Battle Princess Madelyn is a fun throwback to the old Ghouls ‘n Ghosts and Ghosts ‘n Goblins style of run and gun platformers. The game stars the titular Madelyn, who must save her kingdom from evil.
At the beginning of the game, Madelyn’s kingdom is attacked and her faithful dog is killed. Thankfully, he comes back as a ghost and joins you for the remainder of your quest. While not hugely important to the game overall, I just wanted to reassure you that dog, is ok. In a way.
With ghost Fritzy by her side, Madelyn sets out on a Metroidvania-style quest to save the day.
Battle Princess Madelyn Review
Battle Princess Madelyn looks and sounds great. The pixel-art visuals are sublime and look exactly like a game you’d have picked up on the SNES. As for the audio, it’s all chiptunes and throbbing music that sounds ripped from the early 90s.
Pixel-art in games isn’t a new thing, in fact, it’s somewhat in vogue, however, Battle Princess Madelyn is definitely a cut above. You can tell the amount of love and dedication that was poured into the game, which is even more special when you learn about its origins.
Developer and Causal Bit Games founder Chris Obritsch explained that the creation of Battle Princess Madelyn came from playing Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts with his daughter. His daughter, also Madelyn, commented that even though she wished she could be in the game, girls aren’t able to be knights.
Determined to show her that girls can be anything, including knights, Obritsch decided to make Battle Princess Madelyn.
Girl Power
As a retro run and gun platformer, Battle Princess Madelyn succeeds. Collecting weapons, defeating enemies and exploring are all a lot of fun.
What’s less fun though, is trying to make your way around the world and find where you need to go. Battle Princess Madelyn isn’t a straight platformer and instead of tackling levels in a specific order, it operates more like Super Metroid.
You have to find items and backtrack to make your way through the story. The problem with that is, there’s really no way to figure out where you are or where you need to be. It takes a lot of trial and error to get to the right place and often, it took me so long, I’d lost interest by the time I got there.
The gameplay is a lot of fun, but wandering around aimlessly for ages isn’t
A Decent Release
Overall, Battle Princess Madelyn is a decent retro-inspired game with a few shortcomings that hold it back from being great.
The visuals and audio are excellent and the gameplay is challenging and rewarding. If only it were easier to find your way around.
I sure hope the real Madelyn loved the game. Should we all be so lucky to have a game made for our namesake.
Battle Princess Madelyn was reviewed on Switch using a digital code provided by the developer.
PowerUp! Reviews
Game Title: Battle Princess Madelyn
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Lovely Pixel Art - 9/109/10
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Great Old School Gaming - 8.3/108.3/10
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Fun Story - 8/108/10
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Really Tough - 4/104/10
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Hard to find your way around - 3/103/10
