Prince of Prussia Review: A Sneaky Surprise!

Available now on PC and Pico-8 sneaks stealth platformer Prince of Prussia; a 2D retro-inspired title developed and published by Adam Saltsman. In this short adventure you play a prisoner who must escape from a dark dungeon taking down as many Nazis as you can whilst avoiding getting shot, spiked, or splattered after plunging to your death. It has been a long while since I last reviewed a Pico-8 title, with the previous one being Birds With Guns. And given the games that this games titles reference, I was curious to see how this would turn out.

And I have to say that I have been rather impressed by it. Prince of Prussia has been a fine title to review, with a great core idea, tight controls, and a central gameplay loop that offers a decent level of travel. Even if in some aspects the game does feel a tad austere. With that said, lets get to the deeper details!

Prince of Prussia is available now on PC via Itch.io and Pico-8 via Lexaloffice.

Story – A Stab in the Dark

Prince of Prussia has a small amount of story. Not something I’ll hold against it in this review. In the end, this isn’t a narrative title. The story exists to give context for what you are doing. That context is that you are a prisoner, you need to escape, and stab as many Nazi’s as possible. It is a revenge story. One that is bookended with a little text at the start and end of the game from the point of view of the player character.

Prince of Prussia is a story of bloody revenge, kind of.

Beyond this there isn’t any tutorial text. But given how simple the gameplay is and how forgiving failure can be, that isn’t too much of an issue. The text itself, what little there is, isn’t too hard to read. I had worried when I saw the game that the text would be overly pixely; far too focused on looking retro than being functional. And thankfully, that isn’t the case. I do wish that the pause menu was a little easier to navigate (it isn’t too clear how to get out of it on first impression), but that is hardly something I can hold against the title.

Gameplay – From Prussia, With Love

Prince of Prussia is a 2D Stealth Platformer. Your goal is to sneak your way to the button that controls the exit and then escape to the next level. All the while stabbing any foes you come across from behind. As well as avoiding steep falls and spikes. And if you end up in the line of sight of one of the guards BLAM you get shot. And from there you are sent back to the start of the level for a second (third, fourth, fifth…) attempt to clear the level. It is a simple but blindingly effective loop. One that even when it gets difficult, never becomes frustrating.

The more you explore, the more of the screen fills up.

Whilst the visuals (from a certain point of view) and the name references Prince of Persia (the classic version), it doesn’t play like it. This is not a cinematic platformer. You aren’t having to plan your jumps six weeks in advance, as seems to be the case in titles like those. And has a more traditional feel to the controls at least for the most part; this isn’t Super Mario Brothers. The truth is, this feels less like a platformer or stealth game. And more like a puzzle game. As such, you don’t have to worry about timing as you would in similar titles. There is a very specific path that you need to go down to win. Your goal is to figure out what that is if you want to advance to the next level.

The Right Way, The Wrong Way

I will be blunt dear reader. I had a lot of fun playing Prince of Prussia for this review; it is a short but enjoyable adventure. However, I do feel that the pacing of the difficulty is rather odd. It feels like the game gets easier as it goes along. Rather than getting harder. Goodness, there is even a stretch where most levels only have one or two goons to deal with. If that! And given that they are all easily within stabbing range, it is easy to take them all down in one run. Meaning there isn’t much of a reason to go back and replay it. Unless you missed one like I did.

Prince of Prussia feels more like a puzzle game, than a stealth one.

The controls are drum-tight. And the “trial and error” loop the game has is brilliantly realised. I just personally wish that there was more to see and do. I hope that this version of the game is more of a proof of concept. And a more developed game is coming soon. This feels like a rather fresh take on these sub-genres of games. Just don’t enter into this thinking it is some kind of stealth title. As you may be disappointed.

Graphics & Audio – It Has Some!

Prince of Prussia features a minimalist art style in more ways than one. Beyond the fact that this is a retro-inspired title, this game features some very small-scale pixel art. Art that is wonderfully well put together and is still able to transmit all the visual information that one could need for a game like this. There aren’t any animations, so this isn’t quite Lemmings levels of micro-art, but it still does fantastically well with what it has.

There is no soundtrack here. Not whatsoever. This is somewhat understandable given that this is a Pico-8 title and is existing within those limitations. It is seeking to evoke the feel of classic computer game titles. Back from the days when even if you did have music, it was either you had that and no sound effects or vice versa. But even still, the aforementioned Birds With Guns was able to do both. And even just a little menu music would have been enough. Still, I can’t hold it against the title. As I understand the reasons why they did this. And the sound effects we get do add something to the near-silence.

Prince of Prussia was reviewed on PC.

(This article features video by The Video Game Channel)