Drag out the PS3, Deception IV is free on Tuesday!

The above trailer is absolutely, 100% worth watching.

July’s PlayStation Plus games were announced the other day, and I was super-excited when I saw the list. Not because of Heavy Rain (I played it and enjoyed it five years ago). And I had no feelings on the inclusion of Absolver (it’s combat looks very complex and deliberate, which might be great for some, but that sort of thing is not my jam). No, the game that got me all hot and bothered with its inclusion in the July lineup is Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess.

I was a huge fan of the original Techmo’s Deception: Invitation to Darkness. Released by Techmo in 1996 for the PS1, the original Deception was an audaciously original game, pioneering both in it’s trap-based gameplay loop and its overwhelmingly dark story and themes.

In Deception, players took on the role of a recently executed man who makes a deal with Satan. In exchange for his life, the player character agrees to be the caretaker of the “Castle of the Damned”. The caretaker must carefully prepare for incursions into the castle by outsiders, who are drawn to the castle for power and wealth (and sometimes just a place to sleep). Killing intruders and ripping out their souls for the devil rewards the player with magic points (huzzah!) and sweet cash.

(Digression: This story line was frankly shocking to a lot of players when it came out. I was a manager for Kay Bee Toys at the time, and I had more than one copy of this game returned to the store by angry parents who were infuriated by the “Satanic” content. Of course, I immediately thought “Oh, awesome!” and bought the game.)

Players prepare for the invasion of outsiders by planting diabolical traps throughout a 3D representation of the castle (also fairly revolutionary at the time). Hapless intruders wander through the hallways of the castle while you stalk behind them triggering traps, slamming them into the ceiling, setting them on fire, stomping them with giant stone feet, shooting spikes out of the walls, etc., until they are weakened enough for you to either kill them or rip out their souls. Before long, players learn how to string traps together, bouncing innocent visitors from one trap to another so fast that they don’t have time to recover or escape.

As a side bonus, players can harvest the bodies of intruders to construct monsters that can be unleashed in the hallways. A building dynamic is eventually unlocked, which allows players to add onto the castle. This lets you construct blind alleys, shooing innocent victims down a dead end hallway with a wraith waiting for them at the end. Satisfying!

Deception spawned four sequels: Kagero: Deception II, Deception III: Dark Delusion, Trapt, and Deception IV: Blood Ties. The subsequent titles were decidedly less RPG-like, ditching the first person camera and the uber-dark-Satanic storyline of the first game. Instead of doing the bidding of the devil, the player was now working for “Timenoids”, some variety of immortal humans (which was a bummer). The games leaned further into the ability to string traps together, creating “Mousetrap”-like contraptions with which to confound visitors, but also began adding action elements, with players able to engage intruders in direct combat.

While the games continued to be successful critically, they became more and more “niche” with each subsequent release, with fewer copies being printed and those that did exist being harder to find. Original fans drifted away, nonplused by the newer focus on action gameplay and the increasingly complex storyline. By the time the fourth game - Trapt - was released on PS2 in 2005, the series had fallen in stature enough that the US release abandoned the “Deception” title altogether (although it was released as “Kagero II: Dark Illusion” overseas). Artwork for Trapt gave no indication that it was part of the greater Deception series, and the game is rare enough that I have never actually seen a copy in real life (as of this writing, a copy is selling on Amazon for $58).

The game that PlayStation is providing via Plus Membership is actually the second, expanded version of Deception IV. The original, Deception IV: Blood Ties, released in 2014 and - with its shift away from action and a renewed focus on laying traps - was considered a throwback to the original title. The newer version, Deception IV: The Nightmare Princess retained all of the gameplay of Blood Ties, while adding a new playable character and over 100 new quests.

While these games have been a bit more present in the world than some of the previous entries, they haven’t dropped much in price in the years since their release. Having felt a bit burned by the entries past Kagero, I have been unwilling to put up the $60 to buy the new games without trying them out first. Deception games aren’t exactly showing up in the Redbox for rental (and there are no demos available), so downloading Deception IV via PS Plus is a very welcome boon. While I would obviously prefer the PS4 version of The Nightmare Princess, my PS3 is still hooked up to my main TV, so I’m absolutely ready and willing to play the PS3 version. Free is free, people.

I understand the reasons for Sony to discontinue the inclusion of PS3 and Vita games in the PlayStation Plus monthly lineup, but it does make me a bit sad. It is clear that there are still a lot of cool niche titles that PlayStation could toss to the system’s remaining fans. Vita in particular still has a lively and engaged fanbase online. On the upside, I’m hoping that Sony replaces the monthly games from earlier systems with a monthly VR title or two.

Regardless of the future, however, I am excited for this title to be added to my library on Tuesday. I have been waiting years to play a new Deception game, and I am completely stoked to send some flaming villagers flying across the room into a pit of spikes. It’s the little things in life.