Battle Princess Madelyn is an immensely enjoyable throwback to the old-school that is consistently charming. The soundtrack and the graphics are both a delight and the character design is wonderful. While it can occasionally be a little frustrating the optimism in every aspect will keep you pushing through.

Though not without its share of flaws, Battle Princess Madelyn stays true to the formula of the games that inspired it, eschewing artificial difficulty and keeping all the fun.

Partly extremly hard, but never quite unfair retro platformer with idiosyncratic charm, which properly picks up steam in arcade mode only.

Battle Princess Madelyn has a sweet, personal touch to it that shines through in the final product, as well as a message about the value of family.

Battle Princess Madelyn is both impressive in both visuals and audio. For better, and sometimes worse, the game has modeled itself after difficult games like Ghosts'n Goblins. Metroidvania fans will enjoy the expansive levels, however, satisfaction from level completion and boss fights are less thrilling provided the immediate backtracking you'll perform back through harms way throughout most of the game.

I really do like Battle Princess Madelyn, and while I like the way the story mode feels, I’m more partial to the Arcade mode. This is simply because the story mode can be rather unforgiving and rage-inducing, but at the same time, it’s also sweet and innocent. Battle Princess Madelyn feels like how a Metroidvania should feel, but it doesn’t explain core mechanics all that well and leaves you to just play the game and either succeed or fail.

Battle Princess Madelyn is a little gem, a game that fits in the tradition of platformer, made with great attention to detail by a team of just two people.