Review: PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE LOST CROWN is a fun game that works great

Ubisoft came out in January Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. This is a new game in the popular franchise and is a bit of a reinvention of the franchise itself. It returned to its 2D platforming roots, but added a Metroidvania twist. Ubisoft was kind enough to provide me with an Xbox code for this review, but all thoughts below are my own. You can purchase your copy of the game now on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4/5 and Xbox consoles (affiliate link). Physical copies are also available at your favorite retailers, including GameStop (affiliate link).

In the game you will take on the role of Sargon, a Persian immortal. The prince is kidnapped after you secure a victory against the invaders, and your mission is to go with your immortal companions to explore the mysterious Mount Qaf and bring him back. It seems pretty simple, but there are some twists that make it more interesting.

People love this game and it’s not hard to see why. Before delving into the victories for The lost crown, I want to discuss some less flattering topics. First, I started playing this game on Normal difficulty and found the enemies to be a little too strong. A single, simple combo has never been enough to defeat an enemy. I typically had to do a minimum of two full combos per enemy even with some damage upgrades. I’ve put several hours into the game and I still don’t feel like I have any kind of advantage. This is especially true when you still have three segments of health and even the most basic enemies can kill you in about two hits.

Secondly, I ran into a pretty nasty bug. There’s a side mission pretty early on that broke my game. Every time I tried to get the Moon Gatherer side quest, my game would crash at the end of the dialogue. It wouldn’t freeze, but it would be like the conversation was over but I couldn’t regain control of Sargon. This was frustrating because I thought maybe it was a one-off thing due to Quick Resume or something and nothing I did would fix the problem.

That’s it for my complaints. Visually, the game looks fantastic. I’m not a huge fan of the art style, but it’s done really well and the textures and geometry all look great. Also, while the style isn’t my favorite, the overall design of the characters, creatures, etc. is great. it’s really fantastic. There is some stylization in the fighting moments that seems very comical. Again, not my favorite thing but it’s implemented well. In terms of performance, the game runs brilliantly on Xbox and I want to give the team big props as the Switch version will run natively at 1080p@60fps while docked, according to Digital Foundry.

One little detail I really liked is that you can set the audio language to Farsi (the online manual says Farsi, in the game it says Persian). This was really nice in my opinion because I really enjoyed the media in their native language (or as close to it as I can perceive). Like I said, this is a small thing, but I really liked having the audio in Farsi with English subtitles. Most, if not all, dialogue in the cutscenes happens via text box anyway, so I don’t mind feeling like I’m missing a detail in the video because I’m reading.

How does Sargon feel about playing? Overall, pretty good. There are still timing mechanics I’m working on, but overall you get what you reward. I wouldn’t say there’s a significant delay at any point. Also, the combat seems pretty simple at first, but there’s a lot of depth that can be explored if you’re willing to put in a little effort to learn it. Luckily, your main base, The Haven, has one of your friends who will let you do training sessions to learn and practice the different types of combos.

As mentioned above, I’m enjoying the story. I don’t want to delve too deeply into this, but there are many mysteries to unravel as you navigate the cursed Mount Qaf. I think I’ll leave things as they are.

My latest pro for The lost crown it has to do with accessibility. There are tons of options to help people with disabilities enjoy gaming. This includes different contrast modes, the ability to enable or disable icons and useful information on the map, an option that lets you bypass difficult puzzle sections, and more. In addition to different difficulty settings, these options allow you to fine-tune your gaming experience to help you have the most fun.

Overall, I neither hate nor love it The lost crown. I like it, but I’ve found that I have to play it on easy difficulty. That said, it’s still no cakewalk. I love how the team worked hard to make the game work well on all platforms and that deserves a lot of praise in a world where many do the bare minimum to port their game to a certain platform leading to terrible experiences. The gameplay is solid, and you’ll really benefit from taking the time to get to know the deeper combat mechanics. Also, some puzzles require very tight timing, so be careful.