Very difficult for me to rate this game, I thought the writing, characters and atmosphere was pretty good, voice acting was fine but nothing special, but the gameplay was horrendous and the game overall failed at it's main objective for me, being scary. It overall exemplified why I don't really play horror games without combat as they need maintain a sweet spot between boring and frustrating, feeling the treat of failure but rarely if ever actually failing. During the game's chase scenes I felt a good deal of both, but rarely tension and never scared. Some of them felt like a bad roguelike where it it is expected that you die a lot and you just have to remember which rout to take and when you get ambushed, and once I understood this I was completely out of the scene being mostly bored until I got trough it. I know I'm maybe being a bit harsh on a free (and short) game, but I don't really consider price when reviewing a game (unless it is baked into the game trough microtransaction or similar). That said, outside the chases, I liked the atmosphere and story, and the ending made me feel slightly more positive about the game. I am interested in seeing what this team does next with the series but will be cautious if this is representative of how they'll do gameplay.

One of the first game I ever played and one of my favourite from my childhood, and it still holds up to this day. Great art, sound design and atmosphere, the game speak system is (almost) as fun to play around with at age 31 as it was at age 9, great and varied puzzle platforming. While this is only my second full replay as an adult I actually enjoyed it more this time. Last playthrough I wanted to 100% it, something I never did as I kid (mostly because the game always froze up at a specific part on disk 1), and used a guide to do so. While I glad I did that, playing without a guide is so much more enjoyable, and I was only missing 9 at the end (I believe I remember one specific secret area I missed on disk 1). Overall one of my favourites as a kid remains one of my favourites as an adult. I want to give it 5 stars for nostalgia but a 4.5 better summarises my feelings of this specific playthrough.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a pretty good metroidvania that, while not easy, focuses more on spectacle in it's combat than challenge.

Platforming: The strongest part of the game for me. I not usually a fan of 2D platformers, but this game manages a good balance of fun and varied movement with challenges that are difficult enough to be challenging but not overly frustrating (with one optional exception).

Combat: Does the job. The focus here is primarily on spectacle with some bosses providing a decent challenge. I found the sound effects of the swords swinging to be a bit lacklustre but not so much as to be distracting. Biggest disappointment is that the final optional boss was a pushover, would have liked at least one really tough optional boss.

Story: It had one. Somewhat forgettable and predictable, but does a good enough job of establishing what you're doing. Weirdly one character seemed to just disappear from the story. Voice acting was pretty good, not excellent but did the job.

Puzzles: While not a major focus the ones that are there are mostly good. (Though one or two optional ones that most players will likely need to use a guide for)

Exploration: The game lets you take a picture of the environment so you can easily check where you might be able to use a new ability. Other than that fairly standard fair for a metroidvania.

Bugs: For a game otherwise as polished the game had a surprising number of bugs. The most common being one where the camera stopped following Sargon, this was fixed by going back in frame and moving the camera a bit. A few game breaking ones where I had to restart the game. Whenever this happened I had luckily just saved so they did no have a big impact on my enjoyment of the game. The biggest bug is one where I am missing one Damascus Ingot (Crafting Material) to get my bow fully upgraded (only thing I'm missing for 100% and platinum trophy), I have finished all side quests and gotten all treasures according to the map so I can only assume this is a bug.

Summary: Good platforming, decent combat but to buggy to recommend at the time of writing. With some patches though it is definitely something I'd recommend to any metroidvania fan.

I went into this haveing played Every mainline metal gear game (including the 2d games) except MGS1, (unless you count Twin Snakes) MGS5 & Peace Walker (if that counts as a mainline game) so I went into this as a fan of the series but ended up slighly dissapointed. The story is about as good as the rest of the series, just lacking the nostalgia I have for 2 & 3, and was the main thing that kept comig back until I finished the game. The gameplay however often felt tedious, with stealth not really mattering after the first 2-3 areas of the game. It plays like a 3D version of Metal Gear 2 (inluding many sections from that game redone in this one), but unfortunatly it does not work as well as it did in 2D. The last half in particular was a chore, I don't think there was a single boss fight I liked (except maybe one fist fight towards the end). It's hard to judge this from a true first play point of view do to my familiarity with the game from osmosis, I don't know how I would feel about the Psycho Mantis fight if I did not know excactly how to deal with him. I wanted to play the game twice to get both endings but every tedious boss fight, and the too long backtracking section towards the end convinced to stick with just the one playtrough.
I am glad to have finally played it and looking forward to getting back into the ones I grew up with.

Summary: Great Story and tedious gameplay sections. Overall felt like a streamlined 3D remake of MG2 with a bigger focus on story.

I have not played any of the previous games in the series and found it to be a pretty good metroidvania. While playing mostly feels familiar it is still a good execution of the genre. Combat feels good, bosses are for the most part enjoyable (if a bit easy), good selection of abilities and sigils (this games version of charms from Hollow Knight), platforming is not a big focus but what's there is solid. The game is a pretty good introduction to the genre, overall easier (and shorter) than many other games in the genre and also has an easy mode, but those looking for a challenge might be disappointed (There is harder versions of the bosses that can be fought at the end of the game but I have not done that yet). The map has a question mark wherever there is a collectible (with a few exceptions) making it fairly to get almost everything. Good pixel art and animations, and the story and characters are decent. Overall a solid metroidvania for those new to the genre and those looking for a short and (mostly) relaxing experience.

Feels like it is trying to do to much. While traversal trough New York is great and combat is pretty good it is held back by things like annoying minigames, walking sections that should just have been cutscenes (or cut entirely) and a bit too much out of cutscene dialogue. The MJ sections, while much better than in the previous game, still feels out of place in this game. Calls and podcasts between missions are poorly paced for travel time between missions and is usually cut of when entering combat (I barely finished any podcast because they were cut of) and if you miss them you cant replay them. Story wise it's decent, I overall enjoyed it though it likely isn't something that's going to stick with me (felt the same about the first game and the Miles Morales game). I'm generally not a fan sections of games that focuses on spectacle with very simple mechanical interaction but this game gets away with it, with some sections in the second half that on their own are some of my favourite of the year. The wingsuit feels like a good addition to traversal adding a bit more variety, and it feels great to zoom trough the city at high speeds. Combat is more or less the same as the previous two with some added abilities. Stealth is fine, an ok alternative to combat but overall nothing special. Side missions feels mostly very skippable and are probably the weakest part of the game. The mysteriums (and late game spoiler objectives) adds some decent combat challenges, The Flame I actually kind of liked the story, while the FNSM, EMF, Prowler, Cultural Museum and Brooklyn Visions missions felt like a waste of time (might be more enjoyable to someone who is a lot more into the story and characters than I am), the rest was fine.

If I were just basing it on the second half this would have been a easy top 10 of 2023, but the first quarter to half drags the game down. If I had known it would take me 6-10 hours to really get into it I probably would haves skipped it, and I almost gave up on the game around this time, but when I first had gone trough that I'm glad I stuck with it.