Little Princess: Marl Ōkoku no Ningyō Hime 2
"Little Princess" takes place twelve years after the epilogue of "", and features several of the same characters. The tactical role-playing game battle system of Rhapsody was discarded for a more traditional RPG battle system. Like its predecessor, Little Princess includes many musical interludes and focuses on the themes of falling in love and fulfilling your dreams. As of 2020, the game is available for download via the PlayStation Store, and is playable on either the PSP or PlayStation 3. The download became available on May 31, 2007, only in Japan. Plot . Little Princess starts off many years after where "" left off. Cornet, having saved Prince Ferdinand in Rhapsody, is now the ruler of Marl Kingdom. They have one daughter, Kururu, named after Cornet's fairy puppet friend/mother. Now twelve years old, Kururu, joined by her best friend Crea Rosenqueen, wants to go on a journey to find her own knight in shining armor. While taking a walk through the forest, Kururu and Crea are attacked by a dragon and saved by a mysterious boy named Cello, much like how Cornet and Ferdinand met years before. Kururu does not immediately fall  in love with Cello (mostly because he calls her "Pumpkin Pants," after her taste in clothing), and initially hates him. Over the course of her quest he repeatedly appears out of nowhere to help her. Elsewhere, a battle is brewing between the two families of witches—the Marjoly Family (the villains of the first game) and the Akurjo Family. The Akurjo Family is attempting to steal the Shadow of Beauty, a wish-granting gemstone that Marjoly has always treasured (as it is a memento of her first love, Keeldear). To keep the Akurjo Family from taking the jewel, Marjoly breaks  it into pieces and scatters the shards across the country. Both of the witch families then begin searching for the shards, each trying to complete the gem first. Kururu, Crea, and Cello are soon involved with the search as well, as Cello needs the Shadow of Beauty to heal his mother's illness. As they work together, Kururu realizes that she is falling in love with Cello. Once the pieces have all been collected, Kururu gathers the courage to confess her feelings to Cello. The moment she does, it is revealed that Cello's mother is Akurjo, who subsequently teleports  away with him. Kururu, determined not to give up on Cello, battles her way through Akurjo's castle to find Cello. Upon meeting him again, Cello tries to fight Kururu, but finally admits that he loves Kururu as well. He then collapses. Marjoly uses her magic to let Kururu enter Cello's heart to heal him. In this way, Kururu gets to experience his tragic past firsthand. After the final battle with Akurjo, everyone (including the Marjoly Family) wishes together on the Shadow of Beauty for Akurjo to be healed of her illness. This succeeds, but Akurjo retreats into the  Netherworld, saying she needs to cool her head (though Marjoly points out that Akurjo wants to say "thank you", and is just too stubborn to do so). Cello decides to go to the Netherworld to look after his mother, but promises Kururu that he will someday return to her. Four years later, Kururu and Crea take a walk in the forest (just as they did at the beginning of the game), and again, Cello appears to save them from a dragon. The game ends there, and its story continues in the second chapter of . Gameplay. Like "Rhapsody", Little Princess is  an RPG. Characters join the party, level up, equip things, etc. The player controls Kururu around different areas. There are multiple difficulties, but the game over all is viewed as more challenging than Rhapsody. Battle. The battle system has changed drastically from Rhapsody's tactics style fights. Little Princess features a more traditional RPG, turn-based battle system, with the enemy characters on the left-hand side of the screen and the player characters on the right. Unlike the battle system in Rhapsody (in which one controlled the game's main character and three puppets or monsters), only human characters  fight. Puppets are equipped to specific characters, and are used to cast magic; instead of MP (magic points), money is taken with each spell in small amounts. Furthermore, a character's equipped puppets receive experience in battle and level up at roughly the same rate as the player, regardless of whether they are actually used in battle. Each time the player uses a puppet, a note is added to the musical staff on the battle screen; when a full bar is completed, the number to the right of the staff increases by one and the notes are cleared, allowing the  player to fill up more bars with notes. When enough bars have been completed, the player can use a variety of attacks known as , which subtract varying amounts of completed bars from the player's total. A predecessor of the Reward system was present in the previous game; however, in Little Princess, one receives notes after using puppet magic (rather than after playing the trumpet to boost the puppets' statistics), since the central character of Little Princess cannot play her trumpet in battle. As only two of the game's characters are able to equip and use puppets, most  human characters have special skills or techniques equivalent to magic, and one character is able to use monsters (which can be captured after battle, as in Rhapsody) in much the same way as puppets. Legacy. Along with "" and "", this game is part of the "Marl Kingdom" series. "Little Princess" maintains the emphasis on musical numbers and themes of love introduced in "Rhapsody", as well as the anime inspired, bright graphics, which are used in several later Nippon Ichi Software games. Unlike "Rhapsody", "Little Princess" was never released outside Japan, possibly due to "Rhapsody's" low level of mainstream popularity. PlayStation  Store. The game was made available for download via the PlayStation Store on May 31, 2007. However, the download was only available in Japan, and there is no word of bringing it to North America. Soundtrack. A soundtrack for the game's music was released on March 8, 2000. The music, like in the other Marl games, was handled by Tenpei Sato. Track list: Reception. On release, "Famitsu" magazine scored the game a 30 out of 40. External links.