➤ Battle Princess Madelyn, the review 🎮

The genesis of Battle Princess Madelyn is one of those able to collect thousands of views on social networks. Christopher Obritsch, semi-amateur programmer and evident retro-gaming enthusiast, was playing Ghouls' n Ghosts on his home television when his daughter Madelyn was enchanted by the first monster, the infamous Statue of Terror, so much so that he asked his father to repeat the level more times.

Amazed by so much involvement, Chris decided to create a game that followed the same mechanics of the platform of Capcom and that had as protagonist his beloved eldest daughter. He did not lack experience, in fact his curriculum includes, in 2014, the unrecognized Insanity's Blade, another retro platformer; it was the finances that gasped. To carry out his idea he set up a campaign on Kickstarter that went very well and reached, in fact, about four times the 60.000 Canadian dollars required.
The Battle Princess Madelyn project after taking off is now ready, in all its glorious low definition for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Switch (while versions for Vita and Wii U should arrive in 2019).

Platform in 240p

Before starting the review it is necessary to take a step back, especially in 1985 when it came out for cabinets Ghosts' n Goblins, a platform produced by Capcom that was later converted for a multitude of platforms including ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 to Atari ST. The sequel, the aforementioned Ghouls 'n Ghosts (1988), met with considerable commercial success, so much so as to give life to a spin-off for Game Boy (Gargoyle's Quest, 1990) and a highly appreciated Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts for Super Nintendo in 1991. In this saga the player takes control of the knight Arthur and must move between levels populated by skeletons, zombies and numerous other types of monsters, to save Princess Prin Prin and her kingdom from the paws of the evil Lucifer. The series continues through ups and downs until a decade ago, when two episodes of Gold Knights were released for iOS, but by now the world had evolved and the appeal of two-dimensional titles had completely waned.

Battle Princess Madelyn starts from a slightly different point of view (after all the protagonist, despite the perplexities of little Maddy, is a girl), but in the end the task is the same: to defeat a wicked evil wizard who has kidnapped the family of the princess and killed her dog Fritz, who had launched himself in defense of the masters. If you are close to forty the game mechanics should not surprise you at all and indeed, you will feel like you have reinserted the cartridge in the SNES. Madelyn begins protected by a simple dressing gown and with the only possibility of making small jumps; she is armed with a spear that can barely take out any carnivorous plants or skeletons and is accompanied by her bodyguard. After a quarter of an hour passed to jump and "blast" (you had forgotten, tell the truth) enemies you enter the room of the first boss, a skeleton pretty easy after all.

All this happens by selecting the story mode: it is probably the most interesting one because it is enriched with secondary quests given by non-player characters whose completion is rewarded with gadgets; There is also a blacksmith who can upgrade Maddy's weapons. In this variant there are metroidvania influences: some areas are initially not accessible, but only after having obtained specific skills or keys. In addition, the difficulty is lower than the arcade version which has more "compressed" levels to be completed simply by continuing from the left to the right of the screen. Here the princess leaves immediately without limitations and meets more numerous and difficult enemies.

Coordination and exploration are the two keys to reading any self-respecting platformer, and Battle Princess Madelyn is no exception. The princess can be "touched" only once by the monsters, and in that case she is rejected and for a few moments remains invulnerable; a further contact, however, causes her to lose one of the four lives with which the game begins. Once the counter has been reset, it restarts from the last checkpoint, having however preserved any objects that have been collected previously (in story mode). The level of challenge is high due to a continuous respawn of the enemies and jumps to be performed to the millimeter to be able to successfully reach the adjacent platform. The movements are made even more complicated by the presence of traps and pitfalls that require excellent reflexes and a remarkable mastery of one's reactions. Moreover, often and willingly, one dies only to try to discover the structure of the level, where of course secret passages and areas abound that can be reached with the rigid practice of trial and error. There is a good variety of monsters, each with their own behavior and health level: some attack from below, others from higher positions, still others appear behind the player. The apex is reached in the clash with the final bosses who, as in the best tradition, can only be defeated by knowing their weak point. To take them out, Madelyn can rely on increasingly powerful weapons and armor that is embellished in the continuation of the story, as well as of course the dog Fritzy, who can be unleashed as if it were a special move. In story mode you can choose which offensive tools to use, changing them even during combat, while in arcade mode you can only wield one weapon at a time.

Retro style

If it had been released in '92 the title of Casual Bit Games would have been a killer application for 16-bit consoles, but even today it manages to make its dirty figure. Of course, you have to come to terms with a pixel art that is bloody especially on 2K and UHD monitors (in these cases we recommend playing it in a window, perhaps at 1280x720), but which is embellished with a series of effects that at the time would have hardly been implementable, such as reflections on the water, trees that move, rain that rages. The backdrops have been made with great attention to detail and even the enemies are very well characterized.

The audio system is of excellent quality: the soundtrack deserves a particular mention, which can be activated both in orchestral and in midi style. Longevity is valid: the story mode will keep you busy for at least ten hours, but be prepared for moments of frustration mainly related to the control system and an unusual level of difficulty by current standards. We used the Xbox 360 joypad for Windows, but the ideal would be to have that of the Super Nintendo or the Mega Drive.

Comment

Digital Delivery Steam Price 19,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

6.5

Readers (2)

6.4

Your vote

Battle Princess Madelyn is a tribute to one of the most iconic platformers of the early nineties. Love is the ingredient of this game: both the absolute one of a father for his daughter, and the one that feeds the passion for a golden age that no longer exists. If you recognize yourself in the definition of retrogamer this is a title that should not be missing in your collection; all the others know that, behind a graphic that is as crude as it is graceful, there is a level of difficulty worthy of the titles from which it takes inspiration.