Magic Mansion: Blue Prince Review

Summary

Writing a review about Blue Prince turns out to be a puzzle in of itself. It’s easy enough to convey the setting, mechanics and whatnot but how can you convey the magic of this game without taking something away from just what makes it special?

I try to avoid reading spoilers so I will damn sure try to avoid writing them. But I’m conscious that even the most obtuse of “clues” about this game feel like spoilers in their truest sense – not giving away any answers perhaps but taking something away from the experience that someone would have had if they went in completely blind.

Ok, so what else can I say without breaking this self-imposed limitation? Well, it’s a puzzle game although not often in the conventional sense of the genre. You’re presented with a mystery but chances are that you’ll encounter (and maybe solve) many more as you play. It’s a fun game, full of puns and whimsy but also one that you’ll probably struggle to solve without taking, and regularly referring to, some real-life notes. It won’t test your reflexes but it will fully test your reasoning and possibly your patience. But curiosity and persistence will (usually) be rewarded. Oh and, yes, I bloody loved it.

You’ll be exploring in first-person, with a stylised cell-shaded presentation and some subtle but effective sound design. You’ll learn straight away that the mansion you’ve “inherited” isn’t yours yet – and you must find a mysterious Room 46 to prove you are worthy. You’ll also find that it’s got some rather unusual architecture – where each time you open a door you will be presented with three options of the room you will walk into, selected (seemingly at random) from a larger pool. You’re given a limited number of steps and when you run out of these or find all routes blocked, you’ll have to “call it a day” – returning the next morning to a reset and vastly different version of the mansion armed with only what you learnt before.

On each of your runs there will be new clues, puzzles and decisions to make. Is there is more to the story, more to the property or more to the game? Probably, but you’ll just have to find that out for yourself. And my strong recommendation is that you simply go play it, ideally with someone and some notepaper by your side.

You might love it, as I did, or you might not. And if you do love it, you’ll probably love it just that bit more for not having had anything spoiled for you by this review. And if you don’t enjoy it, well, it’s on Game Pass and PS Plus so you’ve probably not lost out too much.

It won’t be for everyone. The game’s charm is immediate but the rewards are not. At its worst, it can feel like you aren’t progressing at all – lost in a sea of clues, randomly appearing rooms and vague or even contradictory information. The random elements and need to have start from scratch each “day” can be particularly frustrating. My other personal bugbear was the lack of a save function – particularly once we began to have longer runs late on in the game – but shout out to Quick Resume on Xbox which gave us a convenient through still nerve-wracking way to put things on hold.

Total Film (a great magazine that’s sadly no longer in print) used to have a “predicted interest curve” feature that strikes me as a good one to pilfer. My notes read as follows. Hours 1-3: I’m intrigued. 4-10: Things are really coming together, could be great. 11 – 20: Wow, just wow. I get it, it’s brilliant. 20-25: Frustration is creeping in. Maybe I don’t get it after all. 26-the end: Yep, it’s a masterpiece.

Your own mileage may vary but you need to take this one for a spin.

10/10. Masterpiece.