Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown | IMPRESSIONS

“The boss battles were a deeply impressive showcases of art, game design and creativity" 

PC | PS5 | SWITCH | XBOX SERIES |

HOW I PLAYED: I played on PS5 with a physical copy.

 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Right from the first cutscene, the art style really impressed me. It reminded me of when Blizzard used to be good. The character portraits and the environments were fantastic. The voice acting was also top notch. The sound of everybody's voice matched what their character looked like and was very believable.

The first instance of controlling the main character, Sargon was very positive. Controls and overall movement all felt really fluid and polished.

WHAT WORKED

The pacing: During the time I played, the pacing was really on point. The progression felt satisfying and new weapons and abilities were introduced gradually. I liked how well this was balanced.

The platforming: The difficulty scaling of the actual platforming worked really well for me, too - up to a certain point. As soon as I got comfortable with some new moves the game would throw another layer of challenge onto what I had mastered.

Fantastic enemy variety: The enemy variety was very impressive. Had I done a full review of this game, I definitely would have given this category a 5/5. it was such a joy to be treated to new enemies consistently. The designs, attacks and movements of enemies were so varied and kept the game exciting.

Superb boss battles: While we're on the topic of enemies; the boss battles in this game were probably one of my favourite things overall. The fights were unreal. It honestly reminded me of my favourite FromSoftware boss fights. The boss battles were a deeply impressive showcases of art, game design and creativity.

Fun combat: The combat itself was a lot of fun, too. There's a parrying mechanic which was really satisfying and helped this game from becoming just another mindless button masher. Sargon's main weapons are his two swords but he also acquires a bow pretty early into the game. The bow was awesome. It was a bit strange at first because you don't have any aim assist but once I got the hang of it I was having a blast chopping up foes, jumping across gaps and firing arrows in mid-air.

Good atmosphere: I don't know what it was but I kept being reminded of my favourite times playing Diablo III through a lot of this game. Maybe it was the great atmosphere or the cartoonish, cell shaded graphics? I couldn't really put my finger on it. Did some of those developers move to Ubisoft? The UI was great and so was the boss music.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

The Menus: I didn't love the menus. I found them to be somewhat unintuitive. Also, trying to allocate your abilities made zero sense. Things just weren't as obvious and straightforward as they could have been.

Lack of fast-travel: The map is pretty damn huge, I thought. But luckily you have the ability to fast travel. I only wished there were more checkpoints. The Wak-Wak Trees where you rest, recover HP and allocate skills act like Bonfires from Dark Souls and I felt like each of these should have been it's own checkpoint instead. There was too much back backtracking for my taste.

(L)UP?!: The controls overall were great but one thing I really disliked was having the main action or confirmation button be the use of the analog stick. Instead of X or any other button - they could have used the shoulder buttons even - they chose "left analog stick up" as the main button. I can't tell you how many times I tried to interact with something and failed because I didn't move the analog stick exactly 90 degrees up. This was so dumb.

WORTH CONTINUING?

I was super into this game for the first 12 hours or so - then I hit a brick wall. The dexterity required to complete some of the platforming sections was just too challenging. The game gives you little portals you can open to skip platforming sections that you're struggling with but some of the platforming is just built into the game's progression and un-skippable. Unfortunately this is where I just put the controller down and said "I'm done", even after watching YouTube videos on how they were completed.

If you like platformers and have played a lot of Metroidvania style games then you'll probably have more success that I did. I wish I could have kept playing this game because I was enjoying so many things about it. I just wasn't prepared to sit there and try the same section 98 times.

FINAL THOUGHTS

As someone who really likes a challenge and doesn't give up on games that are "hard" I was a little ashamed of myself. I played on the easiest difficulty but it wasn't the enemies or bosses that stopped me it ended up being the platforming. I do want to add that I'm also really inexperience with this genre.

I'm chocked, because I was loving this game and preparing to write a full review. But you know what, I'm not mad that I didn't finish the game because I had so much fun up to the point where I decided to stop. I think that there's a lot of great content on offer here just be ready to really test yourself with some extreme platforming in the final third of the game.

TLDR: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown impressed me with its stunning art style, fluid controls, and well-balanced pacing. The platforming difficulty scaled well, enemy variety was fantastic, and the boss battles stood out as some of the best I’ve played, reminiscent of FromSoftware fights. Combat was engaging, with satisfying parries and a fun bow mechanic. However, the menus felt unintuitive, the limited fast travel led to excessive backtracking, and using the left analog stick for interactions was frustrating. While I enjoyed the game for over 12 hours, the increasingly difficult platforming became a roadblock, ultimately leading me to stop playing. Despite this, I had a great time, and fans of challenging platformers and Metroidvania games will likely find it rewarding.

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