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Ubisoft resurrects Prince of Persia in a fantastic new Metroidvania form

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Prince of Persia The Lost Crown

9.5

ActionAdventure

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SHOULD I PLAY PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE LOST CROWN?

Yes! As a long-time fan of the Prince of Persia franchise, I was excited to see it coming back, but even gamers who are totally unfamiliar with previous games should be able to find plenty to love in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. This reboot puts players into the role of Sargon, a warrior of Persia who must venture into the dangerous region of Mount Qaf after the prince is kidnapped. In gameplay terms, that means exploring a fascinating region in the form of a tightly designed 2D Metroidvania-style adventure.

TIME PLAYED

I’m five hours deep into Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown as of writing this quick review. In that time, I’ve explored portions of four different biomes, have taken out three bosses, and have only just started earning Sargon’s time-bending powers. According to the save data in the game, I’m around twenty-five percent complete, so I still have plenty of exploration to go.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE LOST CROWN?

• A killer, time-wrecked world. The Lost Crown mostly takes place in Mount Qaf and its surrounding regions, and it’s a setting that very quickly grew on me. Going in, all Sargon and his buddies know is that something bad happened here a long time ago and no one has ever come back since then. It soon becomes apparent that Mount Qaf is trapped in some sort of bubble where time itself is broken; statues are frozen mid-collapse, enemy troops who only arrived days before Sargon appear to have been dead for years, and even Sargon’s friends seem to be experiencing the flow of time differently.

Perhaps most concerning of all is the way that different alternate timelines seem to intertwine and become a confused mess here. At one point early in the game, Sargon encounters the corpse of...himself! Or some version of himself, at least. Moments like this set up a ton of intrigue and made me excited to uncover the secrets of this world, which is pretty key for any good Metroidvania.

• A tightly designed, secret-packed map. Speaking of key for any good Metroidvania, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown nails the map design. The game awards new powers at the perfect pace, and each of its biomes felt just large enough to give plenty to explore without boring me before I discovered the next one. And of course, there are tons of secrets to uncover in these areas, including illusory walls and challenges that require backtracking once you’ve unlocked new abilities. From everything I’ve seen, it should take a good twenty hours to finish this game but another ten or twenty more for the completionists looking to hit one hundred percent.

• Simple but satisfying combat challenges. Sargon strikes a pretty dashing figure with his dual scimitars, and he puts them to good use in The Lost Crown’s combat encounters. Combat is smooth and easy to understand—press x to attack, hold x for a more powerful charged attack, press x and up to launch an enemy into the air, or press x and down to do a sweep attack, and so on. But the real challenge comes from carefully analyzing the movement of opponents, since Sargon cannot take much damage. I had to carefully weave dodges and parries into my attack combos to survive, especially when it came to the tough boss fights. It’s not Dark Souls hard, but it’s definitely a step above the average Metroidvania.

• A memorable supporting cast. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown spends more time on dialogue than I expected, but I ended up not minding thanks largely to how likable the cast is. Of particular note are the Immortals, Sargon’s band of warriors, of whom he is the youngest. This crew includes lovable weirdos like Radjen, a graceful assassin with a sharp tongue; Orod, a muscle-bound strongman who’s always looking for his next fight; and Artaban, an older warrior with a stylish metal faceplate who serves as Sargon’s sparring partner on Mount Qaf. I loved getting to know these allies and was always excited when they showed up to help out in combat.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE LOST CROWN?

• Occasionally brutal backtracking after deaths. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown isn’t the hardest game in the world, but it’s got moments that pushed me, especially boss fights. Those actually weren’t too bad; when I died during a boss encounter, the game allowed me to retry it immediately without having to retrace my steps. But when I died to random enemies or pits in the ground, I respawned at the last Wak-Wak Tree—this game’s version of checkpoints—that I’d touched. Sometimes I got pretty deep into exploring a new zone without having discovered a Wak-Wak Tree and then died, only to find myself kicked all the way back to the other side of the map. Ouch.