Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is part metroidvania, part Souls game, and it’s both fun

2024 is here and we already have a serious contender for Game of the Year. Yes, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Is that okay? I want to get back to playing as soon as possible, so I’ll keep it brief.

(Editor’s note: She didn’t keep it brief. )

lost crown It is a 2D side-scrolling metroidvania. You play as Sargon, a member of the Persian army’s elite Immortal Squad. After the prince is kidnapped, Sargon and the gods travel to Mount Kauf to rescue him. During his journey, Sargon will acquire an array of tools, weapons, and trinkets that will help him overcome the dangers of navigating the mysterious (and massive) mountains.

This is just a small part of the map.it is huge.

This may sound counterintuitive, but the interesting thing is lost crown Mechanically, it doesn’t do anything particularly new. Sargon gains the ability to solve various platforming puzzles you may have seen elsewhere. There’s an air dash, a bow (which transforms into a boomerang-type weapon that can bounce off surfaces), a dimension-shifting ability that reveals invisible platforms, and a sigil ability that allows Sargon to essentially “save” his location. Then teleport back to that location.

I haven’t finished the game yet, so this isn’t a complete list of abilities, but Ubisoft isn’t reinventing the platforming wheel here. What it does do is make a game that makes using each of these standard abilities really fun.Shout out to the level designers for the best part of this lost crown Just to figure out what I need to do is press the complex waltz button to get from point A to point B, perform the waltz, and then bask in my god-like abilities. Sargon’s movements are fluid and his abilities have loose cooldowns, so even the puzzles aren’t easy (and boy are they easy) no), I don’t get frustrated repeating a sequence until I get it right.

One of my favorite puzzles comes late in the game, where you’re locked in a room and the only way out is to use Sargon’s ghost stand-in to collect a key item that’s just out of reach. The ghost has a limited time to complete one part of the larger puzzle, such as activating a lever that opens a door and lets another ghost pass through. In three ghost doubles, I have 12 seconds to fly down one axis, do a double, stand on a pressure plate, double on the other axis, activate a control stick, teleport to my double position, Then jump through the wall to reach the goal.I hatred Repetition, this is the most frustrating part of playing a difficult game, but I was so stuck like a saxophonist on a Charlie Parker solo that I didn’t mind that it took me over 40 attempts to not only figure out the puzzle solution and then execute it.

Combat is equally difficult and rewarding. As you progress, everything from regular enemy battles to boss encounters require you to use all of Sargon’s power to emerge unscathed. Like a platforming puzzle, you’ll memorize attack patterns, tap into your vast arsenal to find the right tool, and then perform complex dances with bosses that will punish you for being too greedy with damage. Throughout the game, Sargon will gain new combat abilities, such as healing waves or powerful thrusts, but while some of these are useful for very specific encounters, I found that I was able to ignore every new one except the first two. ability. They don’t appear to be of sufficient importance or variety to warrant use, other than “more severe than normal.”

Due to the complexity of the puzzles and boss fights, it is relatively easy to overcome these obstacles using tools and weapons, lost crown Reminds me more of Souls-like games than Metroidvania. Whether in combat or puzzle solving, the demands placed on you never feel unfair or boring, but more like a progressive assessment of your growth.It feels like the game is saying “Okay, you’ve had your air dash ability for a while, let’s see how effectively you can use it.” One of my favorite things in video games is that the gameplay reinforces the narrative , if you combine the idea that the game is testing your mastery of a skill with the actual narrative of Sargon being the newer, younger member of the Immortals eager to prove himself, then lost crown To be a game that makes you as a player feel like you’ve grown with Sargon.

Besides the smooth platforming and complex combat, the most innovative aspect of the game is the map. Yes, map. First of all, it’s huge.There are so many places to go and so many secrets to uncover, even if you’re not on your way to the next story objective, no matter where you end up something — Currency can be used to purchase tips or upgrade materials or necklace trinkets that enhance Sargon’s abilities. On top of that, each area has a unique theme, which affects what kind of platforming shenanigans you can expect. There is a sand area where waterfalls of sand push you through narrow corridors lined with instant-death spikes, and in the cursed library area you must use your bow boomerang to ring bells that reveal hidden platform.

Metroidvania as a genre can become very boring if you don’t know where to go next with the abilities you have.exist lost crown, Ubisoft has implemented a waypoint system that allows you to take a screenshot of your location and then pin it to a location on the game’s map. So every time you gain a new ability, you can revisit these screenshots to see if your new toy unlocks new areas. I love these navigation systems and it really shows that Ubisoft respects the player’s time.

After the plethora of huge, time-consuming, but hugely entertaining blockbusters last year, I wanted something smaller and simpler to occupy my time with.and lost crownUbisoft took a technically and mechanically simplistic formula—a 2D side-scrolling Metroidvania—and reinvented it into something remarkable in both narrative and gameplay.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown It will be released on January 15th on Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation and PC.