Blue Prince was one of the big surprises of last year, and one of the few contemporary games that even dragged me off the sidelines for a blind playthrough. I really enjoyed my time with the base game, but noped out shortly after I got my inheritance. Having now watched a playthrough in full, boy do I not regret that decision.
A delicate balance
I had a great time with Blue Prince and have recommended it to basically everyone with even a passing interest in video games. So understand that I’m coming from a position of love here, and this is more of an exploration of how the game’s balance subtly shifts in the post-credits portion rather than an aggressive critique.
Developer Tonda Ros’ biggest accomplishment with the game over the course of its eight-year development is finding the careful mixture of puzzle gameplay and roguelite progression that makes the initial experience so magical. The two truly go hand in hand: unlike in traditional adventure games, where you’re presented with the puzzle and all the information you can use to solve it in quick succession (leaving you banging your head against the wall if that wasn’t quite enough guidance for you), Blue Prince disperses many possible approaches clues across the infinitely shifting mansion, giving you many simultaneous strands to tug away at from day to day.
It was the cohesion of the puzzle and the roguelite elements that elevated this game above its premise for me, and perhaps it was inevitable for the careful balance that was struck to go out the window in the post-game.
Post-game, after all, expects a level of mastery over the existing systems, but that is perhaps where my personal interest in roguelikes differs from most. I find it fun to express my growing mastery by accomplishing the goals with worse and lesser equipment, gaining greater ability to ride out any storm. For most, the fun comes in growing optimization and improved consistency. Indeed, late-stage Blue Prince mansions might as well be tailor-made to the player’s objectives at the time, leaving you to focus on the puzzles.
I played around the postgame puzzles for a little while after claiming my inheritance, then I decided I had my fill of the mansion and put the game down satisfied. Late last year, I caught up with things by watching a full playthrough (from Aliensrock, whose work I highly recommend)— and I’m glad I dipped out when I did.
A different kind of adventure
Inevitably, the focus on puzzles grows at the cost of the roguelite aspect, throwing off the base game’s careful balance. It is, therefore, a big issue that both the design and the execution falter somewhat as you get deeper into the postgame. Some spoilers will follow here, so be warned.
Be it the error of the blue-recolored throne room’s blueprint color (originally, it was still marked as black and was therefore not getting the appropriate appearance bonuses from the Scepter and the Banner of the King) and the cypher in the safe (where WATER and WALER were both valid solutions to the numeric code), some of the more obtuse tunnels betrayed the game’s otherwise impeccably tight design. Resource balance also shifts significantly as you get deeper in the postgame, making the continued Allowance Token rewards pointless at best or insulting at worst.
The final segment of the game that leads to what fans currently think is the true ending features a truly repetitive set of puzzles from a type you have encountered all along the game, with no roguelite elements remaining, followed by another word puzzle for good measure. As for the “true” ending itself, I’ll just say I’m glad I watched someone else get to it rather than struggle to get to it myself.
And perhaps that’s the word: while the base Blue Prince experience achieved a fantastic genre fusion, most of the postgame puzzles felt like a struggle to me, and the story rewards offered were too piecemeal compared to what came before. It felt like, and I shudder saying this, an adventure game.
I thought the whole point was that we have progressed past that genre framework.
