For some background, Blue Prince is a PC (Windows/Mac) and Xbox/PlayStation puzzle game in which you inherit a 45-room mansion from your late, eccentric uncle, but to earn it, you must reach the rumoured 46th room. The twist is, all the rooms reset every day (except a couple permanent rooms), so every time you come to a door, three blueprints (get it, Blue Prince) are drawn like cards from a deck, and you choose the one you want. Some are dead ends, some have goodies, and some have traps. (Sort of.)
Furthermore, a Souls-like game (Clair Obscur: Expedition 33) was controversially stripped of its Game of the Year award by an indie publication, due to it using generative AI to make some of its art. (33 won dozens of other GOTY awards elsewhere.) After this disqualification, Blue Prince was awarded the title in its stead. Because of the controversy, some unknown parties (33 fans? Someone else? Article is not clear) started accusing Blue Prince of using genAI as well.
The truth is a bit more interesting. First of all, there's no genAI in Blue Prince. Second of all, it's made by one guy, who 8 years ago allegedly sequestered himself away from all other games — kind of the antithesis of how AI works, stealing content from artists — so he wouldn't be influenced by any other game. So any puzzle or Roguelike game, or any deck building game you might think Blue Prince is similar to, if it came out in the last 8 years, it's purely coincidental.
You should play Blue Prince for a handful of reasons. One, it's an awesome little digital puzzle box. Beautiful, hand-drawn graphics, lots of secrets to uncover, lots of red herrings, it's just so fun to try to unpack it. It's also fun to just run blindly through a run. Despite the time limit implied in the beginning, there is no time/date requirement for completing the game. You can make 500 runs and never be told you took too much time. Two, it's on Windows and Xbox and PlayStation, but it's also on the Mac. Support for Mac gaming is rare and should be rewarded. Three, it's made by one guy. Four, it's like $20 when it goes on sale (I think the full price is $30 — I only care about sales because I bought it twice, once for my Mac and once for my Xbox). Four, Roguelikes, when done right, are some of the best games out there. I wish we could get Noita on Mac or at least Xbox. And five... because it wasn't made with genAI.
I know this is an irrelevant detail, but... Are we really calling a turn-based RPG "souls like" now? Was AI involved in the writing of this article or something?
People calling everything a souls-like or rogue-like makes me irrationally angry. I don't know why.
"souls like"... just because it has parry? I don't think it was even written in the article. It was just OP's interpretation.
Seriously, how is that even close to the genre you'd classify it as?
Punish whoever wrote this article with a sekiro run
I call a game Soulslike if it has a high level of difficulty and gameplay where expert timing is the key to survival.
Calling Clair Obscur turn-based is somewhat accurate, but disingenuous to your point. It's not strictly turn-based. When an enemy hits you, you have a very tight window to execute a button combination. When you can die in 1 hit (or maybe 2), this timing gates your progress.
The same definition is widely applied to the Hollow Knight games as well.
If I were an AI, do you really think I'd be calling out games for requiring expert timing while I love everything else about the game? Make it make sense.
e33 is fairly easy on normal, has an easy setting (story mode) if you want it, and you can finish the main story without being good at parrying at all, it's not key to survival
Is that a recent development? I played the game on GamePass (on Xbox) when it was brand new. Got my ass handed to me in the first fight. I was actually surprised when I got a "Game Over" because the way the fight played out, it looked like one of those things where you're scripted to lose. So I was surprised when it actually gated my progression.
I would be willing to buy the game (I'm no longer on GamePass) if I could play the game. I mean, the rest of it was outstanding.
not sure, i played it the same way as you (but just searched the difficulty options before i posted so it's possible it was an update)
one of the loading screen tips that show up tells you how to learn the parry timing by using dodge instead - if it indicates you did a perfect dodge, a parry would have worked
i don't think i'd have been upset to pay full price for it, didn't love it as much as some but i finished the story and some of the optional stuff in around just over 30 ish hours and enjoyed it. shame about the ai thing