After decades being lost to the sands of time (heh), Prince of Persia is BACK! The Lost Crown simultaneously revives the long-beleaguered IP and delivers one of the best Metroidvanias in recent memory, albeit with some issues.

Pros:

• A spectacular game - Literally. The game delivers a sense of spectacle that is often absent from the genre. The boss fights are grand, the combat animations are flashy, and the cutscenes that play at certain points, such as when you parry a boss, leave you feeling like a badass hero ripped from your favorite anime. The athra will DEFINITELY remind you of Dragon Ball Z.

• Time is on your side - The abilities the game affords to you are unique and allow you to develop your own fighting style. The time-rewinding mechanic in particular offers a very high skill ceiling and room for creativity. It also allows the developers to create inventive and unique puzzles and traversal challenges, which are a highlight.

• A Life of Quality - This game introduces some fantastic quality of life features to the genre, and I hope other devs are paying attention. The ability to take a screenshot of an area, which is then pinned to your map, is such an elegant solution to a longstanding pain point of the genre that it's hard to believe it took us this long to get it. Being able to see not just the areas you haven't explored, but why you couldn't explore them, saves you so much needless backtracking. The option for a more informative and guided map, which lets you know what areas are closed off to you even before you've gone to them, is also great.

Cons:

• The Soundtrack, or lack thereof - As a game drawing from the rich history and influences of Persia, the opportunity was ripe for a stellar, energetic and memorable soundtrack (eg: Rogue Prince of Persia's killer beats). This game delivers none of that. I genuinely wouldn't be able to recognize a single track from the game. Most of the time, there's really no soundtrack to speak of. You're just running through awkward silence, except for the occasional grunting of Sargon or the ambient noise of the environment. Such a missed opportunity.

• A storytelling fake-out - This might be more of a matter of taste, but I was intrigued by the opening couple of hours of the game, in which it introduces its characters and lays the groundwork for its setting. This opening creates the expectation for a more story-focused, narrative-led experience---a rarity in a genre typically built on lore. I was fully onboard for a fresh take on what a metroidvania can be. But after this opening, the game casts aside the story until the very end. Another missed opportunity.

Gameplay is fun and addicting, environments are beautiful with great environmental storytelling.

But it seemed like big parts of the story are straight up missing.

Spoiler:

We never learn why the queen had her son kidnapped and taken to this place, which is literally what set this entire story in motion. The actual bad guy's plan required coming here, but it turns out he's not the one that led them there. I kept expecting Anahita to reveal what the queen's plan was but instead she just dies.

Its also heavily hinted in the Prophecy sidequest and that hermit that you meet that Sargon is the actual Prince and he and Ghassan were switched at birth.....but why? It never comes up in the main story, so I guess that got cut while the sidequests just awkwardly mention it and Sargon never has a reaction to finding this out about himself.

The most blatant example is how Radjen just disappears after the early game and never comes back, then at the end she's just listed with the other dead characters, so that was clearly a boss fight that got cut.

Also the cutscenes towards the end suddenly drop in production quality, being awkwardly silent with some dialogue missing.

The first game in the Prince of Persia series was released in the late 80’s. It was one of the first games I’ve ever played. Released on the old Apple computer system. We thought it was awesome way back! Since then I have only played one game from this series, from the first XBOX era. The Lost Crown is the first new game from the series since 2010 what I understand.

I’ve heard great things about this new game from Ubisoft. It was released last year 2024 and been thinking of buying it for a while. Last month it become included in the PS+ subscription so it was a no-brainer to test it out!

I must say that this has been one of the best Metroidvania I’ve played. It blends fast-paced combat, precise platforming and deep exploration on a big map.

I really like some mechanics they have implemented which is a bit new to the genre. One feature is that you can take photos when you come to a place where you can’t explore more until you unlock new abilities. That photo is marked on the map, so you don’t need to memorise it all in your head. I would love to see this as an option in every Metroidvania in the future. I usually get lost and running back and forth to find where to go next 😄🤷🏻‍♂️

The Lost Crown is a rock-solid game. Well worth a try if you like these kind of games! I thought it was a it long but still it had me entertained for the entire time!

Rating: 🌲🌲🌲🌲+

I'll start this one with a disclaimer.

• I don't like metroidvanias. I've tried many games, but Super Metroid was the only one that got me. Much more for its atmosphere
  than its core design.
• I love the Prince of Persia franchise. The PS2 trilogy and
  POP 2008 were some of my favorite games.

I had to try this new take on the series, and I'm fairly surprised with how good it is!

The most impressive thing about Lost Crown is just how well they managed to get the soul of its gameplay mechanics. Everything works nearly perfectly. Combat, traversal and skills, they're all very tight.

• Controlling Sargon through each of the rooms and its challenges feels great, even when you have to be PERFECT to get it just right. They can be frustrating at first, but the satisfaction of finishing some of Lost Crown's puzzles is amazing!
• Fighting is extremely satisfying! Tricky at times, but fast and challenging to the right degree. Enemy variety and placement helps a lot, as well. Not to mention how incredible EVERY boss in this game is.
• The skills you get are also insane! Not all of them are always super useful, but they keep throwing new things at you all the time. It keeps the pacing fresh! The double jump, for example, brought a whole new life to the second half of the game.

Lost Crown is definitely good for a metroidvania as well. I hate the sense of feeling lost, aggressive backtracking and progression gatekeeping that comes with the genre, but the map here is VERY useful. Props to the design team. Neat level design brings things to another level! Oh, and the skins you unlock are amazing! I played with the Warrior Within outfit through the whole game.

A few things kept pushing this game back from being as great as it seems, though. The problem is that this doesn't feel like POP. I'm not sure if it's just its metroidvania cloak, but I feel like, although this can bring newcomers to the franchise, it also does little to excite old ones.

The story, for example, might be the worst thing about Lost Crown. It tries to thrill with a couple of fair plot twists, but they felt predictable. The writing is nothing more than dull and I didn't like a single character. Not even Sargon. I miss the Prince! The conclusion felt kinda ineffective as well. It doesn't help that I did not gel with how the game looks and how generic its OST sounds.

And although I LOVE the core gameplay, it was frustrating to deal with some of its new aspects. One thing that kept popping up in my head was how BRUTAL this game can be! Not every reward is actually "rewarding", I didn't enjoy the amulet mechanic, some challenge rooms take longer than they should, which can get very annoying (especially optional ones, and I'm looking straight at that goddamn room with 2 xerxes coins!), lore collectibles suck, I miss the "darker" nature of past entries, and checkpoint placement didn't always seem smart.

Prince of Persia Lost Crown is a GOOD game! For real! It's the second metroidvania that made me want to see it to the end. I highly recommend this, especially if you're a fan of the genre.

Now, as a Prince of Persia fan, I hope this isn't the direction they're going with. At least not the only direction. It can be fun, but I prefer this as a spin-off, rather than a mainline entry.