Initially felt inclined to rate The Lost Crown slightly lower due to some minor annoyances brought about by glitches, but by the end, I realised it represents too much of what I want out of this industry to lowball it. This game’s not just a welcome franchise revival or a showcase of a big publisher’s willingness to get experimental, it’s equally a reminder that not enough people are aware of what consistently great developers Ubisoft Montpellier are, an exercise in hardcore Indo-Persian frisbeeing, a vindication of Warrior Within enjoyers and – if you ask me – the single best search-‘em-up outside of actual Metroid games.

There’s a few indicators that Warrior Within was a point of study here – Sargon dual wields swords, it’s bloodier and more combat-oriented than most other entries, creatures from Persian folklore play a bigger role compared to original monsters and the Prince’s outfit from it was a preorder bonus – but the main one is that Warrior Within was Prince of Persia’s precedent for experimenting with a Metroid-y overworld. That more exploratory angle was always why I liked it best, so it’s just as well that The Last Crown expands on this like a duck to water. Mount Qaf’s dishing out surprises so regularly that the game never once feels stale despite how much longer it is than most of this genre, which is thanks not just to the conceptual creativity and sheer number of its biomes but also how those concepts inform their mechanics. To mention just one, my favourite’s the labyrinthine library whose master’s hunger for knowledge ended up turning him into Mr. X, in which you have to juggle that looming threat with puzzles where realising the solution is only part of the equation; showing you how I did this particular one isn’t even really a spoiler, because the onus is still as much on your dexterity and forward-planning as on figuring out what to do. Comparatively straightforward, linear areas aren’t without some kind of distinctive pull or spectacle either, one major highlight being pressing the resume button on a naval battle which had been frozen in time centuries ago.

That sort of moment-to-moment variety goes a big way towards helping avoid the staleness or tedium that could’ve been invited by its length, but the biggest asset in that regard is what a joy it is to gradually unravel Mount Qaf. I love the powers in this to the point that I’m hoping future metroidbraniacs rip them off wholesale. Nearly every individual one of them opens up several means of approach in both platforming and combat by itself; teleporting to an afterimage with Shadow of the Simurgh to slip through obstacles or set up multiple charged attacks quicker than you normally could, phasing between realities like in Soul Reaver to control when certain enemies or platforms become tangible, stuffing an explosive in your pocket to unveil a hidden respite in a precision platforming segment or even an entire enemy to even the odds in a particularly tough encounter… Every time I unlocked a new one, my mind was racing at the possibilities. Combine just a few with a little out-of-the-box thinking and it feels like you can reach just about anywhere – I’ve no idea how you’re “supposed” to get past the bit in that clip normally, and that’s beautiful.

Its combat designers similarly outdo themselves. Experimentation’s the name of the game, in part thanks to the impressive amount of hit reactions on its enemies’ part. They and bosses can be varyingly be tripped, launched, juggled, wallsplatted and more, but these differ heavily according to their weight class, which contributes to them being as varied functionally as visually in addition to making target prioritisation pretty frantic whenever big bois are mixed in with little ones. Coupled with the aforementioned powers, your means of approach are spruced up by the extent to which you can alter Sargon’s attributes through an equivalent to Hollow Knight’s charm system. I personally set him up with a ranged shockwave on melee attacks and another letting you turn the chakram into a lingering hazard, with an additional one that heals you on successful parries in case I ran out of potions during the increasingly tough later levels and their gleefully Shonen boss fights, but the customisation on offer’s such that your combat comfort zone’ll likely be pretty different. The feedback on attacks also deserves credit, seemingly taking pointers from Dreadtroid in that respect (love the slight screenshake on each hit in particular). As I said to a friend of mine, himself a French weeb, I’d loosely compare The Lost Crown to Streets of Rage 4 in that it represents what happens when a bunch of French weebs get together and stuff as much of whatever they think is coolest into a game as possible: an exhibition of action gameplay so well-studied and thoroughly understood you’d swear it was made by the Japanese genre figureheads they so clearly admire.

Same goes for its visual artists and the carvers of ancient rock reliefs they palpably draw inspiration from. It’s a delight to see this series dig deeper into the historical iconography of its namesake, ornate Faravahars and esoteric cuneiform and all, tempered by the hand of Rayman Legends’ art director to drape it all in this lovely cartoony, stylised edge. I imagine part of why it runs so well both handheld and docked’s due in part to some clever tricks the artists use with the backgrounds and certain characters too, rendering them with painted 2D images as opposed to fully textured 3D models; really lends figures like the Simurgh and places like the Crossroads of Time an otherworldly feel.

I’ve always been iffy on how “Ubisoft” is used as a descriptor, partially because it often crops up regardless of how similar the game it’s used in reference to actually is to any of their games, but also because there are so many Ubisofts that you can’t really talk about them like they’re a singular entity. I mentioned in my Chaos Theory review that I find it hard not to retain some goodwill towards them so long as at least some of their oldheads remain, and while that holds true, The Lost Crown’s also a compelling case for their newcomers. It’s clear evidence that there’s a swathe of latent talent amongst the group’s bloated headcount primed and ready for the chance to be let off the mobile game hamster wheel and deliver some genre-best efforts, with such avalanches of great ideas that I haven’t even mentioned Memory Shards or that this has a Persian Vergil who uses the 3D games’ time powers against you. Severely hoping Ahriman decides to lay off for a bit so that this game and the people behind it can see the success they deserve, and so we can get more of those in turn.

The best 2D Prince of Persia, and it's not close. The franchise’s first entry in roughly 14 years, save for a few mobile titles in between, goes the Metroidvania route. Let me tell you, it does a far better job of it than the previous attempt did. This is also the first installment to really take Warrior Within's concept of giving players a big, interconnected world to explore and fully run with it. The results are absolutely phenomenal.

Mount Qaf is an immediately enchanting place packed with a plethora of different biomes and interior settings, each featuring their own unique quirks such as staircases that change orientation depending on which way you're facing or rivers of poisonous sludge that will have you playing a toxiphobic version of the floor is lava, that I OBSESSED over exploring every inch of with the same verve I do when gradually taking all trailheads at new hiking spots I come across in real life. It's something that I was always rewarded for too in the form of treasures I could use to make myself more powerful, and because of that it is highly recommended you take the time to do so as well.

From platforming challenges that practically demand perfection to borderline Soulsborne caliber boss battles, the map is positively brimming with danger. Often the smartest decision you can make is to regularly hold off on your primary objective to check out all the new side-paths and quests that open up upon receiving the next experience-redefining ability in order to find stuff that will allow you to become stronger. A prospect that's made easier than ever thanks to the game-changing for the genre inclusion of being able to snap a picture of (or just place an icon next to) whatever obstacle or puzzle you don't know how to get past yet on the map to give you a reminder to come back to it later. I'm sure there are those who will take issue with this feature by viewing it as the devs cheapening the adventure by catering to the "casuals," but players are limited in the amount they can place down at one time and it's totally optional whether you use this or not.

There are actually a lot of options that allow you to customize the difficulty to your liking, be it going for a more guided structure with markers pointing you to the subsequent story mission or stripping back any info on where you're supposed to go next entirely to so much else. Everything right down to how tough regular enemies are can be tailored to make the package as accessible, hardcore, or immersive as you want it to be. It's similar to what we saw in Ubisoft's recent Avatar game, and is an approach to how they now design their products that I feel the company isn't being given enough (or truly any) credit for.

You have the same amount of flexibility when it comes to determining your playstyle as well thanks to the amulet system. These upgradable trinkets afford a near RPG level of depth to crafting your own build. I have a buddy who went for a nimble ranged warrior that could slow down time to line up the perfect shot and would punish foes foolish enough to get in close by dealing swift, painful retribution with every dodge. Far cleverer than the almost pure melee tank I opted for with its high damage resistance and output alongside the increased capability to charge special attacks with each sword swipe and well-timed parry, but as a dude who loves to be right up in the action, I wouldn't have traded it for the world.

What makes everything I've just talked about so fantastic is the nigh immaculate core platforming and combat mechanics at the heart of it all. You can clearly see the touches of Super Meat Boy in the former, but the manner in which you'll be regularly required to chain together the various midair dashes, double jumps, and phases through realities without touching the ground undeniably calls to mind the massively underrated Forgotten Sands. The sheer seamlessness with which you can do this on the fly is astounding, removing much of the frustration that would otherwise occur from repeated failures at the especially Herculean sequences you'll encounter. Fights feel mostly fantastic and provide a consistent healthy test of your skills. I had to get used to parrying slightly before when felt most natural due to the physically lengthier triggers on the Xbox controller taking a split second longer to fully pull inwards than PlayStation's or tapping a key on a keyboard in comparison. Also screw the occasional unavoidable boss attack, those flying ghost enemies you can't effectively deal with until the late-game, and the entirety of the brief Raging Sea area. Yet, despite these petty complaints the act of toppling Persia's massive deities and mightiest heroes is so immensely gratifying that my minor quibbles honestly don't matter.

Legitimately the only aspect of The Lost Crown I actively didn't enjoy was the plot. It's not bad, just runs into the same problem as the 2008 reboot where I didn't care enough about anyone onscreen (except Fariba) to become invested in what they were doing in the cutscenes. There's also some weird cultural appropriation thing going on. The main character is sporting the Killmonger haircut, Neith is obviously a black woman, Menolias wouldn't look out of place in Disney's old animated Mulan movie, and Queen Thomyris looks suspiciously Caucasian with that makeup. I get diversity is important, I simply find it weird there are so few people who seriously appear Persian in a game called Prince of Persia. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised however, since the French have been a little backwards in this department for a minute now (relax, half my DNA is French so I can say that).

It's crazy to think that 2024 has basically just started and we already have an early contender for GOTY. I would recommend this as strongly to those unfamiliar with the genre as I would its seasoned veterans. It made transitioning to a more demanding style of gameplay than I traditionally go for painless to the degree that I went and unlocked every achievement. In the spirit of complete transparency, I will admit that I would have preferred another 3D outing as I would still take the Sands titles over this any day, even the Forgotten one, but if this is the direction they're intent on going you will hear no grumbling from me.

9/10

Ubisoft’s best game in years! I had hopes I’d enjoy it a lot given this is by the team that made the exceptional Rayman Legends (a decade ago now oof), but this managed to surpass expectations even and as a Metroidvania it genuinely stands next to Hollow Knight and Ori as my favorites in the genre. Having fantastic combat and boss fights with strong focus on combos/parrying attacks, very fluid platforming controls and traversal powers with razor sharp challenges throughout, and great level design as you explore the large and varied map of Mount Qaf

There’s some minor gripes, had a few crashes and felt like the story it was telling was fine but nothing very noteworthy either aside for the characters just making for cool bosses. Also since backtracking could be frequent, I kinda wish fast travel was a bit less limited and let you move between save trees. But otherwise this was a joy to play and the 25 hours it took me to finish flew by (still have plenty leftover for 100% too)

Didn't really keep an eye on this one's development but after hearing recently that the Rayman team was working on it I decided to take a crack at it.

They clearly have a good grasp on what makes a compelling metroidvania. Well placed upgrades and abilities to keep the pacing consistent, easy to get into flashy combat with depth and customisation, plenty of visual cues to encourage exploration, hell if I was good enough I could even perform a few instances of sequence breaking. However I feel like there was something lost in their attempt to balance accessibility and open-ended structure. The linear (and honestly subpar) narrative structure doesn't translate well for this kind of game unless you use Guided mode religiously because there's no guarantee you won't go out of order. It doesn't really help when the game opens it's map 60% through the campaign to ask you to hunt for key items in tucked away in far corners. This could've been a great 15 hour puzzle platformer if they kept the more linear design instead of shifting the more metroid-like level design.

Outside the screenshot map marker this won't the most innovative game out there but Montpellier has something going for them right now and I hope to see this utilised in future projects because the fact a modern Ubisoft game of this caliber can exist is more of a miracle than I can say really.

I need girls to look at me the same way white people looked at the Killmonger cut after PoC said they were tired of afros and fades in media.

[Game Director]
- Mounir Radi

[Senior Game Designer]
- Rèmi Boutin

[Combat Designer]
- Lucas Sachez
- Paul Bordeau
- Red Cochennec

[Level Designer]
- Bertrand Israel
- Yannick Patet
- Gregory Palvadeu
- Erwan Cochon
- Alvin Chambost
- Tom Guiraud
- Alberto Portero Ariza

Praise their names instead of Ubisoft.

Metroidvania é uma aposta muito segura para um jogo, e muito difícil errar nesse gênero, mas é bem possível fazer algo medíocre. No caso do Prince of Persia no começo eu tava muito empolgado, como qualquer metroidvania que eu jogo, possui ate alguns upgrades interessantes que o faz diferente de outros do genero, é você poder tirar a foto de um local e deixar no mapa foi uma otima adição.

Mas com o passar do jogo, mais precisamente nas horas finais eu já não aguentava mais o mapa kkk, não achei tão bom de transitar nele e conforme o tempo foi passando eu tinha preguiça de voltar em alguns lugares com as habilidades novas para ver oq eu conseguiria descobrir de segredo, no final eu so me chateei porque as coisas são muito longe uma das outras e eu não achei que o mapa se conectou bem.

Quanto ao combate, o parry é muito satisfatorio de fato, a estilização de anime para as lutas, principalmente as Boss Fights é um show a parte, mas fora delas aos poucos vai ficando numa mesmice, sla, não que não tenha variações de inimigos pois tem bastante, mas no combate em si não tem muita variação, fiquei fazendo a mesma coisa ate o fim e foi o suficiente.

No final não é uma experiencia memoravel (para mim), é divertidinho ate, mas é aquilo, zerou passou esqueceu;

"𝑷𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑰𝒔 𝑭𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝑩𝒂𝒄𝒌..."

"𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂𝒏 𝑨𝒎𝒂𝒛𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚..."

"𝑨𝒏 𝑨𝒎𝒂𝒛𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑮𝒂𝒎𝒆..."

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown... Diversão Senhoras e Senhores DIVERSÃO é o Nome...

Cara, eu não vou mentir, joguei a demo desse jogo e fiquei feliz pelo o que foi apresentado nela... E devo dizer que apenas ela já foi o suficiente para me fazer querer jogar o game por completo.... Mas antes de falar disso queria falar sobre o estúdio desse carinha aqui...

PoP: The Lost Crow foi feito pela Ubisoft Montpelier, que é, ao menos para mim, o único estúdio interno da Ubisoft que me chama atenção... Isso pois, de uns anos para cá, especificamente de 2013 prá cá, eu tenho perdido bastante interesse nos jogos dessa distribuidora em geral... Acho que o público em si também tem perdido o interesse, por muitos motivos diferentes que não pretendo citar aqui...

Todavia o estúdio Montpelier sempre foi uma exceção dentro da Ubisoft por si, principalmente pelo fato de que seus jogos sempre tentavam ser mais experimentais... A ideia de Child of Light veio desse estúdio, mesmo que eles em si não o tenha desenvolvido... Porém jogos como Rayman Origins e Legends e Honest Hearts forem feitos por eles... E todos esses três são extremamente únicos em suas ideias e aplicações, principalmente...

Então quando vi que eles estavam fazendo um Metroidvania de Prince of Persia definitivamente coloquei o jogo em meu radar, porém ele ainda precisa se provar.... E bom a Demo serviu pra isso...

Eu gostei muito do que foi apresentado nela, mas ainda assim tinha um probleminha, o preço, não rolava pagar cinquenta dólares nesse momento então decidi seguir outro caminho... O Ubisoft+ meio que me ajudou a economizar dinheiro, já que eu paguei um mês da assinatura, fiz 100% do que o game tinha, e ainda consegui começar a jogar ele dia 15... Pois a versão do serviço era a Deluxe...

O grande problema é que depois que o serviço terminar eu não vou conseguir jogar novamente, mas não me preocupo com isso agora, pois tenho vários jogos pelo caminho...

Mas falando do jogo em si... Rapaz eu me diverti demais jogando ele, não apenas porque tendo a afirmar que o combate de The Last Crow é o melhor combate já apresentado em um Metroidvania, tipo, de Todos os Tempos... Mas principalmente pois achei ele extremamente coeso do começo ao fim...

A historia tem ótimos Twists ao longo dela, alguns me surpreenderam muito, e também é contada de forma bem cadenciada, sem acelerar nos momentos errados, ou desacelerar desnecessariamente... Em geral os personagens também são interessantes, e o Sargon, protagonista, me deixou com uma sensação boa no final, ele tem personalidade, embora falte um pouco de carisma... Mas devo dizer que ele segura muito bem as pontas, naquilo que lhe é proposto.

Agora um ponto negativo é que o jogo poderia sim ter algumas skills a mais, para diversificar um pouco mais sua gameplay, não precisa ser exagerado ao ponto de não utilizarmos nada... Mas precisa ter ao ponto de não sentirmos falta, e as vezes em The Lost Crown eu senti falta de uma pitadinha a mais...

Mas sendo sincero, isso não reduz nem um pouco os acertos desse jogo, sua exploração é maravilhosa, e a movimentação é ainda melhor, tinha vezes que eu apenas me pegava andando de um lado para o outro do mapa simplesmente por que era divertido... As animações são muito bem construídas, seja a de saltar e atacar até a de trocar de direção quando se está correndo...

The Lost Crown acerta em cheio no que torna um Metrodvania bom... Um mundo bem construído, com um mapa interessante, que recompensa a exploração e convida os jogadores a tal... Além de ter algo que chama muitos jogadores, embora eu mesmo não priorize tanto isso, o combate, que como disse é maravilhoso...

No final das contas Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown não tem um mapa e mundo tão fantásticos como Hollow Knight, não é tão bonito quanto Ori, nem tem a mágica exploração de Metroid ou a essência especial de Castlevania.... Mas ele não precisa, pois é tão coeso e divertido, que talvez ele esteja na mesma prateleira dos citados acima...

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown não é nenhum deles, fato, mas ele é The Lost Crown, único em sua aplicação, divertido em sua essência, e bem aplicado na realidade...

Um acerto que me deixou muito feliz, e que torço para que torço para que a Ubisoft repita... Acredito que ele deve ficar na minha lista de melhores do ano até o final de 2024, ao menos assim espero... Para Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, um maravilhoso 9.4/10 ou 4.5/5... Gostei muito de joga-lo...

O melhor: Os excelentes desafios de plataforma espalhados pelo mapa
O pior: A música é quase imperceptível durante a maior parte do jogo
Mecânica que espero que seja copiada por outros jogos do gênero: Tirar uma foto de qualquer ponto do cenário para lembrar um lugar interessante de revisitar

Depois de mais de uma década após o último jogo (e do filme), Prince of Persia finalmente tem um novo lançamento, dessa vez com uma jogabilidade 2D, mas não necessariamente retornando as origens "cinematic platformer" do jogo original, feito por Jordan Mechner. The Lost Crown é um metroidvania (mais "metroid" do que "vania") com bastante foco em combate melee e também, principalmente, em plataforma.

A história também tem destaque aqui, com várias cutscenes e itens que explicam o lore do mundo do jogo. Ao invés do tradicional Príncipe, em The Lost Crown jogamos com Sargon, um dos guerreiros do reino persa intitulado como "Imortal", cuja missão é justamente salvar Ghassan, o atual príncipe. Apesar de Sargon não ser lá o sujeito dos mais carismáticos, a dinâmica entre ele e os demais Imortais é bacana, mesmo que o jogo explore pouco disso. Aliás, apesar de bem apresentada, a história em geral raramente empolga, e muito disso vem justamente de como os personagens são pouco explorados. Alguns tomam ações sem ter muito um porque, enquanto outros simplesmente somem da narrativa. O final em especial parece algo um tanto apressado, muita coisa fica sem explicação mesmo para uma história que envolve viagem no tempo... Parece que há um potencial aqui que não foi totalmente aproveitado.

A jogabilidade, por sua vez, está sublime. Sargon é ágil e preciso de controlar, e o jogo flui muito bem. Cada nova habilidade adquirida tem sua utilidade tanto para o combate quanto para a navegação pelas fases. Há diversos combos possíveis com os poderes que o jogo te dá, mas sinto que o combate não dá tanta liberdade para explorar todas essas possibilidades, o foco maior é mais na precisão de esquiva e parry. Não raro há inimigos preparando alguma emboscada, ou flechas disparadas por arqueiros que ainda não estão visíveis na tela, o que pode incomodar um pouco quem só quer focar mais na exploração dos cenários. Felizmente há várias opções para quem quer se preocupar mais ou menos com o combate, podendo alterar coisas como o dano causado/sofrido ou mesmo a janela de tempo para executar um parry. Há também amuletos que podem ser comprados ou encontrados durante o jogo, que garantem habilidades como congelar os inimigos após um parry bem sucedido, por exemplo. The Lost Crown conta também com várias boss battles, todas com várias animações únicas e seus próprios momentos especiais.

Mas onde o jogo de fato brilha é na exploração dos cenários e nos desafios de plataforma. O mapa de Mount Qaf, onde a história se passa, é gigantesco, e cada local diferente tem sua estética própria. Eu sei que o estilo dos gráficos não agrada todo mundo, mas eu particularmente gosto muito da escala dos cenários, por várias vezes eles realmente parecem os cenários gigantes de Sands of Time adaptados para uma jogabilidade 2D. Um lugar em específico, representando uma batalha marítima congelada no tempo, é bastante memorável. E a navegação por esses lugares é muito satisfatória. Por diversas vezes chegar do ponto A ao ponto B, ou explorar um local opcional, envolve passar por uma série de obstáculos e armadilhas, e cada nova habilidade adquirida no decorrer do jogo aumenta mais o leque de acrobacias que Sargon pode realizar, e isso é brilhantemente exigido nos diversos desafios espalhados pelo mapa. Há inclusive vários puzzles, muitos deles opcionais, que, se não trazem exatamente as recompensas mais interessantes, são ótimas sessões de gameplay para quem gosta desse tipo de jogo.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown é um dos raros jogos recentes da Ubisoft que me chamaram a atenção, e o resultado é muito satisfatório. A franquia estava merecendo um jogo de qualidade assim após tanto tempo (e o conturbado desenvolvimento do remake de Sands of Time) e todo fã de metroidvania vai ter muito o que gostar nesse jogo. Há inclusive um bom potencial para uma sequência aqui, coisa que a publisher francesa adora.

A well-deserved booster shot for this IP but probably not enough to make it a household name again.

They made a new Ori game in 2024 and I'm totally here for it. The Lost Crown is a welcome return to Prince of Persia by way of a return to its sidescrolling platformer roots that manages to learn most of the right lessons from other more recent games in the genre. The mechanical comparison to Ori and the Will of the Wisps is immediate and constant and there's some definite Metroid Dread DNA here by way of its relatively clean transitions between 2D and 3D. The game sounds great, sports a strong art style, and strikes a great balance between being short and direct on its critical path yet surprisingly challenging once you dig a bit deeper.

Movement is the highlight of the game. Genre mainstays like a double jump and grappling hook are coupled with more unique fair like a positional rewind mechanic and a dimensional shift that all seamlessly combine for some truly satisfying platforming and puzzlesolving. Banging my head against tough platforming challenges was the highlight of the game for me.

Big props for the depth of accessibility/difficulty options for the game. While I didn't tweak them too much in my playthrough, The Lost Crown allows you to choose from 4 different default difficulty settings along with a custom option to edit individual aspects of the difficulty. Being able to edit specific pieces of the difficulty here is huge. No one should have to tap A to break out of ice. It should be illegal.

My main complaint here is the combat. It's far from bad but it never totally clicked for me. Specifically, parrying never quite felt right and basic attacks felt weak for most of my playtime. I felt underpowered for most of the game until the... second to last sword upgrade? At which point the swords were extremely strong. Some strange scaling there.

Overall, a good game that released at the right time in what will be a busy year for games. I wish I liked the game more but as it stands this may be a one-off for the franchise rather than a blueprint to be used in the future.

Una paja a la persa es una buena paja, es una paja muy gustosa porque del gusto que te da en la daga te saca mucha arena de los orbes y te alivia bastante. Es muy gustosa y consiste en que yo veo el culo a Vahram y se me ponen los huevos que me explotan y a continuacion me voy al árbol wakwak del monte Qaf y me escondo y se creen que estoy cambiando los amuletos pero es que me estoy haciendo una paja a la persa. Yo voy y me siento en las raices y me saco la daga que esta empalma y con el filo brillante y cojo papel, mucho papel y me envuelvo la daga toda ella como si fuera un cilindro y entonces cojo el dosificador de arena quetio este copypaste es MUY puto largo hacer esta broma es un coñazo

que el juego ta mu bien

Since its initial reveal, this game has faced heavy backlash, but now it is widely regarded as the most creative & enjoyable title from Ubisoft in a while. Having played the game myself, I can confidently say that I share this sentiment.

Even though it has shifted in the genre, this new direction of PoP still manages to keep the three key PoP elements that I find to be very important: platforming, combat, and challenge. Despite being a 2D game, The Lost Crown takes these aspects to arguably a higher level, making it the most challenging game in the series since the classic 2D games. However, the controls are so smooth & precise that makes traversal as Sargon fun through platforming sections, and the clever level design ensures that it never gets stale.

I'm genuinely surprised by the combat; it's incredibly deep right from the get-go, even before unlocking new powers or finding items. I highly recommend taking on the training challenges to learn the mechanics and earn rewards. It's really useful to have a good grasp of the combos and the satisfying parry because enemies or bosses won't go easy on you if you mindlessly just mash buttons, even on normal difficulty. The platforming and puzzles, especially with the optional sections make this game much more challenging than any of the 3D PoP games. I'd say it's more in line with the difficulty of the 2D PoP games but without any unfairness or rough edges.

I wanted to emphasize how this game gets the essential elements of the PoP series so right & elevates it to another level. While it doesn't bring much new to the table within the Metroidvania it shifts into, that doesn't bother me because it is incredibly well-crafted and seamlessly incorporates the key PoP elements. The rewards such as amulets and powers that augment your abilities or arsenal, it ain’t just meaningless stat boosts like in many Ubisoft games. Additionally, discovering optional platforming sections, puzzles, and boss fights is highly rewarding, and the map is easy to navigate.

The memory shard feature in this game is a great addition though, allowing for screenshots taken during gameplay to be displayed on your map. However, the game doesn't offer much innovation to the Metroidvania genre outside of that. What stands out is how Ubisoft Montpellier incorporated PoP elements so well into that shift in genre on their first attempt similar to how Nintendo transitioned The Legend of Zelda franchise with Breath of the Wild. I would argue they did an even better job.

Let's talk about the presentation for a moment instead of focusing on the gameplay. I don’t care much for the character designs, but apart from that, the environments and animation are incredibly stylish and visually stunning. Combine that with the amazing atmosphere and energetic soundtrack created by the talented Ori composer Gareth Coker and newcomer Mentrix, and you've got a winning combination.

Now, I do wanna express a few complaints that I have about this game that I want to address to acknowledge its imperfections. The skins that you come across are quite disappointing, one minor character has a text-to-speech voice while others with less dialogue are voiced by actual people, and the pacing of the story in the middle is practically non-existent (although it does pick up again towards the climax). The last thing is that despite being well polished for the most part, the few bugs that I have encountered are noticeable.

To sum it up, I was expecting Ubisoft Montpellier to create a decent game at the very least when I found out about them making this new PoP game. However, it's not just good, it's exceptional. This talented studio known for bringing us Rayman 1-3, Origins, Legends, Beyond Good & Evil, Valiant Heart, and even the underrated gem Rabbids Go Home has once again delivered with The Lost Crown. It's great to see that this studio still possesses its magic touch and has brought Prince of Persia back to the forefront of high quality. I'll be genuinely surprised if this doesn't end up being my game of the year, and it's only the first month of 2024….

A great surprise and one of the best metroidvanias in a while. The traversal skill set is a nice mix of the familiar and the new, both in what you get to do and how you control it; “phase changing” with a stick click during platforming segments is particularly novel in how it asks you to pat your head while you rub your stomach. The optional platform challenges are nice in how they often look truly intimidating but are usually conquerable pretty quick without devolving into tedious retries. It feels great every time you nail one the first time through.

The Persian-themed environments that get traversed are thoughtfully detailed, and each area is distinct enough in appearance and threat type to stay interesting through the substantial playtime. The story is solid as well, evoking a lot through its occasional cut scenes and a memorable cast. The routine combat is satisfying and deeper than expected, though found the boss fights more stressful than fun.

This is easily one of my favorite Metroidvania games I’ve played, I was hopeful seeing the original trailers and it blew my expectations away. The movement in this game is amazing and just gets better as it goes, chaining together your usual double jumps, dashes, wall jumps with tons of other abilities you unlock as you go make the game feel incredibly fluid and allows for some great platforming sections. The collectibles are often in spots that require you to use all these skills so they feel super satisfying to get each time, as well as using a lot of them for leveling up weapons or buying perks/more potions/etc. The game does a great job balancing all these light RPG systems where you feel like you could beat the game without doing them all if you are skilled, but really making it feel rewarding if you take the time to find things in the map.

The combat is also quite fine despite not being overly complex, you have a few different combos you can do with your blades as well as a bow but really the skill comes from dodging or parrying at the right times. The boss battles all felt fair even some of the tougher ones later one and led to some really awesome moments. The way the map flows is also quite good, you pretty frequently find golden trees where you can restore your health and save, as well as finding fast travel points around the map which are super useful but also not game breaking. This allows you to jump around a bit but by limiting where you can initiate to only those spots it doesn’t take away the feeling of exploring. The areas themselves vary from pretty standard settings to a few that really stand out that I won’t spoil. The map also lets you place icons as well as a collectible you have that let’s you save screenshots on the map so you can easily remember a spot you want to return to later which is a great feature.

If you are a fan of the genre this is definitely a game I would recommend, it plays super well and the story, while not the most in depth hooking narrative ever, has a pretty neat concept that kept me entertained and led to cool gameplay moments.

EN: When I heard that this game was being created by Ubisoft Montpellier I couldn't wait for this game, who have created gems like Rayman Origins, Legends and Beyond Good and Evil.

I had high expectations and they totally exceeded them, it's amazing how they took advantage of a dead franchise to modernize it and create new things in it. You can see the passion behind this game, taking the best of modern metroidvania (Metroid Dread, Hollow Knight and Ori).

The combat is pretty good for what you would expect in this genre, with several combo options, it doesn't get tiring thanks to the fact that as you advance more powerful enemies come out in old areas. I would have liked another type of sword to make more combos.

The bosses are the best part of the game, they take everything you've learned from combat and test your reaction, the parry is extremely satisfying and an important part of your defense against them.
Excellent exploration, all areas connect and good progression system, note that the map is gigantic, even bigger than Hollow Knight apparently.

They also innovate in the genre by adding a mechanic to take a screenshot and have it marked on your map, it's a game that asks you to explore by yourself, no indicators of where exactly you should go and have a self-made map of the things you are missing to get.

The movement is so satisfying, running, sliding, jumping and the fluid animations add to that feeling, it reminds me a lot of Metroid Dread (I wish for a sequel that adds something similar to Metroid's Shinespark, the movement would be perfect with that addition and more satisfying).

Good skill set, my problem is with the ability that you can carry bombs with you, it's tiring to have to fetch bombs in certain areas to go back to a golden door and destroy it to get in.

Another thing I didn't like is that although there are a lot of amulets, many of them are directly useless, something that doesn't happen with games like Hollow Knight, where most of them are useful.

Although you can tell that Ubisoft wants to give another face with this game, you can tell they are still part of Bugisoft, it is frustrating the amount of bugs, I just beat a major boss being invisible and basically immortal, the dialogues are repeated, the golden doors don't open when you throw bombs at them, etc. I hope they fix those bugs, they ruin the experience a bit.

I also suffered from several crashes, especially for running out of internet and putting my PC or Steam Deck in sleep mode, it's unforgivable that they ask you for internet for a singleplayer game, it's really annoying to lose progress because of that.



ES: Cuando escuche que este juego estaba siendo creado por Ubisoft Montpellier no podía esperar por este juego, quienes han creado joyas como Rayman Origins, Legends y Beyond Good and Evil.

Tenía grandes expectativas y las superaron totalmente, es increíble como aprovecharon una franquicia muerta para modernizarla y crear cosas nuevas en ella. Se nota la pasión que hay detrás de este juego, cogiendo lo mejor de los metroidvania modernos (Metroid Dread, Hollow Knight y Ori)

El combate bastante bueno para lo que cabría esperar en este género, con varias opciones de combo, no llega a cansar gracias a que a medida que avanzas salen enemigos más poderosos en zonas antiguas. Me hubiera gustado otro tipo de espada para hacer más combos.

Los bosses son la mejor parte del juego, toman todo lo que has aprendido del combate y te ponen a prueba de tu reacción, el parry es extremadamente satisfactorio y una parte importante de tu defensa contra ellos.
Excelente exploración, todas las áreas se conectan y buen sistema de progresión, nótese que el mapa es gigantesco, incluso más grande que Hollow Knight aparentemente.
También innovan en el género añadiendo una mecánica para hacer captura de pantalla y tenerla marcada en tu mapa, es un juego que te pide que explores por ti mismo, sin indicadores de donde exactamente debes ir y tener un mapa hecho por ti mismo de las cosas que te faltan por conseguir.

El movimiento es tan satisfactorio, correr, deslizarse, saltar y las animaciones fluidas añaden a esa sensación, me recuerda mucho a Metroid Dread (deseo una secuela que añada algo similar al Shinespark de Metroid, el movimiento sería perfecto con ese añadido y más satisfactorio).

Buen conjunto de habilidades, mi problema es con la habilidad de que puedas llevar bombas contigo, es cansino tener que ir a buscar bombas en ciertas zonas para volver a una puerta dorada y destruirla para entrar.

Otra cosa que no me ha gustado es que aunque haya un montón de amuletos, muchos de ellos son directamente inútiles, algo que no pasa con juegos como Hollow Knight, donde la mayoría son útiles.

Aunque se nota que Ubisoft quiere dar otra cara con este juego, se nota que siguen siendo parte de Bugisoft, es frustrante la cantidad de bugs, acabo de vencer a un jefe importante siendo invisible y básicamente inmortal, los diálogos se repiten, las puertas doradas no se abren cuando les lanzas bombas, etc. Espero que arreglen esos bugs, arruinan un poco la experiencia.

También sufrí de varios crasheos, especialmente por quedarme sin internet y poner mi PC o Steam Deck en modo de suspensión, es imperdonable que te pidan internet para un juego singleplayer, es realmente molesto perder progreso por eso.

Prince of Persia The Lost Crown was somehow my first ever experience with the series. I know that this is the only 2d Metroidvania, which is my second favorite genre, but if the other games are anywhere as interesting or as well made as this entry I am itching to dig further into the series.

Sargon is an excellent protagonist and easily the most likable of the immortals. His movement, upgrades, battle abilities everything just feels extremely smooth and leaves every moment a joy to play through. The gameplay is something I can easily point to and recommend for the reason to play this game. I also thought the difficulty was perfect. There are parts that will really test you without being overly difficult but nothing in this game just comes easy either. I feel Ubisoft hit the perfect sweet spot for difficulty here.

You can see they really put in a lot of work studying the greats. The sprawling map riddled with secrets, the potential for sequence breaks, the ahh hah moment when you get an upgrade that will let you solve something that was stored in the back of your mind that you couldn’t get to earlier. The game borrows heavily from Hollow Knight with the wak wak trees being Hollow knights bench, your amulets being Hollow Knights charms, the fighting is definitely different but strangle feels similar, and select special abilities when you have enough ather or in Hollow Knights case souls. The movement however feels like they were very inspired by the Ori series. I don’t want to spoil anything but it truely feels like Ori once you get your last movement ability.

The story is good not great. Many of the turns I felt coming a mile away but it was still enjoyable and a good story. I like that they give you bits and pieces of peoples backstory and the lord through items and tablets and such through the game.

My only two issues are I feel they didn’t explore the immortals more in the beginning which hurts your ability to care for them more which hurts by lessening the things that happen to them through out the story. If we would have grown to love them some story beats would have hit so much better. The second is I encountered several bugs. One where the game just froze when talking to someone costing me progress, one where I went out of bounds through a floor and ended up on the other side of the map, and most importantly one of the side quest is bugged and there is a good chance you get locked out of it causing you to miss 100% and some items as well as a trophy for doing all side quests. Ubisoft does apparently know about this as it is a big across all platforms and is supposed to be getting patched out. If it wasn’t for these two things I would have given this a 5 star rating and I’m sure one of those will be fixed with patches relatively soon.

At the end of the day this game deserves to have its name mentioned amongst the titans of genre: Metroid, Castlevania, Hollow Knight, and Ori. It deserves your attention and is an extremely easy game for me to recommend to any type of gamer. I hope this game get the attention it deserves so we can see more Prince of Persia metroidvanias.

Hey it made my top 100 list:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/my-favorite-100-video-game-of-all-time/

And here is where it ranks amongst games I’ve played so far this year.

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2024-ranked-1/

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."

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.

NOTA: 8,5

Prince of Persia The Lost Crown é um excelente metroidvania, com uma jogabilidade de ótimo ritmo e bons visuais, o jogo oferece um combate bem interessante a base de combos e os especiais de athra, além de confrontos de qualidade contra chefes, tendo ótimas cenas de ação. Como as de utilizar parry quando um inimigo ou chefe ataca com seu especial.

O progresso do game conta com skills não tão convencionais para o gênero no seu início e me surpreendeu bastante ao progredir e explorar o quão bem o jogo utiliza elas, tanto para puzzles quanto para encontrar segredos e tesouros. Ao introduzir o double jump já na metade para o fim, os trechos de plataforma se tornam desafiadores, assim como a dificuldade difícil também tornou alguns confrontos mais marcantes.

Sua história é bem cativante também ao envolver uma certa distorção do espaço-tempo no Monte Qaf e tem uma revelação bem interessante próximo do fim que até sugere que o final do game não concluiu 100% dela.

Sobre as críticas, o game tem uma quantidade exagerada de árvores que servem como checkpoints e muito próximas umas das outras, tem muitos itens colecionáveis que poderiam ser substituídos por itens que influenciassem na gameplay e muito do contexto do jogo é escondido ou descrito em caixas de texto que poderiam ser mais cativantes se fossem cutscenes, algo que o jogo não tem muito de fato.

Sobre os inimigos e os mapas em geral, a variedade do primeiro é baixa principalmente por mapa e eles também não tem tanta vida, mesmo próximo do fim. Já o segundo conta com alguns trechos lockados aonde waves de inimigos surgem porém elas são muito curtas e mau aparecem. Além de alguns trechos desnecessários aonde não se tem nem inimigos e nem obstáculos.

Por fim, adquirindo o game pela Epic, tive algumas dores de cabeça com o salvamento em nuvem não funcionar e ter que reiniciar o pc para que meu save aparecesse, entrei em choque primeiro e depois me acostumei.

Visitei pela primeira vez a franquia e curti muito o jogo, já tendo jogado ótimos metroidvanias esse ano, claramente esse Prince of Persia é mais um fora de série, agora espero por uma DLC ou quem sabe uma continuação mesmo para a conclusão da história que de fato ficou meio que em aberto, recomendo demais! Um acerto da Ubisoft depois de alguns tiros no escuro.

Truly a Ubisoft Original © in a sense that it's been the buggiest release in recent memory. I had sound bugs, cutscene bugs, gameplay bugs. I found a way to glitch the game to run entirely in slow motion. One time all sound effects disappeared until I completely rebooted the app. During one of the boss fights the camera stuck to a place so I had to rely on muscle memory and sound cues when the boss was out of frame (I still defeated them which might actually speak highly of the design). Whatever this is. It was a shockingly unpolished ride which makes me believe that the last group in Ubisoft subsoils which is still allowed to make games was rushed to get Prince of Persia out the oven. And I'm sorry to lead with this, because the game itself is seriously awesome.

It's just a stupidly good game of its type. With Prince of Persia the craft of making "good ass metroidvania" seems to be perfected to a sheen. These folks in Montpelier aren't afraid to leave you alone with the whole map and vague directions to explore. They will create a wildly intricate 2D combat and not teach you any of its peripeteia unless you check with an NPC tucked at the corner of one of the rooms. They will drop you into shockingly precise platforming section required to progress. They also designed maybe the best set of powers in a metroidvania, nearly all of which used to equal success in exploration, combat and puzzles! Nothing here is breaking new grounds, but every core facet of new Prince of Persia is designed to create just right amount of friction to be engaging. Fantastic fucking time when you're not dealing with bugs.

I'm also very much enthused by artistic goals of The Lost Crown. The old Prince of Persia were good, but Persia itself always felt like an middle eastern fantasyland with corresponding iconography of evil vizier scheming behind the back of good sultan, and only you, the prince of an abstract ancient Arabic country is destinied to save the night. The Lost Crown actually strives to be a game that's unmistakably Persian, paying a lot of respect to the culture, drawing from Iranian literature, ancient Zoroastrianism and hiring Iranian voice actors to do an awesome Farsi dub. I'm not lettered enough to confirm the ingenuity of the work, but it feels authentic and reverent. And the story is quite neat too, playing on expectations that come with the name. I came for a solid metroidvania and stayed for great vibes.

I'm just kinda upset that with all these positive I wasn't having exactly the best time with all the technical issues I encountered. Ubisoft should've let it cook for a few more months. Maybe I'll do a full map sweep after patches some months later and my impression will only improve.

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.

Absolutely amazing, do not sleep on this, this was an insane amount of fun from beginning to end. The lost crown is a new metroidvania that takes plenty of notes from the likes of hollow knight and the ori games, but it has plenty more to offer and might even set a new standard for fast-paced 2D platforming.

When I say it takes a lot of notes from hollow knight, that’s true in many aspects and I don’t think its a bad thing at all, the best games borrow from other great games and this doesn’t feel overly derivative. In HK’s case (my favourite game ever), its a no brainer, because its a masterclass of design and more games should borrow from it and put their own spin on things. The amulet system is straight up hollow knight’s charms and there’s an innocent npc who hums and gives you maps cheap (and is somehow able to reach impossible locations). Other than that there’s a general feel to the gameplay and the vibe of some areas that feel highly inspired by HK and ori. For the most part, massive portions of this play like the white palace / path of pain but more forgiving. This isn’t to say the game isn’t challenging though, some parts are really tricky to manoeuvre and solve but it all works brilliantly.

Movement is by far this games’ biggest success, I also feel like it has basically no dips in quality, it takes some getting used to because the gamefeel is quite different to other metroidvanias but once it clicks it feels absolutely fantastic. It starts off a little generic but when you stick with it it just gets better and better, I LOVE the fact that it never dips or slows the pace down, many would argue even hollow knight has its weaker moments, this game just doesn’t? At least not in the gameplay, the story and vibe aren’t as gripping. In pure gameplay this is a 10/10 for real, it is addictive, neuron-activating joy with 0 fluff. What’s crazy to me is that it keeps getting better too, just when you think you’ve seen the coolest part of the game, it hits you with a delightful new challenge that satisfied me time and again. This is a decent length for a metroidvania too, taking me about 18 hours to finish with quite a lot of exploration packed in.

In essence, prince of persia: the lost crown is a giant climbing frame that also functions as a interlocking maze. Everything I love about metroidvanias is brought out in full force and then they take it a step further with unique and clever new abilities and intense, punishing combat that takes a lot of practice but delivers outstandingly tight action with dozens of amazing finishers and special moves, it feels almost like what a 2D sekiro would look like and that’s some of the highest praise I can give. There is a focus on ‘juggling’ enemies and maintaining your combo whilst you weave around attacks and projectiles and anticipate your chance for a counter, in some ways it kind of made me think of smash bros too which is an odd comparison but the range of moves sargon has (he basically has ‘tilts’ and different combo routes) combined with the 2D platform fighting and floaty airtime the game allows did not feel all that dissimilar! Attacking an enemy from below a platform with an up air attack and capitalising from that into a punishing air combo, that’s some smash stuff right there, sargon for smash bros?? Then there’s the bosses, taking everything that’s already great about the combat and heightening it further. There’s a really nice range to the bosses in this game, covering all bases and testing your reactions in many different situations, plus their movesets are limited but not too limited and the ‘tells’ feel just right to give you a window to anticipate and react to certain attacks, the devs really did their homework on hollow knight! That’s what this game is really, it is passionate devs demonstrating that they know what makes a great metroidvania since every aspect of the gameplay from exploration to platforming to combat to the power fantasy is delivered.

Now, what I will say is the gameplay and story don’t entirely marry up for me, neither does the overall atmosphere. This is a very pretty game with awesome audio design on the gameplay side, but ‘vibe’ and driving motivations are also important in this genre and this game isn’t bad for that but its not great either. The story feels like a fairly generic fantasy story about royalty and magic powers, complete with quite boring npcs and voice acting that, sadly, left something to be desired. I never found any of it to be terrible but there’s just a lack of convincing drama or compelling characters, but it still has its own sort of appeal in the same way a modern superhero movie does I guess, in terms of quality its in that sort of vein too. The story leads your exploration and moment to moment gameplay nicely enough, giving enough context to your powers and your objectives to make it all feel worth it, but it could have been better.

Must say though, I was incredibly positively surprised by this, I fell in love with it a couple hours in and went from ‘yeah this is good’ to ‘this is one of the best metroidvanias of all time’, plus there really is something for everyone here. While i’m sprinting, dashing, vaulting and grappling my way though the game at 100 miles per hour there’s this massive grin on my face at all times and it just doesn’t let up at any point, its constant, for those with attention span issues: this shit is going to blow your mind and keep you concentrated. On top of all this, it controls flawlessly, has tons of great quality of life features like generous coyote time and near instant load / waiting times (I did play on ps5 though) and notably, there are generous accessibility options like aim assist and objective markers which are often lacking in this genre.

Outstanding, play this asap.

For whatever reason, it is apparently a long-standing tradition that Prince of Persia games, despite being mostly known and well-regarded for platforming, must feature combat. From the very first game, it's been an aspect shoehorned in that is always to the game's detriment. At best, it's simply There and unobtrusive (Two Thrones, '08) and at worst, there's way too much of it and it's not fun anyway (Warrior Within). This one goes in the "at worst" pile.

The Lost Crown takes heavy inspiration from character-action games, with launchers, midair combos, parries, etc. It's not a terrible idea, except that by filling every area full of ass holes that are constantly shooting things at you from offscreen, the already sometimes-tedious navigation is made even more irritating. It's bad enough that some areas have almost no fast travel points, forcing you to jump through mazes of spikes every time you want to go anywhere. The game also has the now-standard for the genre reverse difficulty curve, where early on enemies are damage sponges that delete your life bar in 2 hits, but by about a third through the game nothing poses a legitimate threat anymore.

This is interesting to me, because the game Lost Crown takes the most inspiration from is clearly Blasphemous. You can obtain a bunch of equippable amulets that function similarly to the figurines in Blasphemous (though dumbed-down and without the interesting synergies), it has health potions that refresh at save points, and bosses are often teleporting around and shooting lasers all over the damn place.

But The Lost Crown has one glaring issue in particular, and it's inexcusable for a search action game: exploration often feels like a waste of time. So many secret areas I found just led to dead ends with a couple of stupid-ass crystals in them. Oh boy! I can use these to upgrade amulets, except there are only 3 or 4 of them actually worth using. And they take several hundred crystals to upgrade, while most of these Secret Areas give you like... 30. You can get that many from killing 2 or 3 enemies. Sure, in Metroid you might just find a missile tank or something, but hey, at least then you can hold more missiles! These crystals stopped doing jack crap about halfway through the game! Or you might find a lame recolor skin after suffering through a particularly harrowing platforming sequence. Because everyone wants a lilac-colored Sargon, apparently. Every time this happened, it felt like the game had spat in my eye and kicked me in the nuts, and it really destroyed my enjoyment overall.

The platforming mostly works fine, though it can glitch out, like the rest of the game. In particular, air-dashing onto the corner of a ledge often makes Sargon get stuck on it for a second, jittering around like he's in Jacob's Ladder. Oh, and those other glitches? Be prepared for softlocks, missing geometry, Sargon floating around on the ground unable to jump, and more. This thing needed a bit longer in the oven.

The plot is pretty stupid. Sargon's fellow Immortals act like total dipshits for most of the game. I'm not sure why every PoP since Sands of Time has to be about Time, with the exception of the unfairly maligned 2008 reboot, but there is some cool stuff in here. There's a weird little old man who sounds like Richard Ayoade. That's neat.

I feel like people are cutting this game a lot of slack because it's a Ubisoft game that's not a 200 hour map-vomit clusterfuck. And, to its credit, it does have two great quality of life ideas that every game in the genre should have: the ability to take screenshots that then appear on the map, and indications of where nearby save stations are. It's too bad that everything else here misses the mark.

Hey, not everything can be as good as Touhou Luna Nights.

5/10

The first game I played that came out in 2024 and if it's any sign of things to come for this year in gaming then I'd say it's a pretty darn good sign. The game's strongest point is easily it's gameplay, I'm not a big metroidvania guy but the Lost Crown does a lot to fix all the problems I typically have with the genre. I never once got lost in this game because of the guided mode that told you where you were supposed to be going and the memory shards that allowed you to take small snapshots of things on the world and come back to when you had the right item or ability to handle them was genius game design. The combat is deep and satisfying and the abilities and weapons you get throughout the game are a blast to use. There's a lot of fun platforming sections that made me feel like I was playing something like Celeste or Shovel Knight with how precise and fun they were, the puzzle sections were really clever for the most part, and the boss fights were hard but fair as any good boss fights should be. My only real problem with the gameplay is the lack of rewards for exploration, for the most part all that I was met with when I went of the beaten path and explored in a different direction than the game intended me to was large amounts of Time Shards, the game's currency, and bits of lore which I just didn't care to read, no real upgrades of any sort which is a bit disappointing for a metroidvania. There's also the issue of game breaking glitches or softlocks that made me have to restart my game from the last save point a couple of times, overall I didn't lose a lot of progress any time these happened but I still felt pretty irritated when they did and I wish they weren't so prevalent in the game. In terms of story and characters I admittedly wasn't a huge fan of what this game was going for.
The story only gets interesting in the last like third of the game imo and while Sargon is a cool character you don't really get any sense of what makes him tick as a character until like the very end of the game and even then it's a bit convoluted and confusing. Overall it doesn't really matter that the story isn't the best as the spectacular gameplay is clearly supposed to be front and center here but when the game plays the story up as much as it does it does feel a little disappointing when it's really just not that interesting. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is the first really good game of 2024 and one I'd recommend to anyone who's a fan of modern metroidvanias or even platformers in general.

Man I needed this game! I haven’t played much over the past couple months for a variety of reasons keeping me busy, but there also hasn’t been anything that has really captured me. I’ve picked up some games here and there, only to set them back down. But the rebirth of Prince of Persia was something I never wanted to put down!

Really good metroidvania, one of the best I’ve played. Great movement, combat, boss battles, exploration, etc.. I really fell in love with this game and the environment it created.

There are some issues, like bugs and some honestly disappointing graphics, but overall I had an amazing time playing this game and discovering everything it had to offer, literally.

I hope Ubisoft continues in this direction for the series, because I will buy every Prince of Persia metroidvania for the rest of time!

Probably the most surprising but welcome addition to the Prince of Persia franchise, especially from Ubisoft. Who knew it would benefit from the metroidvania style so well.
The game is a fun blend of challenging platforming and compelling time bending action. I think its important to point our how fun the stylised animations and combat feels while looking great.
A majority of the story is interesting or compelling enough to push you forward throughout the campaign. However a somewhat unsatisfying ending and the over abundance of lore collectables in place of loot was a little disappointing.
Unfortunately during my playthrough I did have a variety of bugs ranging from platforming issues, my character turning invisible during the final boss fight, a side quest bugging so I couldn't move, and dialog missing from some of the final cutscenes.
The Lost Crown must be praised for the sheer amount of combos and moves that are possible when in combat. You can take quiet a variety of different approaches thanks to the number of abilities and necklace charms that spice up gameplay. However I must admit I never really found myself struggling to any bosses and was never stuck for more than 10 or so minutes. Some people will enjoy the lack of challenge but others like myself would appreciate a more challenging combat system or a wider variety of boss moves.
For me the biggest disappointment is the music. Although present almost the whole time it is extremely faint and does not intrude on the gameplay at all. I even adjust all my audio lower but kept music at max to try get it more involved but this wasn't quiet the same. I feel taking some inspiration from soundtracks like Hade's would really benefit the Persian music.
Overall, this game is a lot of fun and if you are needing something to scratch that itch while we wait for Silksong or a new 2D Metroid game this will be perfect for you.

This game was just incredible. I waited for a sale when it released and got good reviews because "it's a Ubisoft game, it can't be THAT good"... It was that good.
This has quickly become one of my favorite Metroidvania's, even rivaling the brilliant Metroid Dread. None of the standard Ubisoft garbage is here, no micro transactions, no XP boosters, no season pass. The only Ubisoft slop here is a pre order bonus, which is basically required with every game nowadays.

Now to the gameplay, it's amazing. Combat is basically just a platform fighter, put in a platformer. You have high, medium and low attacks. You can sweep, juggle, grapple, air combo. It's easy to learn, but hard to master as you learn more abilities on your adventure, which almost all have combat purposes (even when you don't think so at first).
The bosses are also amazing, they test your abilities to the extreme. With a ton of attacks that you might think are undodgeable, but with some experimentation with your abilities, there is always a way to avoid damage.
For example, the fourth major boss constantly zones you, jumping away when you get close, and shooting you from a distance. He seems near impossible to get close to. But then you realize that you can use your teleport (which you have likely only been using for platforming until this point), to cut off the boss' retreat.
The bosses always make you learn something new about the capabilities of your abilities, and it's incredible .

There is also a boatload of customization to your play style, there is a talisman system, similar to the charms in Hollow Knight. Which allow you to tune Sargon to how you want to play him. I went for a glass cannon approach, buffing raw damage from sword attacks (especially in the air), but you can go for a parrying build, healing you for every parry and creating a slowing bubble when you hit a parry, a zoner build with fire arrows and sword projectiles and so much more. Nobody's playstyle is the same, yet this game has a system that accommodates for everyone.

The story is also very Metroid-like, where it's surfacable by just following the cutscenes, but the real story is revealed from reading lore items like scrolls and ancient texts. It rewards patient players with a deeper story, without alienating people who just want action and a story with it.

But I need to talk about the platforming, which felt amazing. There is no momentum system like a 2D Mario for example, when you start running. You are at your top speed, when you stop (even mid air), you stop. It makes the platforming incredibly precise, and makes the harder platforming sections feel amazing to pull off.
New abilities unlocked during the game make returning to old platforming sections a breeze, with you nearly being able to fly over the stuff that gave you difficulty at the start. It's an incredible feeling.

Lastly, I shortly want to mention the protagonist: Sargon. Which I really enjoyed. The reveal trailer for the game used rap, which made me afraid he'd be an overly "cool" character. Which he luckily wasn't.
He's serious, but generally really kind and respectful. There is a certain side character he has to repeatedly save, but instead of getting annoyed that he gets in constant danger. He respects him for his courage to go through dangerous territory, even though Sargon doesn't understand his goals. And even calls most friendly NPC's friend.
It's not much, but it's the positivity I really like in games, and hope we get more of. Just because a character is serious and doesn't crack jokes, doesn't mean they can't be nice to people.

Overall, this is one of the greatest action games, platformers and Metroidvania's I've ever played. It deserves way more praise than it got, and it's a shame that it sold so little.
Give this one a shot if you can, you might find a hidden gem.