Shaun Munro reviews Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown…
I approached the release of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown with a mixture of excitement and unease – relieved that the beloved platformer franchise was finally getting a new entry, yet crushingly aware of my own patent disinterest in its backtracking-heavy Metroidvania gameplay loop. But Ubisoft Montpellier have proven themselves quite shrewd in delivering a new Prince of Persia that doesn’t abandon the series’ core identity while offering up a laudably accessible take on its focal genre.
After over a decade of the series seeming lost to the sands of time – with even an announced remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time itself scrambling to avoid formal development hell – it’s finally back with a quite unexpected 2.5D Metroidvania. And to my genuine surprise, a really quite fun one.
The developers are evidently aware that Prince of Persia’s story has never been the reason to play, with The Lost Crown’s rather threadbare narrative and forgettable characters feeling like an arbitrary obligation. What do you need to know? This new entry ditches the Prince for Sargon, a member of the Immortals – a warrior clan forced to act when Prince Ghassan is kidnapped, and who venture to the temporarily impaired Mount Qaf to rescue him.
Where this game excels is with its sharp fusion of three focal gameplay pillars; platforming, exploration, and combat, wrapped within a familiar-but-different Metroidvania formula. Much as reworking Prince of Persia of all things to have as much in common with Hollow Knight as its predecessors wasn’t a great upfront sell for this fan, Ubisoft Montpellier deserves a wealth of credit for creating a tough-but-engaging rendition which offers players of all skill levels myriad accessibility features.
First and foremost, players are able to switch between Exploration and Guided gameplay styles, the latter providing a more signposted experience to reduce backtracking and ensure you usually know where you’re going.
Between this and the game’s many custom difficulty options – including the ability to skip tough platforming sections altogether – it’s clear that the developer has made a concerted effort to render the busy-work inherent in the Metroidvania formula more manageable for those who might typically be turned off by it.
Even if you’re not playing on Guided mode, the game map is designed to avoid overbearing clutter, and includes a brilliant Memory Shard function, where players can take a screengrab and append it to their map forever. It’s a feature so brilliantly intuitive it’ll almost certainly show up in a glut of similar titles over the coming years – and rightly so.
The Lost Crown also won’t make you spend ages desperately seeking out the nearest save point, as Wak-Wak trees are generously strewn throughout the world, and you’ll even see a golden breeze indicating their proximity
Exploration inevitably leads to puzzles and platforming, with successful progression through both requiring players to master a series of steadily unlocking abilities. In the game’s later stages, you’ll need to string an almost headache-inducing number of powers together in order to move forward, ensuring you’re likely to often be felled by the many protruding spikes and other environmental dangers littered across Mount Qaf. At least the game’s generous respawns will place you back at the nearest safe platform upon perishing.
As for the combat, it’s arguably the series’ best ever, for while prior games made it play second fiddle to all the timey-wimey platforming, here there’s a depth, fluidity, and impressive degree of challenge to it. At first it’s deceptively simple, with basic dodging or parrying proving enough to fell most enemies with your sword or bow and arrow, but as you unlock additional combat options – amulets to boost attack and defense, and brutal Athra Surge special moves – so too do the foes become more potent and require a greater degree of thought.
The result is combat that makes the player feel capable and yet still offers firm pushback even on lower difficulties. This is especially apparent during the game’s challenging skill-check boss fights, which at times prove punishing enough that you might wish Ubisoft had included a checkpoint between each phase. In the very least, the attack patterns can usually be discerned after dying once or twice, though draining their typically large health bar is still easier said than done.
Visually The Lost Crown isn’t a standout looker by any means, and you could probably call it a relatively “generic” looking mid-2020s action-adventure game, honestly. Yet what the aesthetic and style lacks in originality, it does compensate somewhat with the variety of the locales on offer, and the butter-smooth performance across platforms. Having played the bulk of the game at 90hz on the Steam Deck, the slick, oft-anime-inspired art style truly sings. Similarly, the sound is absolutely fine, but there’s little standout on the aural side.
Though I certainly came away from the latest Prince of Persia pleasantly surprised, there are clear areas for improvement. For one, its engagement with the series’ time travel thematics feels wishy-washy at best, and the ever-present rewind feature from the 2000s games is sorely missed.
As a self-confessed Metroidvania “hater,” some of the later backtracking does also become a tad wearisome, and the inability to fast travel between Wak-Wak trees – but instead have to seek out sparse fast travel points – is an odd design choice which feels at odds with its otherwise accessible nature. Given that even a critical path run on Guided mode will likely take you 12 hours or more – and adventurous players can double that figure – this is a surprisingly lengthy game, albeit one which perhaps would’ve benefited from being a sliver briefer.
While I personally don’t want to see this be the default position for Prince of Persia from this point on, smart game design and strong accessibility features make it tough for even ardent Metroidvania naysayers to dismiss this largely successful experiment. Less a staggering reinvention of the series than an impressive adjunct, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown should appeal to both long-time fans of the franchise and even those with little interest in Metroidvanias.
Pros:
+ Fluid, fun, and challenging exploration, puzzles, and combat.
+ Great accessibility features.
+ Worth playing even if you’re not into Metroidvanias.
Cons:
– Forgettable story and characters.
– Generic visuals.
– Sparse fast travel points can be frustrating.
Rating: 7.5/10
Reviewed on PC (also available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch).
A review code was provided by the publisher.
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more video game rambling, or e-mail me here.
