Played from – to: (2024-01-16 – 2024-01-26) – PC controller.
‣ 7.5/10 – Ubisoft actually made a fun game.
‣ Thoughts: Prince of Persia The Lost Crown is a very fun but heavily flawed metroidvania game. It has incredible gameplay that is supported by fun level design. However, it fails to deliver in its story, exploration, and pacing.
Although the map is quite big and the whole game takes around 25 hours to complete. Most of the time you will be cockblocked from exploring due to a lack of traversal abilities and forced to backtrack late. For example, the double jump is an obvious ability you will unlock due to the level designs around, but you only get it after completing 60% of the main story, which is truly bizarre. Thankfully the traversal abilities and animations are fantastic and moving around is fun. Sadly, the fast travel points are scarce, and a big chunk of playtime will be spent running around the map.
With that said, there is a lot of parkour/puzzle jumping to do in Prince of Persia. I’d say half of the game is combat and the other is navigating Mount Qaf. It is a shame that most rewards for your painful attempts at parkour are unsatisfactory. Some of the hardest puzzle jumps I’ve completed only gave me a pesky skin or an item upgrade coin that I already had plenty of. This is a bad system and made later parkour segments just something I avoided. In any case, the combat of this game went hard.
When I saw that Ubisoft is behind this game, my expectations for the quality of this game were mid. I expected some generic exploration, bland story (which it kind of was) and sub-par combat. But what we get here is nothing but amazing. Some boss fights were a little cheesy and left me annoyed but most were beautifully telegraphed and animated. Combining all the Simurgh powers to take down massive monsters was exciting and rewarding. It showed me how far I’ve come as a player and how far Sargon has developed as a fighter.
All in all, I am surprised that this game isn’t talked about more, because it deserves attention. It is an exciting and incredibly well animated metroidvania game. Yes, it has predictable story moments, weak and forgettable characters, a dull protagonist, and questionable side content. But beneath all that is a rewarding, exciting flashy game.
‣ 7.5/10 – Ubisoft actually made a fun game.
‣ Thoughts: Prince of Persia The Lost Crown is a very fun but heavily flawed metroidvania game. It has incredible gameplay that is supported by fun level design. However, it fails to deliver in its story, exploration, and pacing.
Although the map is quite big and the whole game takes around 25 hours to complete. Most of the time you will be cockblocked from exploring due to a lack of traversal abilities and forced to backtrack late. For example, the double jump is an obvious ability you will unlock due to the level designs around, but you only get it after completing 60% of the main story, which is truly bizarre. Thankfully the traversal abilities and animations are fantastic and moving around is fun. Sadly, the fast travel points are scarce, and a big chunk of playtime will be spent running around the map.
With that said, there is a lot of parkour/puzzle jumping to do in Prince of Persia. I’d say half of the game is combat and the other is navigating Mount Qaf. It is a shame that most rewards for your painful attempts at parkour are unsatisfactory. Some of the hardest puzzle jumps I’ve completed only gave me a pesky skin or an item upgrade coin that I already had plenty of. This is a bad system and made later parkour segments just something I avoided. In any case, the combat of this game went hard.
When I saw that Ubisoft is behind this game, my expectations for the quality of this game were mid. I expected some generic exploration, bland story (which it kind of was) and sub-par combat. But what we get here is nothing but amazing. Some boss fights were a little cheesy and left me annoyed but most were beautifully telegraphed and animated. Combining all the Simurgh powers to take down massive monsters was exciting and rewarding. It showed me how far I’ve come as a player and how far Sargon has developed as a fighter.
All in all, I am surprised that this game isn’t talked about more, because it deserves attention. It is an exciting and incredibly well animated metroidvania game. Yes, it has predictable story moments, weak and forgettable characters, a dull protagonist, and questionable side content. But beneath all that is a rewarding, exciting flashy game.