Blue Prince is the kind of game I find very intimidating, like Myst, that doesn't offer much explanation or context, and expects you to figure out everything on your own. I love the idea on paper, but in practice, I never get past the first puzzle. I had heard so many good things about Blue Prince, however, that I decided to give it a shot when it shadow dropped on Switch 2. I certainly felt lost and a little stupid at first, but once I solved that first puzzle, I was absolutely hooked.
If you want the full rundown on Blue Prince, you can check out Joey Caplan's original review on PS5 below. In short, he loved it, calling it the new best puzzle game. The game is something of a puzzle rogue-like, where the only thing you really take between runs is the information you learn by exploring (and any notes you take on a real piece of paper—it's that kind of game). Your uncle has left you his 45 room mansion on one condition: that you find the hidden 46th room somewhere within. The house's layout changes every day, and interacting with doors will allow you to choose from one of three randomly selected rooms to place beyond the threshold. Some doors are blocked off, some require keys to open, and every room represents a choice. Do you place a dead-end bedroom to gain more steps for the day so you can explore more of the mansion, or do you place a hallway so you have more rooms in total? It's an interesting macro-puzzle to contend with each in-game day, especially since there aren't actually that many traditional puzzles within.
Joey Caplan
The real puzzle we want to solve here, though, is how the game runs on Switch 2. The game runs at 30 fps and it's pretty consistent, though there are random dips here and there, especially in docked mode. For a game like this, I really don't need a high framerate, so as long as a game's dips below the target don't make me sick, I'm good. The low target seems to be in service of higher fidelity because the game looks phenomenal. A lot of that comes down to a fantastic art style, but Blue Prince feels crisp on Switch 2, with sharp lines and clean textures.
Even still, the resolution might not be high enough as I found a lot of the in-game text on notes and such to be difficult to read without the console's built-in zoom feature. That may just be because a lot of it is in cursive, but even playing on a fairly large 4K TV, I'd need to zoom in occasionally. If you have anything smaller, you're absolutely going to need to turn on Zoom in the Switch 2's accessibility settings. Portable mode is a bit easier to see, but that's partially because the screen is a lot closer to your face. I haven't played the game on anything else though, so this may be more of a me issue than the game itself.
I always prefer playing in portable mode, and Blue Prince feels almost perfect for portable play. Runs are fairly short and the game will always prompt you to save and continue, or quit after ending a day. If you need a break, you can also put the console into sleep mode mid-run, though a suspend feature in-game would have been nice to have as well, especially with how long the initial load time is. Additionally, the game does have a mouse mode option, which works perfectly well, but I find a controller suits the game better. Even so, it's addicting to just pull the console out and try and reach room 46 wherever you are.
