Last Crown was a game that made me grimace the first time I saw it. After 21 hours of gameplay, I left the game at 71% completion. The reason I didn't finish at 100% or higher was that I was really curious about the end of the main story, and once the main story was over, I had no desire to go back and do the side missions. Throughout the game, I encountered beautiful locations, nice puzzles, a solid combat system and boss fights, all of which raised the bar incredibly high. Ubisoft is a company that can really make a solid game and I saw that again. Even though sometimes I had a hard time understanding what was going on in the fights, I was able to easily beat the last boss on my second try. They really handled Persian mythology very well. I think if Ubisoft approaches this series in a God Of War 2018 style, no one can hold a candle to it. Even though it's not my dream prince game, this game is a very good game and I'm glad that there are still new games coming in the Prince of Persia series.

İlk gördüğüm de suratımı ekşittiğim bir oyun olmuştu Last Crown. 21 saatlik oynanışın ardından oyunu yüzde 71 oranında bitirmiş noktadayken bıraktım. Yüzde yüz veya daha yüksek bir oranda bitirmeme sebebim ana hikayenin sonunu gerçekten çok merak ettim. Ana hikâye bitince de tekrar dönüp yan görevleri yapma isteğim kalmadı. Oyun boyunca birbirinden güzel mekanlar, hoş bulmacalar, sağlam dövüş sistemi ve boss kavgaları ile karşılaştım. Hepsi çıtayı inanılmaz yükseltmiş gerçekten de. Ubisoft cidden sağlam oyun yapabilen bir firmaymış bunu tekrardan görmüş oldum. Bazen dövüşlerde ne olduğunu anlamakta zorlansam da en son bossu bile ikinci denememde rahatlıkla geçebildim. Pers mitolojisini gerçekten çok güzel ele almışlar. Bence Ubisoft şu seriye bir God Of War 2018 stili gibi yaklaşsa kimse eline su dökemez. Her ne kadar hayalimdeki prens oyunu olmasa da bu oyun çok iyi bir oyun ve hâlâ Pers Prensi serisi ile ilgili yeni oyunlar gelecek olması sevindirici.

ok crazy thought here but: i think metroidvanias with a combat focus as granular as this one should be about one-half to one-third the size of this one - or they need to be balanced much more carefully. i keep running into regular degular enemies who can teleport across the room, thus allowing me to get in maybe two hits before they disappear, and who have health bars that are way too big, and who chase me across the screen so i have to stop exploring in order to get them out of the way.

perhaps this is a 'get gud' kind of problem! but it's extremely annoying and disincentivizes backtracking or exploration or thoughtful puzzle solving, which the game also wants me to do. so like, what's the end goal here?

the core issue is that, while the game is fun, it doesn't feel like it has a point of view. i can really feel the market calculation here - like, storytelling tropes from the mcu and anime? check! counter-heavy combat - and getting-stalked-by-enemies areas - along the lines of metroid dread? check! exploration/combat/save rhythm from souls? check! time manipulation because that's the prince of persia Thing? check! it just feels vaguely soulless and committee-designed. even when i enjoy the way it plays - which is often! - i just don't feel particularly engaged with it.

this is reading very pessimistic. there are things i like about this game! i think it does a good job of selling mount qaf as a coherent space - comparatively, metroid dread did not do this with planet zdr even a little bit. i like the concept of the combat-focused vania and there are lots of good ideas there. some of the cutscene direction is cool and fun. but it all feels very... focus-tested.

Quite possibly one of the finest game that came out of modern Ubisoft. Prince of Persia: The lost crown is a fantastic game with beautiful art style, challenging but fun battles and puzzles.

I want to particularly shoutout the huge amount of accessibility from a visual and gameplay standpoint, I was genuinely surprised by how much you could customize the game to your own liking.

Only thing that I wish was done slightly better is the storyline, which is kind of non memorable, especially put against its legendary predecessors.

This was a solid game. It has issues, but I still enjoyed myself.

The combat was pretty fun. I liked the available moves and how you had to vary them to combat certain enemies/bosses. The enemies in this game had interesting designs and all were sufficiently different than each other giving the game a lot of variety. The bosses were good, they weren't super difficult though. The one I had trouble with the most was King Darius who I had around ten tries against. For all of the other bosses, I beat them on my first try or at most my 3rd try. Some other standouts were the Orod, Vahram, and Azhdaha fights.

The movement in the game is fluid at times with some slight jank. I like the platforming and find it to be more challenging than some of the bosses at times. Some platforming sections took me many tries, but it was pretty satisfying once I did them. There is the jankiness though. Sometimes spikes creep out over edges when they shouldn't.

The story is the weakest part of the game. I didn't find any of the characters interesting. I wasn't impressed by any of their performances either. I know the story isn't the focal point of a game like this, but it is still part of it.

Overall the game was fun, but it's not the shining example of the genre.

This is almost a complete package for me. Incredible combat, platforming, puzzles, exploration, pacing, progression. It has a great visual style and takes a lot of inspiration in it's worldbuilding and narrative from Zoroastrianism, which is so cool to see considering it was published by ubisoft of all people. However the story and characters are a bit limp. I enjoyed the dialogue between characters in the side missions and just talking to NPCs, but every time a cutscene played it was very underwhelming.

Ancient religions other than Greek and Norse are such an untapped gold mine for video games. Where is my Aztec open world game? How about a Celtic JRPG? Or a buddist platformer?

A really fun Metroidvania, with really responsive movement and a good combat system. There's some nice art too, especially in things like the UI and combat effects. The environments also look good, though they're maybe not the most unique or memorable.

The story was easily the weakest point for me, with the main story seeming interesting at first before just becoming set dressing. The collectables that had lore attached to them, which I was compelled to read all of because of the type of game player that I am, had writing that I found rather impenetrable. I would often read a paragraph and immediately be unable to recall what it was about. I wish this had better, and usually sparser, writing, as the setting here was intriguing.

Wife’s Reaction:
“Did you have fun?You sure swore a lot.”

There’s Sand in my Metroidvania:
You’re often retreading ground in Metroidvanias, and never has the traversal been as fun as it is in the Lost Crown. Finally, we have a new Prince of Persia and it’s a “video game” game. Mount Qaf, the game’s setting, is massive with plenty of intense challenges and secrets for engaged players.

Yeah, Ubi Montpellier can do no wrong bro. First they make Rayman Legends, one of the most amazing and polished 2D platformers of all time, and then they make one of the smoothest and most addictive Metroidvania's I've ever played. First off, the combat is just like. Oh my god. You don't just have like a repeated 3 hit combo, or a charge shot and projectile, no. They took what is basically a character action game moveset and put it in 2D. It is so addictive, and easily the best part. I was actively thinking "damn I want Sargon in a fighting game" because comboing enemies was just so fun. And on the few boss fights you could do it on, just ugh. Man it's so good. the style of the game is also great, somewhat gave spiderverse to me, in a very very loose manner. I liked it a lot, the splash screens when the bosses hit a critical attack were sick. The story was good, I liked it but it wasn't anything like spectacular. Same with the music. The traversal tools are also just great. They're pretty standard, but man everything just comes together to feel so smooth when you move. This game is so smooth. It's just so good. It's a shame it kinda went under the radar. Do yourself a favor and play it.

This game goes a lot harder than it has any reason to.

I am a pretty big fan of the Prince of Persia series. I had played Sands of Time and thought it was a pretty great game, but one day during my adolescence I had a fever dream about the 2008 game (it had the music from Sigur Rós that played in the commercial and everything). That one dream sent me off on a path of playing every Prince of Persia game that came out post Sands of Time, save for some spin offs. I enjoyed most of what I played, but those are all far gone memories now and I can't say where I'd stand on them now.

One thing I know for sure though? This is the best Prince of Persia game since Sands of Time.

THIS is how you take something back to its roots while adding to it in a meaningful way. The OG Prince of Persia games were difficult platformers with very touchy combat. This game is a difficult platformer with very solid combat. It adopts many Metroidvania elements, such as gaining power-ups that aid progression and encourage backtracking to find new discoveries. Each upgrade felt satisfying, and by the time you reach the end you'll wonder how you lived without any of them.

The combat itself is simple, but also has enough depth to really keep you going. You really can just mash your way through a lot of enemies, but you are also rewarded for learning how to extend combos. Though sadly, most bosses won't be affected by it.

After the passing of Akira Toriyama, the Ubisoft twitter posted about how this game's art and style was inspired by Dragon Ball Z. I was surprised, but it only made me more curious about this game. Once you reach a certain point, you'll realize just how true that statement was. Unlike the previous stories in the Prince of Persia series, this world has more emphasis on a connection to the gods and powers that enhance the characters. The original Prince in Sands of Time was a simple sword-fighter who also had time powers. Sargon is the same, but with Ashra energy. This is equivalent to Dragon Ball's Ki, in that it enables characters to do all kinds of crazy techniques. These are manifest in the Ashra Surges that you can use in combat. Not only are they over the top, but the animations go extra hard. These Ashra Surges, parry animations, and a lot of cutscenes in general go raw. You can tell they put work into making the action LOOK cool, and it really sold a lot of the fights for me. So much so that if I missed a parry animation on a boss, I would get frustrated because I wanted to see how it looked in that specific fight.

The story is good enough to keep you going as well, and it's a great length at around 20 hours to earn the Platinum. The characters of the Immortals themselves were all pretty great (and their entrance was really cool too).

All in all, if this is the future of the series, I'm all for it.

This game is a strange piece that I’m surprised came to be, a metroidvania in a series that I’ve never personally played or been interested in, and that I don’t think they’ve ever tackled. Now I’m just confused on what the Prince of Persia series even IS. This game gets quite a bit right, with a heavy amount of flaws. It’s a decently solid metroidvania with some cool innovations, and while it feels like they didn’t quite have the intricate knowledge to make the groundbreaking game they wanted to, they still met in the middle and made a pretty good game.

If they nailed anything in this game, it’s Sargon’s movement. A metroidvania is always split into combat, exploration, and platforming, and forgetting the last one can lead to the mix being unbalanced. Thankfully, this game almost succeeds as a Platformer more than any other category. Sargon is smooth as butter, feels great to control, has some incredibly fun abilities later in the game, such as the staple air dash, or the GRAPPLING HOOK (This is the best ability in the game and it’s a crime it’s the last you unlock). Some abilities felt more like keys than upgrades, like the flipping blocks power or the grabbing explosions power, but they’re made up for with some solid entries in Sargon’s arsenal.

While decently expansive and fun to explore, the design of Mount Qaf feels a bit… sloppy? I’m not sure how to describe it, but it doesn’t feel as intricate or natural as something like Hollownest in Hollow Knight or Planet Zebes in Metroid. It feels like the work of a team that was less familiar with the style of game, but honestly, it’s in no means bad. Just feels like there’s a lot of room for improvement. The combat in this game almost feels like they’re trying to do a 2D Devil May Cry, and it’s kinda fun to combo enemies until they start getting super armor and unpushable on every single enemy late game. It doesn’t help that the dodge doesn’t have invincibility frames (or if it does, I couldn’t tell), because the risk and reward system that makes that kind of combat fun became more like a risk and then run away for a bit system. Abilities like the block toggle or the shadow teleport are practically useless in battle, and a lot of the scaling in terms of difficulty, health, and damage are kinda all over the place for a large portion of the game. I started mostly avoiding combat later on, which is never a good sign. A lot of the boss fights are really fun though! While I think the game has a HUGE problem with enemies telegraphing attacks, something exasperated in bosses, the bosses themselves are super fun to go to town on and cross swords with, and have the level of spectacle and over-the-top craziness that I love.

The story is serviceable, I certainly didn’t expect it to get to the scale and universal level it did, but I always appreciate my spectacle, so I welcomed it. What I didn’t welcome was every character falling somewhat flat and one-note, however. Anihita was a boring, nothing character, Vahram only started getting interesting when his backstory was revealed, Sargon is kinda just a protagonist and nothing more, and the rest of the immortals peanuts gallery are similarly uninteresting. It’s a shame because I found the story to actually be pretty good, I was interested in what was happening and found the developments fun. But I didn’t care about any of the characters the story was happening TO. It’s a shame, because it’s definitely a result of mixing a metroidvania gameplay style with a more AAA-style form of presentation, which doesn’t mix terribly well.

Another example of the AAA-ification of the metroidvania genre is the worldbuilding/lore. In metroidvanias, the reason people are interested in lore and environmental storytelling is usually because of a lack of information, not an abundance. People like to put mysteries together, it’s the reason Hollow Knight theory crafting and the like are so popular. I keep bringing up these other examples because it feels like this game took heavy inspiration from these incredible titles, but slightly missed the mark on why they work so well. When I see vague hieroglyphics in Metroid Zero Mission, I get interested in that tribe and their history. But in Prince of Persia, when I get a document called ‘The Fall of the Hyrcanian Tribe’ that’s seven paragraphs long, I immediately glaze over and go “oh I guess there was a Hyrcanian Tribe and they fell.” By overwhelming the player with information, I find that I actually lose interest in the information being given. Gaming should not be a boring history class.

I heard that this game was built for the switch and then optimized and upscaled for more modern platforms, and I don’t know how true that is, because this game is buggy as hell! One of the most buggy games I’ve played in recent memory! I’m just gonna go through a list of bugs that I encountered in my casual playthrough.
- Cutscene stuttering and Audio desync CONSTANTLY
- Sometimes when enemies spawned in their models would flicker a bright white.
- At some point I got the notification icon for a new item over the character and lore sections in my menu, and then they never went away, even after interacting with those items.
- Never in a metroidvania should I be able to jump over a wall and clip out of bounds. Expect that the player will break your movement system over their knee.
- During the FINAL BOSS OF THE GAME, Sargon became invisible and invulnerable, allowing me to beat this cool but kinda unfair boss
- One time, after fast-traveling, only half of the world loaded in, there was no UI, Sargon didn’t end any of his animations and had no collision with the world, and I had to restart the game. Quitting to the main menu and reloading didn’t work, I had to close and reopen it.
This game needed another couple months, maybe another year in the oven. I’m not sure if this is an Ubisoft ‘thing’ or not but from what I’ve played their games are usually more stable than this. None of this hindered my enjoyment at all, it’s just something important to mention if that does bother others.

Overall, kind of a fascinating game that feels like a triple AAA studio tried to make a metroidvania and only kinda succeeded? I definitely enjoyed my time and was satisfied. I had a whole lot of critiques and complaints, but for what it’s worth, this is a fun time. It’s like a burger with just onions and ketchup. I wouldn’t have ordered that, but yknow what, it ain’t bad.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, o mais novo jogo da Ubisoft desenvolvedora de jogos francesa que está há anos entre as 10 maiores empresas de jogos do mundo. Nesta nova obra é proposto um metroidvania resgatando o clássico gênero em todos os seus aspectos junto a uma história linear de modo campanha.

A proposta do novo Prince of Persia trabalha com o clássico gênero de metroidvania: combate 2D, exploração exacerbada com diversas áreas para explorar e estas tendo vários locais que dependem da obtenção de um nova mecânica para serem acessadas, ainda se tem o elemento dos diferentes colecionáveis que tem relação direta com a história ou com a melhoria das habilidades do jogador. A partir deste formato que a história é concebida, uma história direta que explora a mitologia Persa junto a ficção dos guerreiros imortais e a temática do reinado com sua importância para a Pérsia.

A história da obra é interessante mas pouco surpreendente, a parte interessante tem como um dos responsáveis o game design com sua bela sacada ao compartimentar toda a obra dentro de um templo/cidade selado, com essa proposta o mistério, misticismo e a necessidade de exploração são entregues de bandeja, já que o cenário por si já oferece estes elementos para serem utilizadas a bel prazer sem a preocupação com qualquer furo de roteiro. A progressão da obra parece interessante até uma determinada parte, o mistério que é apresentado no começo com a figura do príncipe, Anahita e Varham são interessantes, o problema começa no apelo para a viagem no tempo pois este elemento é usado de muleta em muitas histórias para dar sentido a quase qualquer coisa, tudo pode resolvido com linhas temporais, viagens no tempo e mudança do percurso dos acontecimentos, a partir do momento que este elemento começa a ser utilizado é difícil dosar até onde e em que lugar utilizar. Assim a obra prossegue até o desfecho final, que apesar de ser interessante, principalmente por “consertar” os erros cometidos por quase todas as partes, fica parecendo muito conveniente, logo, pouco crível, a suspeição de descrença precisa ser muito forte para aturar o que é apresentado.

Ainda sobre a história, me parece um pouco triste o rumo tomado, pois a história que começa um tanto interessante é distorcida ao longo da obra e acaba atrapalhar a experiência do jogador, e isso se torna ainda pior ao considerar o belo cenário mitológico e personagens marcantes criados. No que diz respeito ao cenário tem-se o pássaro Simurgh e toda sua relação com os reis da Persa e seus descendentes além do próprio jogador. Sobre os personagens tem-se os guerreiros imortais com características únicas interessantes, que são delegados a um segundo plano e pouco aproveitados, mesmo tendo alguns desses sendo utilizados como inimigos do jogador. Em suma, a mitologia e os personagens criados são atrapalhados por uma história sustentada em uma muleta frágil.

Em relação às mecânicas, a obra conta diversas, que precisam ser adquiridas e masterizadas. A primeira delas é o combate realizado a partir dos combos da espada junto às flechas do arco, mecânica de bloqueio e de desvio. Conforme o jogador avança na obra novas mecânica são adicionadas ao jogo, essas mecânicas tem importância dupla, a primeira é acessar o locais que antes eram impossíveis de serem acessados e outra é o auxílio no combate em geral, um exemplo disso seria a mecânica de voltar no tempo, em determinado chefes ela é essencial para desviar de certas habilidades, o mesmo ocorre com a mecânica de “engolir” as coisas, do dash e do pulo duplo. Essas novas habilidades que complementam o combate e o mapa enquanto objeto de exploração, são obtidas justamente através da exploração, para consegui-las é preciso pensar: “onde com as minhas habilidades atuais ainda não foi explorado ?”, neste novo local inexplorado poderá ter um boss que fornecerá uma nova mecânica ou terá um novo caminho bloqueado. Outra forma de obter essas habilidades é seguir a missão principal, mas essa não direciona o jogador para todas as habilidades, como o chefe da floresta que fornece uma habilidade para o jogador, mesmo a missão principal não guiando o jogador para enfrentá-lo diretamente. A exploração vasta não torna a obra um sandbox justamente pela limitação dos ambientes e pelo caminho oferecido pela história principal para guiar o jogador por um percurso base.

Ainda pensando na exploração, este é um dos elementos fundamentais da obra e ele que dá sentido para o que está sendo presenciado. Através deste elemento que os locais são acessados depois de enfrentar certos grupos de inimigos e de se passar diversos obstáculos, no gênero metroidvania tudo está “escondido” e precisa ser encontrado, logo as habilidade disponíveis se fazem essenciais para a exploração, e a exploração é essencial para a obtenção das habilidades, é um elemento que dá sentido ao outro. A exploração também é essencial em outros elementos presentes na obra, pois é através dela que é possível obter os amuletos que fornecem diferentes passivas que acabam por moldar a build que o jogador está utilizando, também é essencial a obtenção dos espaços para amuletos e para os fragmento do pingente que aumenta a vida máxima do jogador, ainda se tem os colecionáveis que complementam a história principal contando a história do cenário e o contexto onde se passa a obra. Então, há diversos motivos para explorar todos os cantos possíveis, são diversos elementos constituintes da obra que só são possíveis de serem obtidos através da exploração, a Ubisoft entende a necessidade da exploração bem construída e não peca em nenhum sentido neste elemento.

A importância do combate está ligado aos elementos citados acima, os amuletos e armas podem ser evoluídos na forja, para isso além de alguns recursos que são obtidos pela exploração é preciso de cristais do tempo que tem como principal fonte de obtenção os monstros espalhados pelo mapa, logo enfrentá-los é essencial para tornar o jogador mais forte. Ainda sobre o combate esse é bastante focado na ação, sendo necessário destreza e habilidade para lidar com os diferente inimigos, ainda mais os chefes, que possuem mecânicas únicas bem interessantes, até porque as mecânicas do bosses instigam o jogador a utilizar todas as habilidades disponíveis, algo que complementa e dá sentido para o já vivenciado, explorado e obtido, um excelente game design é necessário para isso.

Ao considerar um metroidvania a progressão é um elemento essencial, a progressão está presente em vários aspectos, há progressão na história com seus plots e narrativa, há progressão na exploração com seu re-explorar e avançar em novos locais, e há progressão do jogador considerando seu poder, habilidades e maestria. Todas essas progressões são executadas de forma exemplar pela Ubisoft, porém há uma progressão que apresenta problemas, essa é a progressão da dificuldade, nos mobs normais ela ocorre significamente bem, cada novo local novos mobs mais complicados de se lidar aparecem de forma gradual e linear, mas nos chefes há um problema grotesco, há chefes anteriores mais complicados que chefes posteriores, o mais agravante é que isso ocorre algumas vezes, eu por exemplo, tive menos dificuldade de enfrentar o chefe final do que outros 2 que são anteriores, esse problema estrutural de game design atrapalha inclusive na história, ao tirar o peso do chefe final como o último desafio já que ele não foi o mais difícil, é o tipo de erro que não pode acontecer, ainda mais acontecer com uma empresa gigantes como a Ubisoft.

Esteticamente a obra é bonita, conta com um cartoon bem trabalhado rico em detalhes e com uma animação digna, além do desenvolvimento da estética dos inimigos e dos personagens, o cenário é o que impressiona, diversos cenários diferentes com característica estéticas únicas e muito bem trabalhados e pensados, nenhum deles lembra o outro, a diferenciação entre eles chega a níveis estruturais. Ainda se tem as cinemáticas que são bem trabalhadas e uma adição incrível que é o idioma persa para se jogar, algo que pessoalmente recomendo, a imersão é sensacional.

Concluindo, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown tem seus altos e baixos, em questão de game design ele não apresenta problemas com combate e exploração que são dois elementos essenciais, porém a história e a progressão de dificuldade são defasadas, o trabalho poderia ser melhor. A Ubisoft compreende bem os elementos constituintes de um Metroidvania e consegue replicá-los de forma ideal, o que é comum em outros metroidvanias aqui também é comum e bem executado, como a exploração, colecionáveis, combate, evolução do personagem com sua vida, armas e amuletos a partir da exploração, porém no que ela propõem se diferenciar ela peca, é triste, a obra em diversos momentos é fantástica mas há elementos que atrapalham bastante a experiência do jogador, um pouco de cuidado em alguns aspectos resolveria boa parte dos problemas. A obra finaliza com a sensação de ser um bom jogo que poderia ser ainda melhor.

I'm probably going to repeat a lot of similar points that Larry Davis brought up in his review, so... what he said.

14 years after The Forgotten Sands, Prince of Persia is finally back, and the folks over at Ubisoft Monpellier understood the assignment: crap up good movement and puzzle solving with dreadful combat and an over-reliance on mobs of spongy enemies.

Parrying and punishing is the bread and butter of Sargon's kit, a rhythm you want to maintain to build meter for more devastating abilities, but when you're just trying to get to your next objective or explore some crypt, constantly getting beaned from all sides by low-level goons that have a bafflingly high HP pool gets really annoying. You might think bosses better leverage this system being that they're one-on-one encounters, but most fall into the same rote strategy of playing defensively until they open themselves up for a cinematic counter.

At least one of these bosses actively punishes dynamic play by spamming teleports and parries when the player behaves aggressively, resulting in a fight that requires you sit Sargon in a corner so the boss will fall into a pattern of throwing out the same three attacks, permitting you to plink away at his health at the end of each sequence. I'm pretty sure this isn't an intentional lesson so much as the AI doesn't know how to deal with you remaining still, but I would describe combat as being bizarrely passive despite how much you're given to work with.

The pendulum does eventually swing in the other direction when you gather up enough ingots to upgrade Sargon's weapons, but enemies never quite keep pace with the player's growth, resulting in a game that's entirely too frustrating in the early half and almost comically easy in the second.

And sure, you might argue that a search-action game is all about making the player feel progressively more empowered as they plumb the depths of whatever hostile labyrinth they're trapped in, but almost all the gains Sargon actually makes are bought and paid for with time crystals. In Super Metroid, Samus slowly gains abilities and expands her inventory through exploration. In Symphony of the Night, Alucard can find a variety of capes, armors, and weapons that allows the player to directly build their character. While The Lost Crown's most secluded areas occasionally house a heart container or equipable charm (most of which are borderline useless), they'll more often dead end with 40 crystals and a piece of paper with a full length Backloggd essay written on it -- I ain't reading that, I don't have time! Growth feels far more tied to the economics of the world and what you can afford than it does exploration. Hell, sometimes you'll even go out of your way to reach a secret alcove and find there's nothing at all.

Before I punch out from my shift at the hot take factory, where I work as a foreman to support my factory wife and my 2.5 factory kids, I will say that Lost Crown is a much more enjoyable experience when you decouple yourself from the typical search-action loop of exploring every nook and cranny and instead focus on the main path. There's some genuinely great platforming sequences and puzzles that make good use of Sargon's traversal abilities, and the layout of Mount Qaf is easy to read and navigate your way through thanks to the game setting objective markers and allowing you to photograph areas of interest for quick reference on the map.

The story has its share of contrivances, especially early on, but I did find myself surprisingly invested by the end of the game, and although most characters can be described as "well-meaning but criminally and suicidally stupid," the concept of Mount Qaf existing within a bubble of fractured space and time is enough to carry the narrative whenever the character writing falls short. I really like the idea that every character and NPC is perceiving time differently, some being displaced by decades whereas others are made to exist within a singular moment for eternity.

Lost Crown doesn't stick the landing for me. It gets a lot about the search-action formula wrong, particularly with character growth and incentivizing exploration off the beaten path. The combat is rough and excessive, and sometimes you'll spend ten minutes throwing yourself to a meat grinder trial-and-erroring your way through pattern memorization all for a pair of pants, but there's still something here. Traversal feels good, the visual design is great, and the core loop is satisfying enough to elevate Lost Crown from being a bad game to being perfectly mediocre, maybe even serviceable. In other words, it's a Prince of Persia game.

Gonna buy a shirt that says "I'd rather be playing Touhou Luna Nights."

Si el juego destaca por algo es por el plataformeo y la combinación de recursos que te exige para superar las zonas más complicadas. He disfrutado bastante de los retos que suponen, con alguna frustración ocasional. Sin embargo, lo que son los combates contra los enemigos finales se me han ido haciendo bola. Primero, por el abuso de efectos luminosos de sus poderes que dificulta mucho dar una respuesta. Y segundo, por cómo empiezan a aparecer golpes y habilidades que complican mucho que puedas golpearles, estirando combates hasta lo indecible. La sencillez y, sobre todo, la claridad de diseño son fundamentales para el disfrute y aquí a partir de la mitad del juego son barridas por el brilli-brilli y una pretendida espectacularidad. Nada que no solucione una puntual bajada de dificultad.

Mira que el género en el que se enmarca es altamente competitivo, pero es que es de los mejores títulos de Ubisoft en toda su historia y llega a cotas altísimas con una facilidad que asombra. Entre unos controles inmediatamente ágiles y fluidos, un conjunto de habilidades originales e interconectadas y multitud de retoques a la fórmula metroidvania que buscan hacerla evolucionar, realmente sentí en varias ocasiones que este juego podría ser de lo que muchos desarrolladores empiecen a tomar notas a partir de ahora. Este tipo de aventuras nunca fue presentado de una forma tan accesible (pero sin escatimar en desafíos para quienes los busquen) ni con una cantidad de contenido tan robusta y consistentemente entretenida, todo a la vez. También plantea una narrativa muy interesante y bien contada, con muchas pistas y detalles del subtexto que desgranar. Dudo que nada destrone a Hollow Knight para mí, pero ha sacudido ese trono con ganas y se ha plantado en mi podio casi sin despeinarse.

it has been addressed many times over but what a complete surprise. the existence of the game alone was a shock but even then in the reveal trailer it looked to be a solid effort vs how special this turned out to be.

i wasn't completely into the combat but with some tinkering in the settings it allowed me to get back to what i was enjoying much faster, which was the platforming and exploration. once you start unlocking some of your abilities this game has some of my favorite movement in a 2D game with platforming possibly ever. completing some of the trap gauntlets while firing on all cylinders with your assortment of moves was absolutely sublime.

i did love Sargon too. my only complaint is the Warrior Within skin was locked behind preorder and is now lost unless it decides to show up again/who fucking knows but it's Ubisoft so...

The Rogue Prince of Persia looks to be much less of my kind of thing but after this i'm not going to write it off.

The best Metroidvania I've played that's not either namesake of the genre (I count Bloodstained as a Castlevania) Lost Crown manages to nail pretty much everything about getting the genre down right. The combat flows so well and as someone who usually doesn't like parrying in games the parry window was forgiving enough where I actually enjoyed doing it (Not to mention that you’re not forced to use it to actually beat bosses; this game and how great it is really me reminded me of how much I hated Metroid Dread). The movement and platforming is fast, responsive, and smooth. Moving around the world feels great and there’s enough well-placed warps where backtracking never feels like a problem. Exploration is rewarding with useful upgrades and items to discover and collect. The moves you gain also feel good too and have all that growing power and variety a quality Metroidvania should have. The game also manages to make you feel powerful as you progress through the game but still demands a good engagement with the mechanics on Normal, i.e. bosses are a great mix of requiring you to know how to play but never feeling like a slog. The main antagonist especially, who is clearly Vergil, Judgement Cut and all, is a great example of this. I’m also real glad that the only thing this game cribbed from Dark Souls was the estus flask system because man I am really sick of so many indie Metroidvanias shoehorning in Souls mechanics when they don’t really work all that well with the genre; I liked Hollow Knight in spite of that, but Lost Crown doesn’t have that problem at all. A few of the side-missions are a pain in the ass though so I didn’t bother with them, but overall I did most of them and they were real fun. Ubisoft Montpellier really proving they’re like the only part of Ubi making fantastic passion projects like this instead off AAA slop anymore. Lost Crown definitely going to be one of the must play games of this year and it’s already one of my favorites.