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The Prince of Persia series has a long and storied history that goes back decades, and I know nothing about it. The latest, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown from developer Ubisoft Montpellier, makes me sad because if this game is any indication of what else is in store for me in the franchise, I’ve clearly missed out. The Lost Crown uses exciting platforming, a deep combat loop and more to create a new Metroidvania classic. While I would have liked a more compelling story and a few tweaks to its systems, I struggled to put The Lost Crown down, pushing my play sessions late into the night. The Lost Crown is a fascinating and wildly successful revival of the beloved series.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Video Review
It should be noted that you are not playing as the Prince of Persia in The Lost Crown; instead, you control Sargon, one of the Seven Immortals, elite warriors who protect Persia, its queen Thomyris, and the titular Prince Ghassan. However, Ghassan is kidnapped, sending the Immortals to Mount Qaf, where a labyrinthine adventure awaits Sargon and his friends. The entire game takes place here, and by the end of my 21-hour adventure, I knew its various biomes, secrets, shortcuts, and safe havens intimately. One of my favorite parts of The Lost Crown was watching the misty map of Mount Qaf reveal itself as a series of connected corridors, hidden chambers, and platforming puzzles, partly because exploring it all was an absolute delight. I would have liked a better fast travel system though, and sometimes there is too much reverse.
On current-gen consoles, The Lost Crown runs at 120 frames per second, with 4K resolution to boot. I’m not the biggest fan of its art style, which features beautiful backdrops and painterly environments, but playdough-like characters, but it’s hard to deny how good everything looks in motion.
The Lost Crown stands up to, if not surpasses in most cases, some of the best in the genre. Combat starts off simple, with a heavy emphasis on parrying, but builds into a deep system of extended ground attacks, air combos, projectile combo extenders, dash dash hits, and more. Amulets with special properties, such as increased melee damage or frost resistance, for example, are hidden throughout, further adding to the customization of your Sargon. Athra Surges use special energy built up during combat and can change the weight of an encounter in an instant. And to complete the toolkit, Sargon collects temporary powers along the journey, which grant him powerful abilities for combat and exploration.
Like the different puzzles of Qaf Mountain, each encounter presents its own situation; I had to think fast and attack faster to defeat new enemies with moves I hadn’t seen before. And the bosses are the crème de la crème of combat. Each boss ended the learning experience that The Lost Crown had given me in the previous hours, requiring the use of every tool in my arsenal (as well as every healing flask). I welcomed the new boss fights, even after the fifth attempt at some of their more challenging ones.
The same can be said of its platform. Quick respawn and instant resets carve out the worst parts of platformers, leaving a trial-and-error experience that remains highly rewarding throughout the game. A tough-as-nails platforming section that requires perfect accuracy can lead you to a rare coin that helps you strengthen Sargon’s swords, a special petal that increases his total health, or even a mini-boss; It never disappointed me with what I expected, a critical component to an enriching Metroidvania experience.
With a solid set of accessibility options, including the ability to adjust the stop window time, increase or decrease the health you take from hits (and how much enemies take from yours, too), and portals that let you skip sections of platforming, can tweak The Lost Crown to be the experience you want. It’s a commendable effort and speaks to Ubisoft’s Montpellier innovation in this ever-growing genre. Being able to quickly attach a memory shard, which acts as a screenshot of the universe, to the massive map makes keeping track of what you can and can’t do at any given time a breeze. Along with multiple pins you can attach to the map, it’s a feature set I want in all games like this moving forward.
The story, despite some twists and turns that genuinely surprised me, took a backseat too often, and I struggled to understand what was going on. here or there past the target marker on my screen. But that and its few other problems did little to hinder my enjoyment.
The Lost Crown makes it hard to put the controller down, constantly urging players to follow their paths just a little further. Following his insistence to explore more of Mount Qaf is easy, though, thanks to how good it feels to do so. Between its top-notch platforming and engaging combat and progression, the various parts of The Lost Crown come together in a sublime loop. Gambling is king, and this Prince of Persia understands it.
Source: gameinformer.com