How do I even rescue a princess?

[Rated E for Ethan]

Ok, so I'm loving the game a lot, but there's one thing I can't understand at all that doesn't seem to work, unless if I am missing something? So there is the option of being able to rescue a princess when their castle is being invaded, but this is what I don't understand that I've looked everywhere to see if there's an answer.

How do you rescue a princess? Do you have to have her like you a lot to go with you or have a high rank with their kingdom after you defeat the boss of the palace? Or do you have to have some sort of special unique item that I'm not knowing about? Because at first, when I tried to take the Skeleton Princess with me when she wants to, she reacts like she wants to but doesn't do so, and the item menu shows up, but for the life of me, I can't figure out if I'm actually supposed to give her a certain item or not, cause I tried and it kept repeating like as if she changed her mind about not wanting to escape.

I figured I didn't have a certain item for her, but then much later on, I tried to save the Insect Princess while she acted like she wants to be rescued, but then pulled the same confusing situation that I had when I tried my best to figure out how to rescue the Skeleton Princess. Am I missing something important that the game isn't telling me, or did I not see what specific item to use? Or is this a bug or problem in the game that needs to be fixed? If anyone could please inform me about what I'm doing wrong or what I'm not getting from it, I will be glad to learn what the problem is. Thank you to anyone kindly in regards who would like to tell me about the struggle of trying to rescue a princess.

[Dead Tired Poss]

Rescuing a princess is more of a last resort when it comes to this game. Even though its a big theme, its something you're typically not going for considering the fact that if you do a specific princess' route you'll prefer her reign to not fall at all. Although if you want to rescue a princess you'll have to have affinity with her for her to go with you, namely 3 heart affinity with them. Otherwise they'll refuse to flee with you and your options are either to slay her or ask her to step down and buy her from the slave market whenever she is sent there.

That said, here's a pretty basic rundown about how rescuing works. You need 2 affinity with the kingdom in question to be allowed to see the princess. You can get this via helping the kingdom out by selecting their level 2 quest at the tavern to get 1 affinity in return. Once you have the ability to see the princess you can typically gift her a Royal Present to increase the kingdom's affinity by 1, two gifts maximum per day.

From there, having access to the princess, you can greet her and if you have the required affinity with her kingdom she'll typically hit you with small talk or a quest. Depending on your answer or completion of said quest your affinity with that princess can go either up or down. Reminder that princess affinity is different from kingdom affinity. Kingdom affinity is how much the kingdom likes or hates you, shown by the meter in the kingdom information screen between -10 ~ 10, this number can go above or below the cap so you can potentially have 20 kingdom affinity but it will only show 10 because you're far beyond it. Princess affinity is the same thing but specifically for just the princess, this is shown by the hearts underneath her in the kingdom information screen.

When a castle is under siege you have three options. Stay out of it and gain/lose nothing. Defend the castle and gain affinity with the kingdom you're defending but lose affinity with the kingdom that is attacking. Or you can attempt to save the princess. Saving the princess requires you to go through her castle to find the key that keeps her locked up and temporarily safe. This requires you to fight a boss for said key and after you defeat them you'll automatically go back to save the princess once you obtain the key. It's here that you have a couple options. If your affinity with the princess is 3 hearts or more, you can ask her to flee the kingdom with you and she will and be added to your party. If you lack the affinity to do so she'll reject your advances and demand a solution. The item menu that opens up here is something that's been in the game since the beginning and is literally pointless because there is no item you can use in this particular scenario (for now maybe?). The other option is to make her abdicate by either telling her to surrender herself or you can kill her. If you kill her you can take her soul if you have an empty princess urn to which you can use later for global boons. If you force her to surrender she'll stick around for a while until eventually she is sold off to the goblin slave market to which you'll be able to use goblin affinity to have her be put on auction and buy her. If you have a high enough affinity with the kingdom that took over, i believe 6 minimum, they'll let you see the princess if you got her to surrender. You can basically use this function to see whenever she is sold off to the goblin kingdom to tell when you can go there to buy her.

Hope this answers all you needed.

[Rated E for Ethan]

Ahhhh, so that explains it all! Thank you so much for helping me out with this! I figured that it must've had to do with princess affinity, but I wasn't still sure. I tried seeing if anyone asked about this confusing situation, and I did find someone in It.chio asking the same question, but nobody answered that person's question. Thank you so much again for letting me know the important info and reasons on this again!

[Mr.Lemon]

ill be honest, i like to get the princesses i want (normally harvest slime human insect plant) and then help thier enemies then rescure them becuase i normally do dragon princess 2 route

[Dumdumgai]

Ghost Veil *cough*