Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Review

Ubisoft…the once proud company, that now is on the brink of collapse because of its less than stellar leadership. The company that was known for its quality games and franchises, is nowadays mostly known for poor practices, bloated uninspired AAA games, and a plethora of bugs that would make Bethesda blush.

The most interesting part is, if you disregard their main franchises Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, the not-so-triple-A games are still competent and dare I say… actually enjoyable! For Honor is a medieval style online brawler that still goes strong to this day miraculously enough, Immortal: Fenyx Rising was proof that the developers can take Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s mechanics and adapt them properly in a decent and actually enjoyable game. Finally, the game I am reviewing today, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, proved that there are talented teams that can take IPs that are decades old and make them relevant to this day and age.

For those who aren’t aware, Prince of Persia is actually a VERY old franchise. Originally created by Jordan Mechner in 1989, the first game was a 2D sidescroller adventure featuring an imprisoned Prince, tasked to escape the prison, defeat the evil Vizier and rescue the princess before the time in the hourglass expired. It was a revolutionary game at its time, mainly because of its rotoscoping animation technique, and it has been probably one of the most played and ported games of all time.

But it wasn’t until the Prince of Persia Trilogy that the series became well-known. Starting with Sands of Time and followed by Warrior Within and The Two Thrones, this franchise was developed and published by Ubisoft starting in 2003 and it featured an unnamed brash Prince who had the ability to control time via various magical devices. The games were remarkable both in their platforming gameplay, storytelling, atmosphere and especially the time manipulation mechanics, which became a staple of the trilogy. These games were considered magical and rightfully so, these were peak Ubisoft quality games.

Unfortunately, after Two Thrones, the IP slowly faded into obscurity, being replaced by the groundbreaking series Assassin’s Creed. After a 2008 reboot that didn’t manage to revitalize the series and 2010’s Forgotten Sands, an entry set between Sands of Time and Warrior Within, Prince of Persia entered in a long hibernation state.

13 years later however, a new Prince of Persia game was announced! A “return to form”, a 2D metroidvania featuring a new protagonist, and a trailer which really had a mixed reception – mainly because of its background song of choice and the “this isn’t our Prince” vibe. At this point Ubisoft had already tarnished its reputation with a string of awful decisions, so things were looking grim for this new Prince.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown introduces a brand new protagonist – Sargon, the youngest member of the elite warrior group called the Immortals, fends off an invasion on the Persian Empire by personally slaying the invading general. During the victory celebrations, the Prince of Persia Ghassan gets captured, so Sargon and his group are tasked to rescue him by travelling to the mystical mountain Qaf, home of the ancient power Simurgh. After entering the mountain, Sargon discovers that he has been trapped in a temporal loop of sorts, and that he not only has to rescue Ghassan, but also escape the accursed place.

This spin on the story did not sit well with fans of the series. First of all, we are not playing as the Prince of Persia, but as his subordinate, probably a nod to the first Assassin’s Creed, where originally, you were supposed to play as a Prince’s guard. Personally, I liked Sargon as a character: while young and brash, he is also devoted, eager to learn, brave, and humble – traits unusual for a modern protagonist. He has a good relationship with his teammates, which gives him a sort of depth as the plot slowly unfolds.

The start of the game is actually quite weak, especially when it comes to its design, and it feels like the team was being held back. The set pieces, while pretty, have this cheap Fortnite-esque design to them. Enemies look bland as well, with your usual warrior zombies, big warrior zombies and annoying flying critters. I really was not impressed with the game during the first 3-4 hours of playtime and I was actually prepared to bash it. Where’s the lush scenery, the crazy nature, the graphics that made Prince of Persia remarkable throughout each of its releases?

To my surprise and shock, once you get past a certain point in the game, the artstyle somehow explodes. The game gets this surge of unique personality and it feels like the designers managed to implement what they actually wanted to in that part. The Raging Sea map is where I was finally convinced that this is actually a hidden gem of a game: you have to traverse a map depicting a sea battle frozen in time. This map alone changed my perspective of the game. Maybe I was wrong, and the game is actually good!

And yes indeed, the game IS good… it just needed time to unfold itself.

The game is also accompanied by one of the best soundtracks I have heard in a Prince of Persia game. If I can give some credit to Ubisoft, they 100% know how to nail a soundtrack in each of their games. No soundtrack is actually bad, each of them fits the thematic of the level or the boss fight, special mention going to Darkest of Souls and The Imprisoned God. I haven’t enjoyed a Prince of Persia soundtrack this much since Warrior Within.

Where the game truly shines however is in the gameplay department. Lost Crown is a metroidvania in the true sense of things, meaning you have to traverse a huge map, find various Simurgh powers and backtrack in order to access previously blocked paths.
With the Simurgh powers, Sargon can access some very useful tools, like a double jump, an air dash, a portal that stores one attack which can be launched back at the opponent, an afterimage which acts as a “rewind time” mechanic, a dimension hopping ability and finally, a magical sash that allows Sargon to grapple to special nodes in the environment.

The environmental puzzles can get really creative and challenging, especially with the collectibles in the game. The way Sargon can link his powers to perform various platforming sections is really impressive. It shows that the ones in charge of designing these platforming sections really enjoyed doing their job. Some collectibles can actually be a pain to get, especially the Xerxes coins in the game. You can observe such example in the video below.

As a warrior, Sargon is very agile, being able to jump, fight with his dual swords, dash, dodge and especially parry his enemies. Moreover, he has access to special magical attacks called Athra Surges, which can devastate smaller enemies and inflict tremendous damage to larger enemies. While the combat is fine, the Athra surges have a tendency to ruin the mood of the game, some of them feeling straight out ripped from Dragon Ball Z, for example when Sargon shoots an energy wave from his palms. I am not an expert in ancient Persian, but as far as I know there were no Super Saiyans there.

Another thing that stands out in Lost Crown are the accessibility options. While you can fine tune all the mechanic controls in the game (including the option to skip platforming puzzles altogether), there’s another option where the game allows you to actually mark a collectible on your map by screenshotting its location. This is a feature more metroidvanias need to implement, not only do you add a marker on your map, you can also show WHAT exactly is in the location of that marker.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown received a lot of DLCs and updates since its release. If you want to relive the old trilogy in 2D, you can equip Sargon with various costumes from previous games – Sands of Time, Warrior Within, Two Thrones and 2008. Boss Rush and various platforming challenges have been added as well, which reward you with even more skins and items. The challenges are especially brutal, only available for those who truly want to test themselves (they are not required for the platinum trophy).
A story DLC, Mask of Darkness, has also been added. In that DLC, Sargon is teleported to a sort of illusionary palace, where he has to defeat a fellow Immortal gone rogue. While it added even more platforming and a rather challenging boss fight, I found this DLC to be underwhelming, especially given its price point.

The platinum trophy is rather simple to achieve, as you can play on Easy difficulty, and nothing is missable. While you could skip the major story puzzles, the collectibles actually require some platforming to be done. By playing through the game at a steady pace, you will naturally unlock most, if not all the trophies required for the platinum. Even after defeating the final boss, you can cleanup the trophies you have missed.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is an actually decent game – and it promised a sequel. Unfortunately, this is not the case anymore. Due to “unexpected low sales”, Ubisoft decided to cancel the sequel and disband the team that made it. This throws the Prince of Persia IP into the limbo once more, the fate of the main series remaining uncertain.
That being said, I still recommend playing Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Despite the slower start, it’s a quality metroidvania, and it pushes the genre forward with its mechanics and gameplay.