[[ Note that the game is played on Immortal difficulty with roughly 60 hours of playtime. This review doesn't apply to easier difficulties ]]

I've always seen Metroidvania as that dated sub-genre that indie devs latch onto desperately to put out barrage of middling quality video games with a rare few exceptions. And one of those exceptions turned out to be a Ubisoft title that somehow dethroned Hollow Knight to become my new favorite

Alright so I'll be drawing direct comparisons to Hollow Knight quite a lot in this review just to use it as a point of reference as to how this game is the better Metroidvania in every conceivable way possible while also looking at it through an objective lens

The Lost Crown manages to pull off what every other title in this sub-genre fails and that is having a consistent break-neck pacing throughout the entirety of its playthrough to the point I wasn't bored even once during the 58 hours I spent on the game. That's largely due to the abilities you unlock being tied to the main quest thus reducing the need to backtrack around the map a gazillion times fishing for upgrades integral to the core progression. And then you look at Hollow Knight where it has a botched pacing for pretty much the entirety of its first half where you're just fishing for upgrades while providing barely any content of substance only to hide most of its meaty part after you're done doing all the time-wastey chores

This game while staying consistent to its time focused theme delivers some of the most fun and creative abilities I've seen, deviating from the sub-genre's oversaturation of the usual double jump, dash and different projectiles that function the same way and absolutely nothing else. The abilities you gain access to aren't simply a means to get access to newer areas, the game goes out of its way to design bosses, mobs, encounters and even large chunk of the map. For example, the last area is designed entirely around the grapple hook and it has some of the most seamless traversal I've seen in any games of this kind. There's also no need to upgrade your abilities once you get them, that is it, you're done, now you can go and try them out on enemies in the overworld and bosses and some abilities even has unique interactions with specific enemies. Then there's Hollow Knight that even ties something basic as a downward slash/dive/whatever as an unlockable ability (which you get from the get go in this game) that also needs to be upgraded to deal any substantial amount of damage, if this isn't the most shameless example of padding I don't know what is. HK repeatedly pulls this with other rudimentary abilities such as the dash, the projectile and the upward slash where upgrading them gives the abilities a change of color and a slight increase in DPS and AoE. Then again this isn't even my main gripe with these barebones nothing power ups you get for playing through the game, it's just how unsubstantial they are to the core combat, you can basically ignore them and waltz through every encounter just fine. On the other hand in The Lost Crown, the abilities are INTEGRAL to every major boss fights, you simply can not beat a boss without properly utilizing every single ability at your disposal.

The combat here is surprisingly really good despite the limitations set by the sub-genre. It has some obvious hack and slash genes to its DNA but not the yucky kind where you basically ignore the enemy's moves and juggle them to death, there's a massive emphasis on parrying which sets it apart from the likes of DMC. Here you're forced to pay attention to most enemies' moves to earn the opportunity to do your typical hack and slash combos but as you gradually progress through the game (especially near the end game) you can trivialize every encounter if you're skilled enough in hack and slashes. There are also flashy supers you can do for dealing a good amount of damage but they're not just flashy for the sake of being flashy, you have to play well to earn those supers. They're like your rewards for playing the game well and it's because of how the meter works. It's called Athra meter and the way it works is quite simple but effective, the more you land parries the more your meter fills up and the more you get hit the more your meter decreases. And the athra supers can also be used to iframe some tricky to time boss attacks. The abilities are also put on a cooldown so that you can't mindlessly spam them, which is a good thing.
Complimentary to the combat system is the game's absurd variety in enemies that aren't just visual differences it's also how they interact with the core combat and the arsenal of different abilities at your disposal. A huge amount of effort went into designing the enemies and the further you progress the more obvious it becomes. Throughout the playthrough as you unlock more power ups there will be several different enemies and minibosses designed around the ability you've just unlocked, which helps the combat from growing stale. Then there's Hollow Knight where the enemy variety basically boils down to visual differences since the same approach works for quite literally everything in the game, there's no real enemy variety except for the bosses in that game is what I'm trying to say.

I could've thrown in the bosses (major ones) in the same paragraph as the enemy variety but the bosses are way too good and deserves a separate section. These are the key milestones of your progress in the game and they're all very well designed providing a consistent curve of difficulty. Throughout my time with the game I was at legit disbelief at how consistent also the quality of these bosses are, I was expecting the game to drop the ball at one point when it comes down to the bosses but the game never did, in fact it kept getting better and better with each major encounter. Definitely the cream of the crop and the best part of the game

The story is there. There are a ton of funny plot-twists but the narrative can largely be ignored since the focus of this game is on the gameplay for the most part, which is how video games should be.

The presentation of this game is phenomenal, the game both looks and sounds amazing. The visual direction makes up for the lack of any fancy graphics with some amazing usage of colors and vfx I've seen that makes everything pop. And the sound effects for mundane things like grappling, parrying or even your slashes making contact with the enemies just adds to the already fantastic gameplay. The major boss fights also has some incredible tracks accompanying them but the fact that the music is synced with the bosses' different phases is what elevates the presentation to god-tier level

Some grievances include:
-Some platforming segments can go on for way too long with barely any mobs to fight. I wouldn't bring this up at all if the combat wasn't amazing but it is so that makes it feel a bit underutilized at some points
-Backtracking. Too much unnecessary backtracking is why I'll forever dislike this sub-genre. The fast travel point being separated from the checkpoints only adds more insult to injury.
-The checkpoints aka bench aka bonfire aka whatever are spaced out way too far away from one another which makes the runbacks to enemies or platforming segments UNBEARABLY long
-Charms/Amulets needing upgrades is plain out stupid and only exists to pad out playtime
-Some optional minibosses are painfully limited in their moveset pool but the combat is so good that it's a non-issue

Overall it's undoubtedly clear that this game is a full on masterpiece but I'm still hesitant to call it one of my all time favorites because of how much I dislike this sub-genre that loves to waste your time for no reason. But if you do, then this is THE best game you'll ever play, period.