

visual novel A , often abbreviated as VN, is a form of digital semi-interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with and used in the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with sta ...

developed by

August August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars, and the fifth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. Its zodiac sign is Leo and was originally named ''Sextilis'' in Latin because it was the 6th month in ...

and released for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

PCs A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or techn ...

on September 27, 2002. It was later ported to the Dreamcast and

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

consoles. ''Princess Holiday'''s story follows Cliff Cloud, who has to help the princess, Leticia La Mew Symphonia, stay undercover under the name Leticia Apple in his hometown. ''Princess Holiday'' enjoyed high sales, charting five times in the national sales ranking of bishōjo games. The gameplay follows a branching plot line which offers pre-determined scenarios with courses of interaction, and focuses on the appeal of the five female main characters by the

player character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...

. ''Princess Holiday'' has made transitions into other media, such as a light novel, art book, albums, and a 2-episode

original video animation , abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the first part of an OVA s ...

(OVA) series produced by Tadama Film.

Gameplay

''Princess Holiday'' is a romance

in which the player assumes the role of Cliff Cloud. Much of its gameplay is spent reading the text that appears on the screen, which represents the story's

narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller (ge ...

and

dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is c ...

. The text is accompanied by character sprites, which represent who Cliff is talking to, over background art. Throughout the game, the player encounters CG artwork at certain points in the story, which take the place of the background art and character sprites. ''Princess Holiday'' follows a branching plot line with multiple endings, and depending on the decisions that the player makes during the game, the plot will progress in a specific direction. In the original

version, there are five main plot lines that the player will have the chance to experience, one for each of the heroines in the story. The DC version extend Diana's scenario, allowing players to try and win her over as well. Also, the port increases the number of endings to twelve, two for each heroine. Throughout gameplay, the player is given multiple options to choose from, and text progression pauses at these points until a choice is made. Some decisions can lead the game to end prematurely and offer an alternative ending to the plot. To view all plot lines in their entirety, the player will have to replay the game multiple times and choose different choices to further the plot to an alternate direction. In the Windows version, there are scenes depicting Cliff and a given heroine having sex. However, later ports remove the adult content.

Plot and characters

''Princess Holiday'' takes place in a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

town near a kingdom. After travelling as a bard for three years, returns to his hometown Symphonia Kingdom, where his kind and gentle younger sister lives. Shilphy is a probationary sister at a church run by her parents, and she handles the church alone because her parents are away on propagation. She also teaches children in the slums and they like her very much. By chance, Cliff happens to meet the kingdom's princess , who is also the main heroine of ''Princess Holiday''. She is running away from her home, and needs to accustom to the outside world; this is difficult due to her naive personality. To help conceal her true identity, Leticia gives the false name to people who don't know she is a princess. She starts to work at the Korogaru Ringotei pub. Cliff and Shilphy have a childhood friend called , she is a knight who guards Leticia. Eleanor is good at swordsmanship and she regrets that Cliff abandoned the skill. Being the daughter of a dressmaker, she is also good at sewing. is the main attraction at the Korogaru Ringotei pub. She acts as an older sister to Cliff, Shilphy and Eleanor, and she is a favorite with regular customers. As Rachel hates the monarchy and the nobility, Leticia keeps her status secret from Rachel. One of the regular customers at Korogaru Ringotei includes , who wears a mantle and a hat and lives near the lake. She has been seen flying on a broom and is known as the "Witch beside the Lake". Lapis has extensive knowledge of many things but knows little of love. is a daughter of Prime Minister Eryngii. At a ball, she falls in love with Cliff at first sight. Later, she works at Korogaru Ringotei with Leticia. Though she was a very minor character in the original PC version, she was popular with fans, so her scenario was added in the console versions.

Development and release

''Princess Holiday'', self-described as a "fantastic princess ADV", is

's second

to produce, after ''Binary Pot''. The game's scenario was written by Taku Sakakibara, whilst original character designs were drawn by Bekkankō; music was composed by KeNji. Sakakibara and Bekkankō would contribute as the main production staff on August's subsequent visual novel, '' Tsuki wa Higashi ni Hi wa Nishi ni: Operation Sanctuary''. ''Princess Holiday'' is playable on the

NScripter This is a list of visual novel engines. Digital Novel Markup Language ''Digital Novel Markup Language (DNML)'' is one of the first scripting language game engines for creating visual novels, also known as interactive fiction games. ''DNML'' was d ...

engine. The first press edition was originally released as two

CD ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both compute ...

s for

on September 27, 2002. August re-released ''Princess Holiday'' as a regular edition for PCs on October 9, 2003.

Alchemist Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscience, protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in Chinese alchemy, C ...

ported an all-ages version of the visual novel without any adult content to the Dreamcast console on May 29, 2003 in both limited and regular editions. An all-ages

version was released by Alchemist on May 27, 2004.

Related media

Printed media

A 230-page light novel () written by Rei Arisawa and illustrated by Bekkankō was published by Harvest under its Harvest Novels imprint on February 1, 2003. On March 7, 2003, a 111-page art book () titled was released by SoftBank Creative under its Raspberry Books imprint. It contains character and story explanations, audio drama, illustration galleries, staff interviews, and more.

Anime

A 2-episode

hentai Hentai is anime and manga pornography. A loanword from Japanese, the original term ( ) does not describe a genre of media, but rather an abnormal sexual desire or act, as an abbreviation of . In addition to anime and manga, hentai works exis ...

(OVA) series was directed by Hiroaki Nakashima, and produced by Tadama Film. Lemon Heart released the

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

as two

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

volumes between March 25 and May 25, 2004. The complete edition was released containing both episodes on May 26, 2006. Limited edition DVDs were also released.

Music and audio CDs

The opening to ''Princess Holiday'' is sung by Kanon Torii, who voiced Leticia in the visual novel, respectively. Torii also sung the visual novel's ending theme . An original soundtrack was released on December 28, 2002, sold at Comic Market 63. Another CD came bundled with the Dreamcast release of ''Princess Holiday'', containing the ending theme. ''Princess Holidays OVA adaptation contains two ending themes, one of them the game's original opening, "Niji no Kanata e", and the other is "Beloved You", of which Torii also sung.

Reception

According to a national sales ranking of bishōjo games sold in Japan, the PC release of ''Princess Holiday'' premiered at No. 2 out of fifty titles, before further charting No. 13 in October 2002. The ranking fell to No. 25 during mid-October. ''Princess Holidays ranking did not change in November 2002. Then in mid-November, ''Princess Holiday'' made its fifth appearance in the charts at No. 44. The Japanese video game magazine ''

Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the fo ...

'' reviewed the Dreamcast port of the game and gave it a total review score of 25/40 (out of the four individual review scores of 5, 6, 6, and 7). '' Dorimaga'' gave the Dreamcast port a total review score of 8,0 (out of the three individual review scores of 9, 7, and 8). Two character popularity polls were held on the official website. The first, a pre-release poll, took place between August 21 and September 25, 2002. A total of 25011 votes were cast, and Leticia received the majority of votes (Leticia: 8045, Shilphy: 7571, Eleanor: 2909, Rachel: 1401, Lapis: 5085). Between October 9 and November 8, 2002, another poll was conducted, gathering a total of 35106 votes; this time, Shilphy received the majority of votes (Leticia: 8209, Shilphy: 8223, Eleanor: 6403, Rachel: 1226, Lapis: 6381, Diana: 3260). As a reward, Bekkankō designed a downloadable wallpaper featuring Leticia and Shilphy. The second poll includes minor characters from ''Princess Holiday''.

Appearances in other media

Leticia La Mew Symphonia makes a guest appearance in the first

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

volume of '' Yoake Mae yori Ruriiro na''. Various characters from ''Princess Holiday'' appear in the ''August Fan Box'', which is a fan disc of sorts to

's visual novels ''Binary Pot'', ''Princess Holiday'', and '' Tsuki wa Higashi ni Hi wa Nishi ni: Operation Sanctuary''.

References

External links

August Soft's official ''Princess Holiday'' site for Windows

Alchemist's official ''Princess Holiday'' site for Dreamcast

Alchemist's official ''Princess Holiday'' site for PlayStation 2
* * {{August (company) 2002 video games 2004 anime OVAs Eroge Japan-exclusive video games Windows games Dreamcast games PlayStation 2 games NScripter games Bishōjo games Video games developed in Japan Alchemist (company) games August (company) games