Prince of Persia The Lost Crown Review: Gameplay Impressions and Videos

Prince of Persia The Lost Crown from developer Ubisoft Montpellier boldy steps onto the stage as both a long-awaited entry in a beloved series while being unafraid to take some risks.

The first installment in an established series since Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands in 2010, The Lost Crown veers away from the wall-running, 3D and time-powered combat of its predecessors that inspired Assassin's Creed.

Instead, the game harkens back to the original atmosphere but veers into a stylized 2D, Metroidvania experience, complete with deep combat, platforming and plenty to discover.

It's a recipe that, if it sticks the landing, could have The Lost Crown as an early sleeper hit of 2024 while revitalizing an entire franchise.

Graphics and Gameplay

The Lost Crown is an interesting blend, visually.

It's a vibrant game full of colors and interesting locales across a surprising number of biomes and the experience toys with the 2D setting in masterful ways, including some boss encounters that leave the player feeling quite small—in a thrilling way.

Granted, the characters are a little on the cartoonish side, but that leaves the door open for some super-pleasing combat animations that combine with the stellar sound design to keep things interesting at all times.

Beyond general stage layouts, hidden things to find and sheer creative puzzles and environmental hazards, one of the things the game really nails down is engrossing backgrounds that provide depth and storytelling to the world. No, players can't "go there" to the things in the distance, but darn if it doesn't look great.

Players control Sargon in this world and the combat will instantly remind some players of an outright fighting game. He employs two swords in largely expected ways, but players quickly unlock a bow and chakram to mix in ranged combat to great effect.

Close to enemies, though, is where things really feel fluid and fun. Sargon can slide through an enemy's legs or dash backward to avoid attacks when he's not pulling off executable combos.

Parries are the star of the show, though. Properly-timed parries can block close or long-range attacks and all potential damage. It's a fun reaction-based system, as red attacks can't be blocked and yellow attacks present notable parry opportunities to open up big counterattacks.

Successful parry and attack attempts build the Athra Gague, with 10 Athra Surges—powers, basically—available in the game and two equipable at a time. These present interesting combo ideas for players to explore, such as pairing one that heals the player in a small zone with a ranged, piercing bow laser that players can use even mid-air.

While the combat feels a little bit like a fighting game in a great way, traversal itself has some Ubisoft stamps on it too because the influence from other games like Rayman is apparent.

Like all Prince of Persia games, this one puts time powers in the hands of players. One is the Rush of the Simurgh, which is a simple forward dash through time, while another is the Shadow of the Simurgh. That's more interesting because it lets players put a marker down in the world, then use that as a rewind spot, if necessary, which is far more engaging than just hitting a rewind button on a whim.

There are less interesting, but very useful ones, such as the ability to perform an additional jump while already in the air. This isn't just useful for reaching new areas or overcoming a puzzle—one can see how pairing this with upgradeable ranged attacks unlocks some gameplay depth pretty quickly.

Then there are amulets, which provide passive boosts to gameplay. The list of these is massive, with some extending combos or even enhancing properly timed parries, to name a few.

While there are bound to be some complaints about how underpowered Sargon feels in both traversal and combat at the start of the game, especially compared to enemies, it all ends up worth it. The game, particularly in these areas, hits on a steady bit of momentum that makes it near-impossible to put down once it really gets going.

And shockingly enough, the same applies to the story, too.

Story and More

Sargon is the youngest of The Immortals, a group tasked with protecting Persia and in the narrative, undertaking a rescue mission.

That's keeping things very simple for the sake of spoilers, but the gist of it is what anyone familiar with the series would expect—things aren't what they seem, especially when temporal anomalies come into play.

What's really impressive about the game's narrative is that it's hardly not interesting to see what characters have to say. They're memorable and the story takes some rather surprising turns throughout its course.

What's most impressive of all, though, is how players get a constant drip-feed of narrative hints despite the 2D constraints. Meeting one NPC who says they've been in an area for a few days and another who claims to have been there for years, despite them seemingly arriving at the same time, is a fun example. There's a lot of this, atop a story that goes some surprising directions.

Not only are there a surprising number of different biomes, the game packs in an unexpectedly large chunk of enemy variety during these travels, too.

The Lost Crown also boasts a feature that should hopefully be a staple of any game in this genre.

An expectedly big Metroidvania map features a nice functionality in the form of being able to take a screenshot and place it in a marker on the map itself, which is helpful for remembering all of the obstacles players need to loop back and check once they are stronger or have new abilities.

Between the different Athra surges, ability to combo time powers and the many passive boosts via amulets, there's a surprising amount of character customization for a 2D Metroidvania game.

More expected is the game world being littered with reasons for players to go exploring off the expected path. Side quests, hidden treasures and currencies that upgrade weapons, help obtain new items, give the player more health bar segments and more make standard Metroidvania backtracking worthwhile.

On the options front, there are four different difficulty levels and a suite of accessibility options, including platforming assists. There are two different modes, Exploration and Guided. The former is more for those who want to experience things blind, including little in the way of map markers. The latter is a more traditional game experience.

In addition to combat challenges at the central area's swordmaster, there's also a free training mode that lets players practice combat.

Conclusion

The Lost Crown easily slides its way into breakout hit territory with engrossing visuals, fantastic storytelling and surprisingly fun depth to its combat and customization systems.

But one thing sticks out more than most—Like any good Metroidvania, The Lost Crown peels back the world and combat and traversal abilities at a steady pace that is critical for success in the genre.

So much so, the whole package might have fans of the series wondering why it hasn't gone this route in the past. Some might even wonder if the series should stick there for good with an even bigger entry as a follow-up. With success, perhaps this is the type of entry that encourages other massive publishers to take a beloved series in new directions with other studios for smaller entries to bridge the gap in interesting ways while players await the much bigger main entries.

For now, though, players will find The Lost Crown a surprisingly good blend of beloved genre and series to very fun results.