Genesis Review: Beggar Prince

Super Fighter Team’s first “modern-classic” put the developer on the map, molding a Chinese-developed Genesis game into a reworked and more polished RPG players could tackle in the U.S. or in PAL territories. 1996’s Xin Qigai Wangzi was given an English facelift by SFT in 2006, resulting in the first commercial Genesis game since 1998 – Beggar Prince.

Given the original title translates to The New Prince and the Pauper, it should come as no surprise Beggar Prince borrows its initial premise from the classic Mark Twain work. Bored with the confines of the castle, the Prince of Shatt sneaks out of the castle and meets a pauper who uncannily resembles him. Predictably, the two trade places but unbeknownst to the kingdom, the minister has been plotting to overthrow the king and upon witnessing the switch, throws his plan into action.

Seeing as the title is on the Genesis format, even though Prince is a 2006 release, players can’t walk into the game with a 2006 mentality. That being said, Beggar Princes looks amazing compared to other games on the system, with a ton of detail placed in the environments and while the character models are small, they feature a lot of color, and the spell effects receive the same appropriate attention. The sound drags down the presentation quite a bit, however, as most of the music is forgettable but the effects do their job.

Thankfully, the developers squashed a great number of the bugs plaguing the original Eastern release, but the title’s extremely challenging game play may make or break the title for players. In Eastern RPG fashion, the enemy encounters are frequent and since players control no one more than the Prince the entire game, players will have a long quest ahead of them. Also, unlike most turn-based RPGs, Prince has quite a bit more strategy involved thanks to the stamina system (which can be a good thing depending on how much you like to think). While players will uncover a good amount of spells, weapons and items to use, the monsters are brutal if players don’t level up properly and the challenge may turn off a number of people.

Those who are looking for a challenging RPG will be right at home with Beggar Prince but the casual need not apply here. If you’re willing to take the dive, however, you’ll find a visually appealing game that will last you quite some time. The title is only available in nicely packaged limited quantities at superfighter.net and if production stops on the game, it may raise beyond its current $40 retail value.

GemuBaka Final Review Score: 3 of 5