Battle Princess Madelyn is difficult. It’s difficult in terms of gameplay, emulating the likes of Ghouls and Ghosts, but it’s also difficult to really love because of so many design issues that cripple the experience. There is a difference between making a game hard and making a game hard just because you can.

 [perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=”14″]Developer: Casual Bit Games

Publisher: Hound Picked

Genre: Action, Indie

Platform: Xbox One [reviewed], PC

Release: Dec 5, 2018

Price: $19.99 [/perfectpullquote]

Battle Princess Madelyn pulls almost everything you’d want it to from Ghouls and Ghosts. The visual style is on point with a nice 16-bit inspired look, the music is solid and fits the world, and the gameplay is pretty tight and provides a number of white-knuckle moments. 

All of these things should place Battle Princess Madelyn in the land of great 2D action games like the series it’s paying homage to. Unfortunately, there are far too many chinks in the armor to make this adventure as good as the greats that came before it.

Look, any game coming out of Kickstarter that wants to pay tribute to a series from our youth is fighting an uphill battle. People are going to want something pixel-for-pixel perfect to what they grew up with and others are going to want the team to take advantage of the gameplay advancements we’ve made the past decade or more.

Then you have the developers who have their own ideas and spin they want to take to make their game not only a homage, but something special in its own right. It’s something that almost never quite works out and even projects with the best chances fall; just look at games like Yooka Laylee and Mighty No. 9.

Visually Battle Princess Madelyn strikes the right chord. It looks great and could have any fan of Ghouls and Ghosts take a second look wondering if this was as spin-off to their beloved series. But those pretty pixels come at a price.

The game looks a stunner but sometimes lacks depth when things get busy on-screen, and not just from enemies and projectiles. The main character often gets lost in the background because everything blends together, often becoming hard to track not only yourself but also the enemies. 

Ghouls and Ghosts doesn’t have that problem, at least not anywhere near this extent, and I think that comes from technology. Because we are dealing with more powerful consoles and PC’s, developers and designers can really go nuts, and that often means filling the screen with gorgeous visuals. 

In 3D games this isn’t as big an issues because you have that added level of space to work with, but in 2D you are stuffing everything onto a single plane. That’s more for your eyes to process and when every second matters in terms of reaction your game will suffer.

This leads to deaths that often feel cheap and unfair as opposed to deaths where the player made a clear mistake. Super Meat Boy is a great game not because it’s hard, but because it’s clear where you are making a mistake and you learning how to improve from said mistake. 

But these are issues that you can work around or become accustomed with. What really hurts the experience is that half of the game is almost completely broken, so much so that I had to put down Battle Princess Madelyn for a few days, during which the game was delayed on other consoles.

When I pick up any game I immediately boot up the Story Mode if one is presented to me. In doing so this time I was presented with an incomplete experience at best, and a broken mess at worst. So much so that the second stage was impossible to beat without getting help.

Battle Princess Madelyn features a Story Mode that is so poorly designed that it will put off even hardcore fans. Where Ghouls and Ghosts was a linear experience Battle Princess Madelyn tries to add a sort of open-world adventure much to it’s detriment. 

You can easily miss paths, miss items that you need to move forward, and will often need to make blind jumps in the hopes that something will be there. On stage two there was no instruction of what to do, where to go, or what needs to be done. I ran around so much that I was turned off of the entire experience. 

Thinking this was going to be an homage to Ghouls and Ghosts, expecting a basic Story Mode much like that series presented, I was disappointed and would have been pissed if I had backed the game. At the time of this writing you need to completely write off that mode as it isn’t ready for prime time. 

But after coming back with a fresh pair of eyes I explored more of the game. Ignoring the Story Mode there is the Arcade Mode and that’s where you need to look and just pretend the other mode was never made. And that’s because the Arcade Mode is rock solid in terms of what 
Battle Princess Madelyn needs to be.

This mode plays true to the spirit of Ghouls and Ghosts. The action is fast and frenetic. You’re double-jumping all over the screen and the armor and weapons you get to play with are a joy to handle and see. Playing again in this mode brought new life to the game and made me wonder why a Story Mode even exists. 

The linear nature is where Battle Princess Madelyn finds its life. The game design in this mode still features the large levels but places them in such a way that makes sense to the player. You move forward and keep taking down all that stand in your path without all the forced and unfocused exploring.

Boss battles now make sense in terms of pacing and because you aren’t running around like a chicken with its head cut off and then randomly stumbling upon them. The game is still hard, but now the design makes it more forgiving. 

Dying after running around for twenty-minutes, or for twenty-seconds in Story Mode is a nightmare, but in Arcade Mode the deaths happen in predetermined paths (mostly) which means that you can make adjustments when coming to a certain part of a level where you were killed.

Look, It’s clear that Battle Princess Madelyn is a loving tribute with a lot of talented people behind it. The story behind the game is really cute even though it isn’t my cup of tea. The character design is lovely and the enemies are all beautifully detailed. And the changes and added hint system after the latest update have created a better experience.

But I simply can’t be a good critic and ignore that half of the experience just sucks at the time of this writing. I would have gladly scored Battle Princess Madelyn higher if the Story Mode was simply axed, but I can’t do that when judging a whole package.

And if you don’t think all the issues I’ve mentioned are a real concern just look at the games release on other consoles being pushed back after it’s already out on Xbox One and PC. I didn’t invest in this game so I don’t have to force myself to love it because my money is in it. 

I do enjoy Battle Princess Madelyn, but only half of what is being offered. Still, at $20 the game is worth taking a look at and can only get better as the team keeps pushing out updates to make the package feel more complete. 

“Battle Princess Madelyn is a fantastic game if you ignore half of what’s offered.”

Final Score: 

3/5

*A key was provided for review*

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