Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown is really great – as long as no one’s talking-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown – someone needs to take a chill pill (Picture: Ubisoft)

The new Prince Of Persia doesn’t star the Prince and is a cross between Castlevania and Dark Souls – but don’t worry, it’s very good.

For years – decades, really – fans have been hoping for the return of Prince Of Persia, the seminal 2D action platformer which was successfully reimagined in 3D with 2003’s The Sands Of Time and then successfully ruined as an ongoing franchise by sequels that turned the titular character from a likeable and charismatic lead into a unsympathetic thug, burning with generic rage.

The Prince isn’t who you’re playing as in The Lost Crown, which is an odd choice, but at the very least you’d assume that Ubisoft would ensure that their new lead was sympathetic and likeable. But no. As was made very obvious by the reveal trailer at Summer Game Fest, new character Sargon is another snarling brute, cursed with a permeant scowl for no readily apparent reason.

The immediate response from fans has made it very clear that this is a major miscalculation, compounded by the peculiarly inappropriate music choice for the trailer, which makes it seem like the game is embarrassed of its own Ancient Persian setting. It’s a shame the first impression has been so negative because the developer here is Ubisoft Montpellier, makers of the Rayman games, and if you ignore the main character the Lost Crown is actually a really good game.

The storytelling is a mess though, with Sargon being a member of the Immortals, which were a real cadre of soldiers but are here portrayed as an Ancient Persian superhero squad, where everyone has British accents for some reason.

What else will upset fans is that in gameplay terms this bears only a passing resemblance to Prince Of Persia. It certainly doesn’t play much like the old 2D games, apart from the most basic similarities, and is instead a full-on Metroidvania, with a large open-ended map and areas you have to come back to later for when you have the right equipment.

There’s also a major influence from Dark Souls, most obviously in the checkpoints (magic trees, not bonfires) that refill your health flask and bring all minor enemies back to life. The game in general is surprisingly tough too, not as difficult as FromSoftware’s best/worst but no enemy is a pushover and the final boss of the demo was well-designed but extremely difficult.

As the studio’s reputation would suggest, the platforming is extremely fluid and enjoyable, with a wide range of moves, including dashes, slides, and wall jumps, and a nice line in environmental puzzles, such as one where you have to move a bridge so it’s standing vertically and you can jump off it.

Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown – this is a really good boss battle (Picture: Ubisoft)

If that’s all there was to it, the game would be a competent but unoriginal Metroidvania but its more unique features revolve around combat and time powers. Combat isn’t complicated in terms of moves but instead relies heavily on a parry, which you get a clear visual cue for but which if you miss can cause serious damage from just one hit.

As you take damage or parry a meter fills up and this can be used to power a special move or, if you build it up further, healing magic where if you stand in the same spot you’ll regain your health. Add in a chakram you can throw, and bounce off walls like Captain America’s shield, and a bow and arrow and Sargon’s repartee is already impressive merely as a melee combatant.

On top of this though are magic abilities, of which there are implied to be many. The only one in the demo though was a teleport move where you create an afterimage of Sargon and can instantly teleport to it at any time. This has obvious uses for getting out of trouble, but you can also use it to get behind enemies, if you tempt them towards you first. Plus, you can make sure to create the afterimage in a combat stance so you can instantly attack when you use it.

We assume this will also be used for puzzles as well, although we never saw any evidence of that in the demo. It’s clearly a very versatile ability though and nicely original, so we can’t wait to see the others.

There’s also an in-game shop, where you spend collected shards, which are used to upgrade your weapons and buy amulets – perks that you can activate at checkpoint trees and while you can only have three at once they do things like extend your combo by an extra attack or regain health when you parry.

The opening section, with all the giant sandstone blocks, isn’t terribly interesting visually but we quickly got to a different biome, with autumnal looking trees and mushrooms that can be used as platforms, that was a lot more interesting – especially as all the enemies are appropriately themed too.

Even so, it’s clear that, even without the controversy over how un-Prince Of Persia-ry it is, it’s going to be hard to convince people to spend a lot of money on a 2D game with such relatively unremarkable graphics. No doubt Ubisoft were looking at the success of Metroid Dread when they made their plans, but then Nintendo didn’t turn their main character into the opposite of what everyone liked about them before (they did that with Metroid: Other M, instead).

The Lost Crown is being released on every format possible, which is obviously holding the graphics back a bit, but it certainly was impressive to first play it on PC and then have a go on the Switch version and find it looked and played exactly the same, including the 60fps frame rate.

We do hope that The Lost Crown doesn’t become an internet punching bag, as while it’s brought it upon itself, by making such easily avoidable mistakes, the game plays very well and it’s really only the story elements that are a disappointment.

Formats: PC and Nintendo Switch (previewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Amazon Luna
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier
Release Date: 18th January 2024

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