Battle Princess Madelyn

When I played the pre-alpha build of Battle Princess Madelyn a couple years ago, I knew that it was going to be one of my most anticipated games of 2018. As not only a longtime fan of Capcom's Ghouls 'N Ghosts series but also somebody who went on GamePro TV to talk about it, I felt like this was a game made specifically for me. There are few things I want more than another crack at those ghosts and goblins, and if Capcom isn't going to give me what I want, then at least developers like Casual Bit Games are here to fill the void. Now that it's out, I find myself a little conflicted. There are aspects of it that are absolutely amazing, yet other parts that are in desperate need of fixing. Sit back, because I have a lot of things to work out in this review.

I think the word that best describes Battle Princess Madelyn is "charming." It's aggressively charming. It's the kind of game that butters you up with heartwarming stories that make you want to love it right from the start. This is a game where the daughter of the lead designer is the hero and the fantasy story revolves around the sad death of a real-life dog. And the thing is, all this worked on me. Between all the personal touches and the incredible throwback graphics, I went into this game feeling like I already had some sort of special bond with it.

At its core, Battle Princess Madelyn is a loving homage to Ghouls 'N Ghosts. You can see that in the locations, the gameplay, the weapons, the armor and a lot of the enemies. But while it would be easy to just write it off as just another wannabe, this game goes out of its way to expand on the theme in a whole bunch of exciting ways. Battle Princess Madelyn is a lot more ambitious than anybody expected, and that's ultimately where it runs into problems.

The first thing you need to realize is that this is actually two games in one. The arcade mode is a largely straight-forward affair that will instantly remind you of the classic coin-op games from the late 1980s. The story mode, on the other hand, attempts to flesh everything out by giving you a large open and connected world filled with side-missions, hidden paths and optional boss fights. One of these modes is absolutely incredible and worth the price of admission all on its own, the other is kind of a mess at the moment and in desperate need of retooling.

Let's start with the arcade mode, which is easily the best part of this package. What we have here is the story of an evil wizard who shows up and kidnaps the royal family. What makes this story sad is that Madelyn's dog, Fritzy, is killed in the attack. Now it's up to Maddie and the ghost of Fritzy to step up and fight through graveyards, castles, mountains, swamps and a whole host of other challenging stages in order to save the kingdom.

Like I said, the arcade mode is the closest Battle Princess Madelyn comes to mimicking classic action games like Ghosts 'N Goblins and Ghouls 'N Ghosts. We start with three lives and a double jump and fight through level after linear level, each with a large and impressive boss battle at the end. I think that this is the type of game that most people expected when it was first announced, and this mode does not disappoint. It does an excellent job showing off the insane amount of backgrounds and enemies the game has to offer, and I like how each stage delivers a different type of challenge. There are stages where you'll be jumping from vine to vine, riding on a boat and riding the deadliest elevator you'll ever see.

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I also like the way Battle Princess Madelyn handles extra lives. We're given three at the start, but you'll slowly begin to earn back lives as you defeat bad guys. This means that if you're down to your last life, it's easy to earn them all back by just walking back and forth killing the various monsters. And you'll definitely need to do this, because these stages are tough, and losing all your lives means starting over from the very beginning of the level. That's not so bad in some of the shorter stages, but there are a few where you'll lose a substantial amount of progress. Not unlike the games that inspired it, Battle Princess Madelyn can be a punishingly difficult platformer at times, though it's almost always fair. At least when it comes to the arcade mode.

I guess that brings us to the story mode, the part of the game I was most looking forward to. This is where the game expands on the story in some substantial ways, giving us more insight into Madelyn and the world she lives in. This is a sprawling map that is connected and full of different paths to take. Although I would hold back on calling it a Metroidvania game, it certainly dips its toe into the sub-genre. It's all about tracking down items and solving the many side-quests, two things that have us investigating every inch of the large and ambitious world.

There are moments when this mode is as awesome as it sounds, but it's also in desperate need of fixing, and it's one of the big reasons why I'm ultimately disappointed in Battle Princess Madelyn. The problem is the level designs, which seem almost hand-crafted to remind you of the worst elements of old school gaming.

There's a good example of this early in the story mode, when Maddie needs to navigate her way over a large and very deadly swamp. In the arcade mode, this stage is short and fairly easy to get through, but that's definitely not the case in story mode. First you need to track down three buttons, which means climbing up dozens of floating platforms with snakes and skeletons firing you from off screen. And because this is the type of platformer where any hit will send you flying uncontrollably in one way or another, you'll find that our hero is constantly being smacked into the deadly swamp. I cannot stress enough that this is an absolutely massive stage that requires not only a lot of fighting, but exploration. It took me the better part of an afternoon to both get to the puzzle buttons and then find the boss's lair, all of which came after me falling to my death at least a hundred times. This section of the game is not fun and is some of the worst level design I've ever seen.

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All that would be bad enough, but once you beat the swamp boss, you'll be warped back to the nearest town to update your quests. But since beating that boss didn't create a warp or quick travel point, you'll have to go through an even longer version of the swamp stage, this time without any checkpoints. That's right, I spent most of the afternoon trying to get through the frustrating swamp stage, only to have to fight through an even harder version of the stage mere minutes after beating it. Why? Why would you make your game like this?

And at least I knew where I was supposed to be going in that situation. Most of the time you'll beat a boss and have no idea what you're supposed to do next. This is even worse when it comes to the side-quests, which all blur together after a while. And that's not because I have a bad memory, but rather because half of them are just people asking me to find random kids. Even when I do find one of those missing children, I have no clue who I'm supposed to find in order to complete the quest and earn my reward. And is that item you picked up important to the main quest? You'll never know, because the game doesn't tell you. Everything is incredibly vague, to the point where I spent most of the time feeling like I was missing something important.

The problem is that the vagueness carries over to the level designs, which, again, are terrible. This is a game in love with bottomless pits, deadly water and spikes that will kill you in a single hit. It often feels like there's a magnet pulling Madelyn into every deadly pit in the game. And it's worse than that, because a lot of the time it's because you don't know where to jump. You're constantly being asked to find platforms that are just off screen, which means jumping and hoping for the best. Sometimes you'll get lucky and find the platform, but far too often you'll fall into a spike pit. This is a problem that could be easily resolved by giving Maddie the ability to look around, but much like the platforms you're supposed to land on, that's nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps there's hope on the way. I'm certainly not the only person complaining about the level designs, bottomless pits and confusing quests, because Casual Bit Games is apparently hard at work on fixes that will address all of these problems. I don't know what that means, but at least it's a positive sign. I love the idea of the story mode and want to love it as much as the arcade mode, but it's kind of busted in its current state. If they can find a way to fix these problems, then you'll have a game that is not only a solid Ghouls 'N Ghosts clone, but a must-own action game that is great on its own merits.

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One thing the crummy level designs can't diminish are the graphics. This game look incredible. I was impressed by the rough pre-alpha build and blown away with this final product. I love how many types of locations and backgrounds you'll find, and how each of them has a completely different atmosphere. There are times where I think that this is one of the best-looking games of 2018. And it's in simple moments, like sailing through choppy waters on the way to a boss fight. And speaking of the bosses, every one of them is huge and unique looking. There's an impressive variety of boss types, all of which are a lot of fun to beat up. Those are the moments that remind me why I was so excited to play this game in the first place.

Battle Princess Madelyn is a game I desperately want to love. There are parts of this 2D action game that I absolutely adore, including the diverse stages, incredible bosses and charming characters. But much of my enthusiasm is tamped down by the ambitious story mode, which borders on being broken. The good news is that the arcade mode is a highlight and Casual Bit Games seems committed to fixing the problems, but horrendous level design and constant cheap deaths left a bad taste in my mouth that I had a hard time getting rid of. Battle Princess Madelyn is a good game that ultimately left me disappointed.