This game was sold to me as "Outer Wilds mixed with Slay the Spire".

This is both a good elevator pitch, but also kind of the root of my issues with the game.

Blue Prince is, undoubtedly, a really good game. It is meticulously crafted, and overflows with attention to detail, great game design, and really immersive atmosphere.

Like Tunic, Outer Wilds, and Animal Well, the game has layers to uncover, puzzles within puzzles, and you should 100% start taking notes the second you start playing, because every detail matters.

However, the biggest thing that holds Blue Prince back from being as good as those other titles is that the rogue-like aspects clash with the puzzle aspects.

"Outer Wilds mixed with Slay the Spire" is an apt description because it feels like there are two games within Blue Prince. Sometimes, they work well together, and this makes for an incredible experience.

Sometimes though, they actively work against each other, and the result is frustrating. Without going into spoilers, the "endgame" of Blue Prince is a grindy mess, where the rogue-like elements fight you at every turn and you wish you could just turn them off.
If you are hunting for a specific puzzle piece but you get unlucky, you can spend hours grinding runs without results.

I still recommend the game, and I will still try to finish it because the puzzle elements are genuinely some of the best in that genre of knowledge-based games, I just wish there was a way to reduce all of the grinding that stands between the player and the puzzles.

EDIT : Now on 100+ hours of play
I still have a lot of mixed feelings about the game, and it has some weird game design decisions imo

However, I cannot argue the objective fact that this is the best crafted and most intricate puzzle game I have ever played.
I simply do not think I am ever going to play a puzzle with as much depth, thought, creativity and effort put into it in my lifetime

There is a lot of care put into making sure that a single person can access and solve all of the puzzles on their own. The game gives a ton of redundancy and clues to help players figure out even some of the deepest secrets.

There are some missteps, yes (the Gallery puzzle is a farce), but overall the game does an incredible job of giving players all of the tools and almost no leaps of logic.

This is a great video game but you have to be BOTH a roguelike sicko AND a puzzle sicko- if you don't care about taking notes and trying to solve puzzles and piece together the bigger mysteries, you'll get annoyed by not making "progress" in the roguelike part, and if you only care about secrets and puzzles and progressing your knowledge, you'll get frustrated with the RNG of the roguelike parts.

If you're willing to take progress in both the roguelike mechanics and the puzzle/knowledge parts as they come and not tunnel vision onto one or the other, this game rules. It's going to be a perfect game for a very narrow audience (me) and a frustrating one for a lot of other people

Blue Prince is a fascinating game and the shortest review I can say is if you'd like to play a modern take on Myst but you've got to random-tile-placement boardgame your way to clues, as well as to implementing solutions, this IS that game, you WILL enjoy it.

The broader picture is muddier, and far less consistent, than "what is this game" though. The randomness of the game is appealing, and even dozens of hours in while my runs were getting destroyed by simply being refused a handful of tiles needed to accomplish my goals, I still am excited to try a new run and see what I can get to coalesce. However, I only say that now that I'm over the hump.

At first, when talking with a friend maybe 10-ish hours into the game, we agreed the game was "too hostile" to the player; it seemed like the game did not WANT you to succeed, like it deliberately torpedoed your chances, hamstrung your efforts to play intelligently, to say nothing of actually solving puzzles (that part of the game is excellent). What I've realized now almost 50 hours in is the game is "too indifferent" to the player. The meta progression and roguelike elements are amazing to discover, and even better to implement! However, there is absolutely zero guarantee how long either will take. Almost 50 hours in, after FORTY RUNS, I discovered a room which may hold the hardest single-room puzzle in the game, and what a mixed bag of emotions! Yay a new puzzle, how have I not seen this yet, oh no I can't SAVE MY PROGRESS and GO TO BED, so eff it I have to look it up because I'm not waiting FIFTY MORE HOURS to see this room. The player, even after many permanent upgrades, takes far too long (I'd say about 15 hours, 20-ish runs) to get some meaningful ability to guide or influence the board in a meaningful way beyond "Draw any new tile you see because your run is already screwed."

Once you crest that early-mid game where very little is progressing (probably, again you can just... win through sheer luck and a small handful of puzzles), the game really hits its stride. You're completing meta puzzles, you're cross-referencing your notes, you're seeing the value in every tile you draw and likely more consistently can change in some way those tiles, be it their placement, or learning how to influence which you have in the first place, and THAT is when Blue Prince HITS! The nickle and dime of one puzzle here, one clue there, is supremely dwarfed by a run where a cavalcade of solutions appear opening new rooms, new functions of the house, new understanding of the plot, all at once, and you simply have to enjoy the fluctuation there or you won't enjoy the game at its best *or* worst.

So for me whether or not you'll enjoy this game comes down to can you hang with the RNG until it starts to click and let you pursue your goals purposefully and with reasonable expectation of *some* payoff, and relish in the BIG payoffs. Can the draw and novelty of new tiles, new clues, and new threads to follow hold your attention until the MASSIVE doors start opening? I think the BONES of this game accomplish that, I certainly would have abandoned it 30 hours ago if it couldn't, so I confidently recommend it. However! Even if you think you'll love this game, find a support group to vent to. You will need it.