Tragedy of Prince Rupert Reviews

It's a nice 2D bullethell shootemup, a bit like luftrausers but it's got interesting story elements which gives you a choice in how you want to play it.

Fun game in the style of Luftrausers. Nice graphics and has some fun exploration elements too

A whimsical indie game with a very charming art style. Well worth anytime you give it.

It is both a surprising and maddening experience. The emphasis on exploration and the solving of rather obtuse puzzles makes this a deeper title than the initial shooting would have suggested. On the other hand, your fragility combined with the steep spike into pure bullet hell territory can quickly yank you out of the experience. It's a distinct enough experience that you should only undertake if you have the patience of a saint combined with inhuman dexterity.

no tutorial, no "how to play", still don't know what's the purpose of this game, I though this is a shooter game, but actually this game has a plot, a story which is not that attractive but has some...unique style, a sense of history... Some perk description is vague and I still don't know what Perk "Absorb any other bullets" does.

strange and fun. very distinctive aesthetics, never played a game that looks like this. seems simple on the surface but then i started discovering things and felt compelled to keep digging.

This is a really fun exploratory game with great controls and beautiful visuals. Shame it doesn't run well on Linux/Proton.

There's a lot of game genres I'm bad at. Platformers. Fighting games. Pretty much anything multiplayer. And usually, I try to stay away from those games, since they usually bring me more frustration than anything, and ain't got nobody have time for dat. One other such genre is Shoot 'Em Ups / Bullet Hells. I love the concept, I love watching people play them... I really want to be good at them – I just ain’t. And the mentioned frustration is so prevalent everytime I give it another try, I’ve pretty much completely given up on the genre as a whole. In comes Tragedy of Prince Rupert, an older game by HROT developer Spytihněv, which is what made it ping on my radar. And a few weeks back, when everyone and their mom was streaming HROT (which is excellent, go play it), I figured, ah, what the (Bullet) Hell, let’s suffer through yet another of those games just to shine a light on one of the brilliant developers of our time too few people have heard of (and entertain some viewers with my cursing). And, don’t get me wrong, suffer, I did. Curse, I did. Enjoying my time with this game? Absolutely! And this is not because of some deeply-rooted masochism I got to live out while playing – it’s simply because this game is, despite the genre, simply great. I was still really bad at it, but the fun prevailed. Tragedy of Prince Rupert has a rather unique and utterly gorgeous art style, brilliant sound design, and game mechanics that put many AAA titles of the genre to shame. I could go on about the perk system, the anchor mechanic or how and why your old-timey hot air balloon can dive underwater. I could spend paragraph on paragraph about the enemy units, the Kraken, and flying into space. But I won’t. I’ll give you just one more paragraph: Play this game. At its price point there’s hardly any excuse not to, but if that’s the one thing that’s holding you back, message me and I’ll gift it to you. It’s really that good.

I am not into shoot em' up games at all, so I don't enjoy it even in this game. But I the game got me because of the visuals, and I like it because there are secrets to uncover, mostly under the sea, and there are scraps of story, little things that makes it good. I just wish they add more of these little things and story fragments. Its reeeealy small game. Trailer shows exactly what you'll get.

EDIT: I said that the extra crew members were just cosmetic. Well, after reading a post from developer, those actually have an impact on the gameplay (they give you more HP, slow enemy bullets, etc.). But them again how can you blame me for thinking those were just cosmetic, if the game doesn't give you ANY information? When you first start up this game, it feels like just another Twin Stick shooter with unique art style. But actually it's got more depth than most Twin Sticks I've played. You play as Prince Rupert, who's flying a Montgolfière, that has the fastest shooting cannon in the world. You're on your quest to prove yourself to be worthy groom for some princess and everybody else who wants to marry her is after you. And your balloon is capable of flying into space and dive 20 000 leagues under the sea. That in itself is the most awesome concept for a game I've seen in a while. There is a story that gradually unweils as you explore the world and collect various objects and slay enemies. A creative way if you ask me. There is a high chance you'll unlock its parts out of order, but due to the way the story is written, it doesn't really matter. For the actual gameplay, it's broken up to two parts- fighing and exploration (even though the world is small). As far as fighting goes, it's your typical shooter. You fly around and shoot at everything. But your balloon is quite fragile and with bullets flying everywhere (this game turns into bullet hell quickly), it's safe to say, you're going to die quite a few times. But if you start taking damage, you can regain health when you stop shooting. One thing that needs to be mentioned- there is no pause button, that's a pretty big oversight if you ask me. You can go back to the menu, but that cancels your current run, you'll have to start over again. [i]([b]EDIT:[/b] you can actually pause the game if you bring up a storybook, but it's not efficient, because it covers up your screen, so you can't see if there are any bullets heading your way)[/i]. As far as exploration goes, you have sky and ocean to explore. There are no enemies underwater, but you have limited oxygen. The main reason to dive down is to recover collectables that unlock story and add passengers to your balloon (purely cosmetic). I have mentioned unique art style. But it's not original- the visuals were taken straight from movies directed by Karel Zeman, namely Vynález Zkázy, or The Fabulous World of Jules Verne as it's known to the rest of the world. Then there is a little bit of influence by Fabulous Baron Munchausen from the same director- few visual references and the overall story feels like something that would happen in the movie. Overall it's a decent effort to recreate the art style, but it doesn't hold up to the source material. So graphics are okay. Not amazing (for amazing visuals you have to watch the movies). Overall the game looks unique, there's fairly lot to do in it (for a twin stick) and the price is really low. If you like twin sticks, you can't go wrong here. It'll keep you busy for few hours.