Blue Prince Review
While Blue Prince might masquerade as a puzzle game, it’s infinitely more than that. Blue Prince is more than one of the best puzzle games ever, it’s possibly one of the best games ever.
Blue Prince combines elements of rogue-lites, point and click, mystery, deck builder, extraction, walking simulator and many other genres in an experience that has no analog. What’s magical about Blue Prince is how failure is almost as rewarding as success. There is always something that will propel you into the next day in one of the most addicting games thanks to its rich atmosphere, interesting premise, and unique genre fusion.
WHATS IS BLUE PRINCE?
In Blue Prince, you play as Simon, the heir to Herbert S Sinclair, a billionaire who wants to leave one last puzzle in his honor, which includes his giant mansion. The only catch to inheriting your uncles crown jewel is that you have to find the elusive 46th room inside the ever changing estate.
The journey starts fairly simple as you begin your first day in the foyer of an opulent mansion. Ahead of you lie three doors of which you can choose to go through any of them. Once you open a door, you will be presented with three potential blueprint layouts drawn from a pool of different room options.
At the beginning of the day you will have a blank slate of a mansion to build and most doors are open. However, as you start to progress, you’ll begin to discover that some doors are locked, some rooms lead nowhere and you are constantly surrounded by puzzles, clues, and information.
To get through some locked doors, you will need to find keys, gems and coins. Keys will do the obvious and unlock doors, but they do come in different varieties, which you will discover. Gems are basically the fees you need to pay to open certain doors, which will become increasingly costly as you progress in the mansion. Finally, there are coins, which you can use to purchase items in certain rooms like the kitchen and the commissary.
The game within the game is how you play each blueprint. Some are just means to another room with plenty of doors, but there are plenty that offer passive effects, both negatively and positively, such as adding or removing steps to your day.
Each day will begin with 50 steps, but those steps only decrease when passing through thresholds meaning that you are encouraged to spend your time studying each room and trying to decipher what everything means. On your journey, you will discover certain tools and items that will help including things like a shovel to dig or a sledgehammer to smash open treasure chests instead of using a key. There will also be items like a magnifying glass that can help reveal clues that are invisible to the naked eye.
However, one of the best parts about Blue Prince is that there isn’t one path to success and almost nothing is essential to success, just like the magnifying glass. Sure, it will help you solve clues that can unlock items to make your life easier, but it isn’t crucial. This is one of the major areas where Blue Prince is vastly superior to most puzzle or point and click or mystery games. Blue Prince is specifically tailored to your intelligence and your experience will be vastly different from others. There is no puzzle in the game that has to be solved fro you to finish the game.
The day will meet its demise in one of two ways. Either you will run out of steps or you will run out of doors to go through, either because you can’t unlock it due to lack of keys, gems or worst case scenario, you have built yourself into a corner.
Blue Prince is about making the most of a bad situation and the good news is that every day you will add numerous items to your checklist to investigate. In addition to being able to scratch an item off the list, each day will likely add a few more or get a clue that connects two other pieces of information that have been stewing in your mind.
Almost every single room is packed with mysteries and information. Some rooms requires clues from that same room or from multiple other rooms or even other days, which is why having a notebook beside you is crucial. Blue Prince is full of red herrings, but the biggest regret was that I didn’t write everything down from the start as almost everything means something.
WHY YOU SHOULD PLAY BLUE PRINCE?
One of the best parts of Blue Prince is how many different genre elements it incorporates into its gameplay. You have the obvious mystery as you are trying to find the elusive 46th room and the puzzle genre as the mansion is littered with them. In addition to that, it’s also point and click as you each room is filled with interactivity hiding beneath the surface as you need to explore every Inch of every room for something that might not be obvious to the naked eye. At times, Blue Prince can feel like a walking simulator as you walk the floors of the mansion and the exterior grounds with seemingly nothing of consequence happening.
Blue Prince also goes beyond the obvious genres as it can also feel like a deck-builder as you use and collect floorpans like a cards in your deck. There is some RNG involved when drawing plans for the next room, but it also requires skill to understand the right times to use certain plans.
However, what’s really interesting is how Blue Prince fuses elements of extraction based games and rogue-lites. You only have a limited amount of steps or open doors before the day is over and you need to restart, but you are always trying to extract the day with any type of new knowledge that can help you future self follow another clue.
Finally, just like the rogue-lite genre, there will be things that you will keep with you despite having to start over every day. The most obvious is your knowledge including how certain things work inside the mansion, what certain combinations or codes are as they don’t reset and what equipment is needed. Furthermore, there are a few permanent additions that you can unlock that will greatly aid your journey in finding the 46th room.
Deep within the mansion and long past the credits lies a story of blackmail, political intrigue and the disappearance of a beloved children’s book author. You will start to find hints of this story, which become just another thread that you want to pull at each day.
The gameplay by itself would be more than enough and alone is wildly addictive, but it’s also paired an incredible atmosphere thanks to Trent Reznor style score that is constantly ominous, and a gorgeous cel shaded art style. When you combine the minimalist score with the sound effects of the Mount Holly Manison, Blue Prince is extremely immersive.
WHATS NOT GOOD?
As we have alluded to now, Blue Prince is incredible and the list of deficiencies is tiny to say the least. Blue Prince is a great game to play on the Steam Deck, but the frame rate can take some dips occasionally. It usually dips from a steady 60 to about high 40’s and low 50’s. This isn’t a deal breaker by any means, but it is noticeable, which can lead to a disruption of immersion, but it’s also a problem that can be solved with a small patch.
It was only near the very end of the game when the RNG felt skewed against me, but this was only when I knew exactly what items were required, what blueprints were needed and in the exact order. Due to this, there was a few extra in game days added to the end of my play time, but it didnt ruin the overall experience.
There are also a few quality of life issues that would go a long way. Solving puzzles in Blue Prince is an extremely rewarding feeling, but it could have used slightly better audio cues when you solve some of the world’s mysteries.
Sometimes you have to rotate items to solve puzzles and it would have been nice if the game allowed you to rotate puzzles both ways. When steps are one of the most valuable currencies, it would have been nice to mark your map someway with an icon like a key on the door to save me having to retrace my steps across the mansion.
BLUE PRINCE REVIEW VERDICT
Magically, Blue Prince is able to provide a different experience for everyone. Although the departure and the arrival will be the same, the journey will be vastly different. Blueprints will be offered and chosen differently, puzzles will be discovered and solved at different times, but what’s most incredible is that there is no puzzle that must be solved to find Room 46.
Blue Prince is an experience that always finds a way to reward the player. Even if you think you have reached a dead end, there is always a silver lining and something to learn, which is part of why it’s extremely addictive. As the credits rolled at around 25 hours, Blue Prince still leaves you wanting more as you want to unravel all the mysteries that lie within the walls of Mount Holly Estate.
Despite being an amalgamation of at least 8 different genres, Blue Prince is one of the most unique gaming experiences i’ve ever played.
