Review - Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Prince of Persia is an iconic video game franchise that immerses players in a mystical world filled with epic adventure, intrigue, and impressive acrobatic skills.

Since its debut in 1989, this captivating universe has evolved over the decades, winning the hearts and minds of gamers around the world. By combining engaging narratives, challenging level design and a charismatic protagonist, the Prince of Persia franchise has established itself as a benchmark in the action-adventure genre.

Now, on January 18, 2024, the franchise returns with a new title: “Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown”.

Unlike the last games that sought action-focused mechanics, this new IP focuses on the metroidvania style, showing how it can still bring excellent games and innovations.

Discover now all the details in this spoiler-free review of the new Prince of Persia, as well as tips to help you on your own journey!

The Immortals

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown introduces us to Sargon, one of the Immortals responsible for defending Persia, all commanded by Vahram, the protagonist's most skilled hero and mentor. During the first minutes of the game, we are introduced to a conflict between Persian soldiers along with the Immortals against the bloodthirsty Kushan warriors, led by general Uvishka.

Sargon doesn't belong to royalty and has a story of overcoming and determination, which makes us identify and become more involved with his journey. Throughout it, we learn a little more about each of the Immortals, their abilities and connections with the plot and the protagonist.

Metroidvania with Excellent References!

This new Ubisoft title bets on the Metroidvania style, featuring an extensive map with different rooms, secret places, different powers to unlock and enable new regions through them. With this gameplay model, it focuses on exploration and doesn't maintain a linear structure to advance.

We can notice several references to games of this style that have been successful recently, including the use of amulets. As we complete secondary and primary missions or find secret chests, we discover amulets that provide us with bonuses such as extra damage, extra life, resistance to some type of damage, mechanics similar to what we find in Hollow Knight.

Celeste, a prominent figure among the influences, stands out as a Canadian game that explores Madeleine's upward journey up the mountain that gives the game its name. This title is widely recognized for its challenging level design - a feature that also stands out in The Lost Crown.

In Celeste, the presence of collectible strawberries adds an intriguing dimension, helping to unlock an alternative ending. However, obtaining it requires performing intricate jumps, achievable only after landing safely in designated areas.

Comparatively, in Prince of Persia, we find Xerxes' coins, whose mechanics are similar to Celeste's strawberries. Both elements challenge players to perform precise actions and exceptional skills to achieve significant rewards, consolidating the complexity and depth of this game's experience.

Exploration With Benefits

One of the most frustrating things in exploration games is going to a certain region and not getting any reward for reaching that place. In The Lost Crown, even the collectibles and tutorials will give you some reward.

Throughout the game, it is possible to find jars with sands of time from which, in a particular room, players can receive rewards for each jar collected. Several rooms challenge players to collect Xerxes coins by performing a sequence of jumps and using skills, which can be exchanged with a merchant for unique and powerful items.

Every defeated enemy drops two types of shards, one green and one purple. The green one fills your special bar, called Athra and the purple one can be used to buy items from the merchant, purchase the map of the region from a certain NPC or even improve your amulets and equipment!

Always pay attention to the scenery! Several secret chests can be obtained by performing an action that the scenario will indicate, for example, using a certain weapon in a part of the room, using something there to interact with another object, in addition to several secret rooms that can be found with the help of amulets or just by trial and error of running into suspicious walls.

Accessbility

The Lost Crown embraces all types of players, both new and already used to metroidvania, and to improve the experience for both it has several accessibility options and mechanics.

To help those who are not used to this genre or just want a more casual gameplay, when starting a new game, you can select between Exploration or Guided mode. In Exploration, little information on the map will be shown, leaving the player to discover the world on their own. On the other hand, in Guided mode, players will have access to icons on the map showing the location of the next objective, available and blocked paths.

In addition to the game's four standard difficulties (Beginner, Warrior, Hero and Immortal), it is possible to choose a personalized difficulty, with exact definitions of what each person wants to be difficult or easy throughout the game, such as enemy health, enemy damage, environmental damage, parry difficulty, dodge interval, Athra consumption and gain.

An innovative feature in the game that will help a lot is the memory system: players have a limited amount of use of “Memory Shards”, an ability that allows them to take a photo of any part of the scene and leave an icon of it on the map, accessible at any time to remember what is in that region. This mechanic allows you to remember a place that you previously couldn't access due to the lack of an ability, a chest that needs a certain item or even a powerful enemy!

One option we recommend is to activate *“Visible Interactions” as, without it, collectible items related to the game's story are very difficult to see, making it necessary to be on top of the object and press the action button to recognize it. With visible interactions activated, a glow will appear over the item, regardless of whether you have seen it previously or not.

Other options can further help more casual players, such as “Platform Assistance”, which creates portals to skip challenging platform sessions. “Auto Unfreeze”, which allows getting rid of freezes without pressing any buttons.

Everything in accessibility mode allows the player to shape the game to make it more challenging or casual.

Combat Gameplay

Due to the side scroll system as it is a metroidvania, the game consists of dynamic, fast and very intuitive combat. Throughout the journey, new combos will be released, and new finishing powers are enabled.

The game doesn't have an RPG-style progression, but there is a system for improving attributes, equipment and accessories. As players progress through the story, they will feel that certain areas require improvements to their weapons, so equip certain amulets and use other strategies to advance more easily.

The bosses also have different combats and strategies that explore various of the game's mechanics, such as double jump, rewinding time and dash. A weak point in this regard is that some sub-bosses end up repeating themselves throughout the game.

Following other souls-like games that are also metroidvania, such as Salt and Sanctuary or Death Gambit, The Lost Crown has a parry system, which makes the game always exciting and rewarding when this move is executed with perfect timing. When enemies glow yellow, if the player manages to parry, Sargon will execute a finishing move, with increased damage and a cinematic visual effect.

The level design means that the entire learning curve of the combat system is presented in a progressive, adaptive way and allows each person to play in their own style.

Playing for the first time, exploring the map well and doing several sidequests, it can take around 16 hours on average to finish the game. For those looking for 100% or all achievements, The Lost Crown can last between 30 and 40 hours. After getting to know the game, it is possible to finish its main story in around six hours.

It is, and I have no doubts about it.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown brings the return of the franchise with flying colors and impeccable work by Ubisoft Montpellier, the same producer of other well-received games such as Rayman and Beyond Good and Evil.

All metroidvania fans will find The Lost Crown an excellent experience and fun with excellent 2D and 3D graphics, combined with an immersive soundtrack. The dubbing is very well done, including the Persian language, which can provide an additional experience for the most enthusiastic fans.

If you had fun with Hollow Knight, Celeste, Blasphemous and Castlevania, you will definitely love the new Prince of Persia. If not, The Lost Crown might not be the game for you.

If you are interested in playing or are already playing, comment your experiences and expectations! Also check out our article on 10 Soulslike games to challenge you!