Who knows if this will be useful to anyone, since I guess only a handful of people are playing the game and you can find it all out for yourself in about 5 minutes of saving and loading, but I wanted to see how they handled the Lord/Princess balance in this version.
In the original it wasn't much of a choice—Lord was a good class but taking advantage of its absurd stat growth was tough, as you'd be at about level 30 by the time it was made available and class-changing didn't retroactively boost your stats. Furthermore, most of the content after that point in the game was Hell's Gate, where you did not gain exp. Dual-wielding was nice and being able to use area healing was supernice, but it couldn't really compare to Princess. Massive int and the ability to use every spell, incl. Dragon magic, made for an incredibly versatile caster you could switch spell loadouts on between Hell's Gate floors.
But now...
Lord can use every spell (unsure on Apocrypha or summons, but assuming he can) except for Ninjutsu/War Dances/Necromancy. Literally everything—healing, exorcism, missile spells, indirect spells, of all elements. Draconic magic too.
Skill-wise it has a single skill available: Add Skill Slot. Everything else has to be imported from another class. However, the tradeoff, if you can even call it that, is that it has access to every ability at level 1—there are no level restrictions on what it can and cannot equip. If he knows it, he can use it. It can use all magic skills (save Nin/Dance/Necro), all weapon skills (and thus all weapons (save gimmicks like the female-only fanhammer)), the usual spate of +atk/def/eva/acc skills, and it can import 3 (that I've found) active TP skills: Mighty Impact, Tremendous Shot, and Phalanx. It can also use Double Attack. It has 4 movement, Agile movetype, and cannot go in water.
I've toyed with Lord a little already and it's absurd—with Tactician, Phalanx and Double Attack, you can generate enough TP to keep Phalanx up permanently once you start killing things. I don't think I care to use it in serious fights, but the option is there, and it's something interesting that only Lord can do.
Princess, meanwhile, is now a highly confused hybrid class—the scrolling help text refers to it as a 'mage-knight on the front lines'. It can use basic daggers, 1h swords, axes, cudgels and whips. It can use the shields that all casters can use (buckler/baldur shield so far) but its armor restrictions are strange: caster helms (circlet/wizard's hat) are okay, but caster robes are not. Armor so far is okay (leather/chain/baldur/brigandine) and leather gloves/baldur, but not normal gauntlets. All pants but baldur pants so far.
The real blow is its magic availablity: from what I have available, it can use indirect offensive elemental spells ONLY (Tornado, Cragfall, Avalanche, etc.) and no Dark magic at all. Its Divine magic selection is only a little better: indirect offense spells (Judgement), all the status cures, and the single-target heals. No exorcism, no area healing, no Resurrection, no Boon of Swiftness or Instill Light. It can learn Draconic Magic.
Its skill selection mirrors its patchy equipment selection: Parry and Deflect are available, Knockback only to level 1, Counterattack up to level 2, Wade 1 but not 2, every other stat boost is learnable to 2 at least. No active TP skills are importable that I've found so far (no Mother's Blessing or Mighty Impact), nor is Double Attack. No Rampart Aura. The only interesting skill it gets that I can see yet is Meditate. It has 4 move and Slow movetype, and cannot go in water.
With WORLD, you only have to choose between them for about 8 story battles + the last dungeon, but I'm not sure there's any compelling gameplay reason to bother with Princess even in the postgame. Priest seems like a superior choice—it can use every Divine spell but Instill Light/Lightguard, and it has 4 movement from the Cleric's 3. Dark Priest's restrictions I'm not sure on, probably an inverted Priest (all elemental/dark magic but instill/guard?)
It's possible that summons/Apocrypha/Draconic magic tilt the scales here, or some unique skills that open up when I've levelled her classes more, but I'm pretty disappointed at the moment in Catiua's treatment. Oh well, makes it easier to kill her the three times necessary to unlock all the titles/story scenes surrounding her death!
