videogameblog

This is weird - Ubisoft published a good video game? Usually I'll avoid anything they put out like the plague but I heard about this on MinnMax and I thought some of the mechanics sounded really unique. I'd seen trailers for it before at Summer Games Fest but it didn't really seem like my kind of thing. For some reason they didn't really advertise the fact that this was a metroidvania? I definitely would have been much more interested if they illustrated that properly. I haven't played any of the other Prince of Persia games, or many metroidvanias for that matter but I really enjoyed Hollow Knight. I didn't really have anything to play and thought the art style looked cool so I picked this up on release.

The strength of this game definitely lies in it's mechanics. The movement feels great, every ability they give you works together seamlessly. You can navigate elaborate platorming sequences with ease once you're used to everything. The combat feels pretty nice too, allowing you to create builds by swapping out your abilities (similar to Hollow Knight). I ran with the same thing virtually the whole game, I used the one that makes enemies slow down after a successful parry and the one that increases your damage in mid-air. There's a wide variety of different enemies, with a range of movesets you need to learn to counter. I'm a big fan of the character/creature design too, most of the bosses and enemies looked awesome. Gameplay wise the bosses were a little easy, only two of them were a real challenge. There's a brief animation that plays out when you get a successful parry on certain attacks, which were one of my favorite things to do when playing. It's extremely satisfying to trigger a little cutscene based on a parry. You can do this to some normal enemies and all of the bosses, but I wish the bosses had one or two extra animations that would play out. I punched one dude like 5 times in the exact same way!! The weapons provided to the player are simple, a bow and two swords. The bow can transform into a little throwable blade, but it doesn't really do much damage. I mostly used it to pick off flying enemies. I wish they'd utilised it more in puzzles - the little throwable blade bounces off of walls and they definitely could have made some clever sequences using that. The swords stay the same the entire game - you can upgrade the damage they do but their moveset never changes. Combos can be extended uses medallions but I never really messed with it. Although the weapon system is pretty simple, I think the variety is expressed through your opponents - you fight countless different enemies in different ways, using the same sword. The 'memory system' is easily the most innovative mechanic, it solves one of my major qualms with the metroidvania genre. Whenever the player wants, they can press a button to 'store a memory'. Doing this takes a screenshot of your current game screen and pins it to the map. Later on, you can check these 'memories' to see why you were unable to progress through an area. Then when you unlock something like the double jump, you can check all the areas you memorised with out-of-reach locations. I really hope this catches on within the genre as it prevents so much aimless wandering. I played on 'exploration mode' or something, which removes waypoints from the map. Definitely the way to play, it allows you to explore at your own pace. I only got confused on where to go to advance the narrative once, but I figured it out after a little bit of looking around. Exploration mode is definitely the way to experience this. Unfortunately this game has multiple different difficulties, which is something i'm never fond of in games. I played on normal, and it felt a little too easy? I'm not gonna bump it up to hard though. The best games in this genre lock you on hard and make you deal with it, I wish they did that here. (the accessibility is extremely good though. You can tweak like everything about the in-game mechanics)

(minor spoilers past here!!) (the conclusion is spoiler-free though so you can still read that!!)

Narrative wise the game is pretty average - there's nothing special here unfortunately. It's far from bad, but it definitely takes a backseat so gameplay and exploration can be prioritised. I did find the non-linearity of time within the area to be pretty interesting, I wish they explored that idea more. You're in this weird, incomprihensible timeless city but it never really feels like you are outside of the occassional trippy visual. The player character, Sargon, is pretty boring at first, but it's very cool to see him develop as a character as you play. He's clearly a different person by the final scene. I wish he acted more immature at the start of the game, so you could see the change he's gone through, but he's a blank slate almost all the way through. Ghassan is a pretty good villain too - I can see the logic in his argument. He is technically heir to the throne I guess, he just went getting it back in the wrong way. The immortals definitely needed more screentime before they betrayed you, I didn't really care enough about them by the time it got around to fighting them. The dude with the big anchor weapon looked dope too I wish he was around more. Although the narrative is pretty bland, there's some nice motifs questioning the burden of suffering for the benefit of others, and the toll it might take on you. Nothing new or thought-provoking, but it's better than nothing. It's expressed through the gameplay too, kind of? Some characters mention that Sargon is destroying himself by absorbing the powers you need to advance, which I assumed would result in him sacrificing himself in order to save Persia. However, there's never really any repercussions. It's implied that he learns to harness his power, but I think it would have been more thematically appropriate to kill him, or just not mention the toll the powers are taking at all. Also, some of the immortals are alive, right? Where are they at the end of the game? Unless everyone in the kingdom dies at the end? Did that old woman die too? They really should have acknowledged what happened to the kingdom after you defeat the final boss.

I'm pretty sure the music is great, but it's so damn quiet the entire time I couldn't hear it!! I had it on max volume too. Some of the tracks that I caught a bit of sounded like they would be cool, if they were louder. It's a shame the mixing was so off. The artstyle here is pretty nice, my favorite aspect is definitely that arcane-esque 2D/3D pop-art mix they do during cutscenes and special attacks. They clearly took alot of ispiration from anime/manga/comic books, which is evident in both the cinematography of most of the cutscenes and this art trick. Alot of the cutscenes feel like anime scenes, they're extremely over-the-top and dramatic. It makes them look very cool though. If anything I wish they'd explored the idea of the game being 2.5D more, and had something else going on in some of the more expansive backgrounds. The coolest area of the game BY FAR is the frozen sea, it looks incredible. It's visual impressiveness is mostly due to all the stuff you can see happening in the background, it's a shame they didn't do more like this. There's some drawn backgrounds scattered throughout some of the more wide angles of the city which I really liked (like the screenshot at the top of this page).

Overall, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is definitely a more mechanically plentiful game. Don't play this if you're looking for a meaningful story, or a cast of characters you're gonna really like. If you want a fun metroidvania with extremely smooth movement and great level design, this is a great choice. It reminds me alot of Hollow Knight, and it's clear the devs took alot of inspiration from Hollow Knight's mechanics. I'm defintely more fond of my once-hated metroidvania genre after playing this and feel much more inclined to try out some of it's inspirations - maybe i'll finally play Metroid Prime.