The Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is just as impressive as it says, no one speaking any other word

The Crown of Persia and the Lost Crown, there is a need for a chill pill (Picture: Ubisoft)

The new Prince of Persia is a cross between the Castlevania and the Dark Souls, but don’t worry, its great.

After a long time, really fans wanted to return Prince of Persia, a semi-full 2D action platformer that was successful reimagined in 3D with 2003s The Sands of Time and then successfully destroyed as an ongoing franchise by the sequels that made the titular character a likeable and charismatic throne into an unsympathetic hug, burning with generic rage.

The Prince is playing like a Lost Crown, which is an odd choice, but in the very least you will presume that Ubisoft would ensure their new lead was sympathetic and likeable. As it were explained at Summer Game Fest, new character Sargon is a brute, cursed for no obvious reason.

The immediate response from fans made clear that this is a major mistake, compounded by the peculiarly inappropriate music choice for the trailer, making it look like the game is embarrassed by its ancient Persian setting. It’s a shame the first impression has been so negative, that it’s based on the fact that the developer here is Ubisoft Montpellier, the company behind the Rayman games. If you don’t understand the main character, the Lost Crown is really a really good game.

The story is disappointing to read. Sargon is a soldier in the Immortals, who were, in fact, a real army of soldiers, and are here in the picture as an ancient Persian superhero squad, where everyone has British accents for some reason.

Of course this will disturb fans with that that, in terms of gameplay, is incompatible with Prince Of Persia. It certainly does not play like the usual 2D games, so it is not just a full-on Metroidvania, with a large open-ended map and areas you should be back a bit later as soon as possible, where you don’t have the right equipment.

Dark Souls also have significant influence, most obviously in the checkpoints, not bonfires, that refill your health’s flask and take all a minor enemies back to life. The game in general is too very hard, but not as difficult as FromSoftware’s best and worst, but no enemy is a pushover, and the final boss of the demo was well-designed, but extremely hard.

As the studio says, platforming is great fluid and enjoyable with extensive moves, including dashes, slides and wall jumps, and a useful line in environmental puzzles. Where can you move a bridge to stand vertically and it will be easy to get a drop off a break?

The Crown of Persia – it’s a truly good boss battle (Picture: Ubisoft)

If all is there, the game would be a competent and but unoriginal Metroidvania whose unique features revolve around combat and time powers. Combat is not difficult if it is a move, but instead is focused heavily on parry, which the way you can get a clear visual look is more evident than a few hits can cause serious damage if you miss.

The power of a special move, if you use a meter which carries damage and parry, or if you build it up further, heal magic, so your health will be regained. Add in a chakram you can throw and bounce off walls like the Captain American shield, and a bow and arrow and a Sargons repartee is already impressive – merely as a melee combatant.

There are also magic abilities that are believed to be quite many. You can try to be behind enemies, but if you have trouble trying to get away from them first. You’ll see how the afterimage goes into action, and if you use it, you can even take it.

We suppose that will be used for puzzles, too, but we didn’t see in the demo some evidence that this was really good enough. It’s obviously a very versatile ability, though, and well original, so we can’t wait to see the others.

There is also an arcade, where you spend collected shards, which are used to upgrade your weapons and buy a gamlet perks which can activate at checkpoint trees and so you can only have three for now, and they will do something like extend your combo by an extra attack or regain health when you parry.

The opening section, complete with all giant sandstone blocks, is not only very interesting visually but we got to a different biome, with autumnal looking trees and mushrooms that can be used as platforms, it was also very interesting as all the enemies are appropriately themed.

Even so, it’s clear that even without the controversy over how unrich it is, it will be hard to convince people to spend a lot of money on an 2D game with such relatively unremarkable graphics. No doubt Ubisoft and Metroid Dread had been watching their plans, but then Nintendo didn’t make their main character totally different from the other ones who liked them.

The Lost Crown is being released in all the formats imaginable, which certainly gives the graphics back a bit. However, it was very impressive to play it on PC and then take a look at the Switch version and find it exactly the same, including 60fps frame rate.

The Lost Crown does not become a mobile punching bag, since it carries the great power of its power to defeat itself by making an easily avoided mistake, the game can play very well and it’s purely the story elements that are disappointments.

3x, 1x, 3×2, X2 and 4×4, or X2 and 5×3, or, by default, LunaPublisher: UbisoftDeveloper: Ubisoft MontpellierRelease Date: 18 January 2024.

The main line of everything you need to send to the sender is our newsletter.

Check the Casino pages for more stories like that.

Sign up for all the exclusive gaming content and all the latest releases before they are seen on the site.

Sign up Privacy Policy