The title screen
The third of the Princess Maker games by Studio Gainax.
In the realm of the fairies, the Fairy Queen governs over the fairies that are her children. One day, the fairy Lisa approaches her with a heartfelt request. She wishes to become a human princess and begs her to let her enter the human world.
The Fairy Queen fulfills the request and speaks to the one she has chosen as the father figure, letting the girl be reincarnated as a human into the world, and having him take on the duty to raise her to adulthood. She also gives him the fairy Uzu as a companion along, to explain things to Lisa.
This game was the one to start altering the previously standard formula for the series. It allowed the player to choose what occupation the father figure used to follow, which ended up influencing the finances, and influenced the newly-added Mood mechanic for the daughter. It was also the first game to remove Errantry, taking away the RPG Elements of the previous two installments.
The game initially released onto the PC and PlayStation in 1997, with a localized version being available on Steam in 2017. This version was removed from the platform in 2019, as the game got an HD remaster and it replaced the original version on that platform, with it also being released on the Nintendo Switch.
Princess Maker 3: Faery Tales Come True contains the following Tropes
- A-Cup Angst/D-Cup Distress: Unlike the last game where Olive would only comment about her proportions while talking with the player, should Lisa develop anything other than a hourglass shape she'll despair over her body and get a random amount of Stress on her stats.
- Alternate Universe: The manuals mention that this game takes place in one, compared to the previous two games.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: The standard anatomy shown in the game, including for the daughter.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: If Lisa becomes Prideful or Flirty from 15 years upwards, she'll be perpetually locked in that mood, no matter how much you decrease her pride or reduce her charm.
- The Cameo: Maria, Olive, Patricia and Anita appear as potential contestants in the festivals. As they are already grown adults, their parameters tend to be high, and they are the toughest opponents to beat.
- Canon Name: The daughter is called Lisa Anderson in manuals, revealing not only her first name, but also the last name of the player character.
- Career Versus Man: Contrary to the previous game, the special marriage endings aren't added to any career-based ending, but overrule those instead.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Lisa can end up befriending her rivals. They will still compete in their respective classes, but it will remain on friendly terms, and they will buy presents for each other on their birthdays.
- Earn Your Bad Ending: Obtaining certain endings, like the Princess of Darkness or Fairy ending, require more work and tedium than the higher ranked endings.
- Event Flag
- All special marriages, like to the various princes, require event flags to be fulfilled to earn.
- Some endings have the same parameters, but the key that determines which ending is obtained is whether Lisa has or hasn't worked as a palace maid at least once.
- Exposed to the Elements: Averted. If the summer is extremely hot and Lisa works in the farm or the market, she'll lose the stats benefits instead of gaining them, and will Stress faster. On the other hand, taking martial arts classes under the same conditions will result in Lisa's Stamina and Courage increasing sharply.
- Expy: The Mole prince seems to have been an early version of PM5'S Roshe.
- Failure Is the Only Option: No matter if you got the stats either by items or work, you'll fail your first test in every class. The highest possible score you can get in those conditions will always be in the vicinity of 50 points.
- Friend to All Living Things: Lisa can encounter (and adopt if her Attitude is high enough) a street cat during her walks around town. Caring for it if it falls sick is an important step to obtain the Cat Princess ending.
- Fur Bikini: Lisa dons one in the Rabbit Princess ending.
- Gameplay and Story Integration:
- Lisa will begin with a "Prideful" mood if you choose to be a Merchant or a Fallen Noble. After all, she's the daughter of a wealthy/noble man, and as a fairy used to being carefree it makes sense to be happy with her lot in life.
- Lisa will begin with a "Delinquent" mood if you choose to be a Wanderer, a Bard or a Street Performer; jobs that have no reliable income and low statues among the realm, so of course she'll be mad for her fate.
- Should Lisa end up as the new Queen of the Fairies, she'll be the one to give to the player the last congratulation for his good raising.
- Inconsistent Spelling: The title is Faery Tales Come True, though the species is called fairies.
- Inevitable Tournament: There are three festivals across the year that Lisa can take part in, though they take place every two years instead of annually as in previous games. The New Year's Day Festival in January focuses on her Elegance, the Cherry Blossom Festival in April focuses on her Charm, and the Harvest Festival in October focuses on her Stamina.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Occurs to anyone that came into contact with Lisa when one of the supernatural endings has been obtained. She disappears from the human world, with neither her father nor any rival remembering who she was.
- Little Bit Beastly: Lisa can get married to the Rabbit and the Cat Prince, which turn her into their respective species.
- Meal Ticket:
- The Prince in this game is the purest form of this trope out of all the series. Lisa just wants to marry the prince in order to be a princess, and when she meets up with him when he's incognito, she doesn't give signs of being attracted to him until he reveals who he is.
- Heck, the human prince isn't the only prince whose eye Lisa can catch, as there's the Cat, Rabbit, Demon, Mole and Southern Fairy princes. She expresses some disappointment she didn't get her initial goal, but she's satisfied with being princess either way.
- Multiple Endings: A total of 61 endings.
- Pride: This game adds the Pride stat, measuring how much Lisa values herself. It's considered a bad stat to have too high early on since it makes her slack at work, won't perform well in exams due to her inflated ego and her Attitude constantly decreases with every course she studies.
- Random Number God:
- The festivals run heavily on this trope, though there are manuals that mention a minimum the parameter needs to be to win the festival for each occurrence. What the RNG changes is how well Lisa does in the tournament, as well as how well her opponents do, and who her opponents are. Saving the week before a festival and reloading, the player can change if Maria, Olive, and Anita even participate in the festival, though it tends to become more difficult to avoid them in later years.
- Unlike in PM2, the visits of the traveling merchant aren't decided by the amount of spare money you can spent, but he'll appear randomly. Saving and reloading when you have a significant amount of cash until he appears is a viable strategy.
- In addition, if the father's previous occupation was a Traveler, there's a chance that the merchant will visit the household and leave around 3000 gold. Whether or not he will visit for this purpose is random as well, as it doesn't happen in all playthroughs and the criteria for the meeting isn't established.
- Shapeshifting Lover: The Cat prince is the cat Lisa can adopt, and he falls so much in love with her that he finds a way to turn as human as he can. He's even willing to never return to his cat form just to make Lisa happy.
- Updated Re-release: An HD remaster is available on Steam and the Nintendo Switch.
- Weight Woe: Unlike the last game where getting fat only kept Olive from wearing certain dresses, should Lisa gain more weight than the game considers appropriate, she'll despair over it, adding a random amount of Stress to her stats.
