Credit: Ludosity InteractivePrincess Remedy In A World Of Hurt is practically the definition of a casual game. Cute, funny, non-threatening and very forgiving, it depicts the story of Remedy, a princess from Saturn who has just graduated from healing school. She is called upon to treat a prince who lives in an unfortunately-named place called Hurtland. As you might expect, everybody in Hurtland seems to have something wrong with them, and it's up to you to help them out.
As you can probably guess, there is quite a bit of humor in this game. The dialogue is invariably ridiculous and there are a lot of bad puns. One ailing NPC complains to Remedy that the people in his town have sharp tongues, and as a result he's suffering from "sick burns". Yup. This game does not take itself seriously at all, and it is quite up-front about that fact.
Credit: Ludosity InteractiveThe gameplay is also very simple. You move Remedy around the overworld map, exploring towns and forests and the like, and when you find a sick NPC, you enter an action sequence called "healing mode" to try and eliminate the various germs and nasties that inhabit them. You mostly do this by throwing pills and syringes at them, of course. That's just how medicine works.
If you fail, not to worry - You will just get kicked back to the map so you can try again. As I said, this game is incredibly forgiving. That is not to say that it isn't challenging, though. Even on normal difficulty I found that some of the late-game battles quickly escalated into "bullet hell", requiring several attempts to complete. There are also harder difficulty settings available if you want to challenge yourself further, and there is a certain achievement that can only be gained by ignoring all of the loot chests until you reach a certain point in the game. If you're motivated to do this, it will increase the difficulty of the combat sequences considerably, as you will forfeit all of your chances to upgrade Remedy's powers until later in the game.
Credit: Ludosity InteractiveWhile there isn't anything groundbreaking about this game, it is an entertaining, well-crafted little adventure that is worthy of your time. There's something very endearing about a game that is focused on helping people rather than hurting them, and its relentless positivity and quirkiness feel very fresh and original. It also features an awesome 8-bit soundtrack that is worthy of being sold on its own, and a very funny and surprising ending that is definitely worth seeing (I won't spoil it for you).
Did I mention this game is free? It totally is. Perhaps that makes sense, though, considering that this game only takes a single hour to finish. However, it will be an hour of your time that you will enjoy, especially if you're in the mood for some 8-bit nostalgia. You have nothing to lose. Try it out!
