My first Prince of Persia game, and it was a hoot and a holler! I had a lot of fun with this one.
🪶 The Lost Crown does a great job separating itself from the other metroidvanias I’ve played. It’s distinct. Movement and combat feels fluid. The time powers are dope as fuck. We love a good dash. We love a good parry. We love a good double jump. We love a good wall jump. We love a good grapple.
🪶 The combat was engaging and more complex than I expected (lots of opportunity for juggling and building combos of sorts). The boss fights were legit, and the lesser baddies were varied enough to keep things interesting when you explored. Stringing together hits with the various time and space manipulation powers felt dynamic and extremely rewarding. The powers play well int the narrative.
🪶 The platforming was mostly good!—somewhat hit or miss. There was just a lot of it, and it gave heavy Celeste vibes but wasn’t nearly precise enough for what it demanded at times. Also, I want to note that it was deeply satisfying to solve some of the puzzles within the game that relied on time powers (and platforming). They made me feel smort (some of the rewards at the end if the tunnel were booty though 😂)
🪶 I couldn’t tell you much about the story itself because honestly, I didn’t care to engage with it. 🤷🏻♂️ The plot itself was fine, but I thought the writing and dialogue overall was kinda meh. I liked the protagonist Sargon enough, but the rest of the characters were kind of forgettable. I’m sure the lore that’s sprinkled throughout the game is more interesting than I give it credit for but yeahh…
🪶 The presentation has its moments, and you can absolutely feel the anime influence (I love it, but I know some find it to be a bit too much). The setting of Mount Qaf was neat, and some of the environments were creatively designed and fairly interesting even though exploration felt far too drawn out. I was exhausted by the end of the game, and I felt there was a bit too much “bloat”. The character models didn’t impress me, but that didn’t have much sway in my overall thoughts anyways. It’s a good looking game.
🪶 I dont have much of an opinion on the music because it was kinda nonexistent (partially because of its ambient nature but also because of audio bugs). I guess “no” music is better than bad music.
🪶 I love the accessibility options. We NEED more of that. You can tweak a lot of stuff: aim and platforming assist, difficulty, guide markers.. it’s not perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction to make these kind of games more accessible to all audiences.
🪶 Unfortunately I encountered more bugs than I would have liked.. I had NO music in the last few boss battles (now that I think of it, maybe even the last quarter of the game??), and I missed out on an entire boss fight/cutscene as well. I don’t want to say it necessarily “soured” my feelings toward the game, but also, it was pretty frustrating. This is my experience with Ubisoft though.🧍🏻♂️
If you love Metroidvanias, it’s a no-brainer pickup. Whether you sub to Ubisoft+ for a month (like myself) to play the game or wait for the inevitable sale, I definitely recommend it.
It has some pacing issues and Ubi bloat as far as exploration goes, but it also features some of my favorite gameplay within the sub-genre.
4 feathers of Simurgh out of 5 🪶
🪶 The Lost Crown does a great job separating itself from the other metroidvanias I’ve played. It’s distinct. Movement and combat feels fluid. The time powers are dope as fuck. We love a good dash. We love a good parry. We love a good double jump. We love a good wall jump. We love a good grapple.
🪶 The combat was engaging and more complex than I expected (lots of opportunity for juggling and building combos of sorts). The boss fights were legit, and the lesser baddies were varied enough to keep things interesting when you explored. Stringing together hits with the various time and space manipulation powers felt dynamic and extremely rewarding. The powers play well int the narrative.
🪶 The platforming was mostly good!—somewhat hit or miss. There was just a lot of it, and it gave heavy Celeste vibes but wasn’t nearly precise enough for what it demanded at times. Also, I want to note that it was deeply satisfying to solve some of the puzzles within the game that relied on time powers (and platforming). They made me feel smort (some of the rewards at the end if the tunnel were booty though 😂)
🪶 I couldn’t tell you much about the story itself because honestly, I didn’t care to engage with it. 🤷🏻♂️ The plot itself was fine, but I thought the writing and dialogue overall was kinda meh. I liked the protagonist Sargon enough, but the rest of the characters were kind of forgettable. I’m sure the lore that’s sprinkled throughout the game is more interesting than I give it credit for but yeahh…
🪶 The presentation has its moments, and you can absolutely feel the anime influence (I love it, but I know some find it to be a bit too much). The setting of Mount Qaf was neat, and some of the environments were creatively designed and fairly interesting even though exploration felt far too drawn out. I was exhausted by the end of the game, and I felt there was a bit too much “bloat”. The character models didn’t impress me, but that didn’t have much sway in my overall thoughts anyways. It’s a good looking game.
🪶 I dont have much of an opinion on the music because it was kinda nonexistent (partially because of its ambient nature but also because of audio bugs). I guess “no” music is better than bad music.
🪶 I love the accessibility options. We NEED more of that. You can tweak a lot of stuff: aim and platforming assist, difficulty, guide markers.. it’s not perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction to make these kind of games more accessible to all audiences.
🪶 Unfortunately I encountered more bugs than I would have liked.. I had NO music in the last few boss battles (now that I think of it, maybe even the last quarter of the game??), and I missed out on an entire boss fight/cutscene as well. I don’t want to say it necessarily “soured” my feelings toward the game, but also, it was pretty frustrating. This is my experience with Ubisoft though.🧍🏻♂️
If you love Metroidvanias, it’s a no-brainer pickup. Whether you sub to Ubisoft+ for a month (like myself) to play the game or wait for the inevitable sale, I definitely recommend it.
It has some pacing issues and Ubi bloat as far as exploration goes, but it also features some of my favorite gameplay within the sub-genre.
4 feathers of Simurgh out of 5 🪶