Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown – Review

Well, this has been a long time coming. Barring a handful of simple mobile games, it’s been well over a decade since Prince of Persia had its last outing with 2010’s The Forgotten Sands. Of course, a legendary video game franchise of this status couldn’t have been truly dead, if only because of brand recognition: we can’t imagine that a gamer exists that hasn’t at least heard the name Prince of Persia. It was only a matter of time before the series would awaken from its extended hibernation. That time is now, with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown having been released just in time for the first Prince of Persia game’s 35th anniversary. Is The Lost Crown a return to form or is the series stiff in the joints from being dormant for so long?

Story

In a bit of a twist, the protagonist of The Lost Crown isn’t the titular prince of Persia, but Sargon, one of an elite cadre of warriors in service of the Persian royal court. When we meet Sargon and his fellow warriors, the Immortals, they are taking on the enemy forces of General Uvishka. This prelude to the main story acts as the game’s tutorial, and after Sargon defeats the General, he and the Immortals are summoned to the royal palace to receive honors for their victory. The celebration is short-lived, however, as betrayal comes from within: Ghassan, the actual prince of Persia, is kidnapped and taken to Mount Quaf. The Immortals set out to rescue Ghassan, but end up trapped in a time anomaly after entering Mount Quaf’s Citadel. It doesn’t take long before Vahram, the leader of the Immortals, reveals his true colors as he murders Ghassan and leaves Sargon for dead at the bottom of a pit. Our hero isn’t dead, of course, and is intent on stopping Vahram’s nefarious plans.

Over the course of roughly 20 hours, The Lost Crown delivers a compelling story involving ancient Gods, time travel, and plenty of surprise twists and turns. By shifting the focus to a new protagonist, Ubisoft was able to set up a premise that newcomers and series veterans can enjoy without having to reboot the series again. Those returning from The Forgotten Sands will of course have a better grasp of this world and the returning characters, and we’re looking forward to seeing if and how The Lost Crown’s story is retroactively tied to the upcoming remake of The Sands of Time.

Graphics

The cinematic feeling of The Lost Crown’s story is present in the visuals as well. The overall art direction is as strong as you’d expect, with consistent aesthetics when it comes to character and enemy designs. Environments are varied, ranging from barren deserts to lush jungles, but by sticking to the same design principles, The Lost Crown still looks cohesive. The game manages to keep up a steady 60 FPS with a minimal stutter, and our only real gripe is that a significant chunk of the dialogue scenes are delivered through static portraits. Don’t get us wrong, the hand-drawn art still looks great, but we’d have vastly preferred a more animated approach.

Sound

Boasting both a cinematic soundtrack and fantastic voice acting, The Lost Crown isn’t just a delight for your eyes but for your ears as well. Expeditions: Rome’s Tommy Sim’aan brings the right amount of cockiness and charisma to Sargon’s voice. Sound effects are good as well, with the satisfying clanking of metal adding heft to Sargon’s strikes, especially when using special moves. The soundscape isn’t as perfect as we would have hoped, as there were a handful of instances of audio stutter during the cutscenes. However, when the audio did what it needed to, it did this really well.

Gameplay

Ever since the original Prince of Persia debuted back in 1989, most of the core games in the franchise have stuck to the same formula, and The Lost Crown isn’t any different in this regard. If you’re one of the few people who have never played a Prince of Persia game, what you’re getting here is a hack ‘n slash platformer, sprinkled with environmental puzzles and cleverly implemented time travel mechanics. It may be an odd comparison but The Lost Crown is actually quite similar to Super Mario Bros Wonder in that it takes a well-established formula that grew a bit stale over time and revamps it just enough that it feels fresh for modern audiences while staying true to the original. The result is a fantastic platformer that constantly keeps you on your toes and tests your reflexes but never becomes too complex or overwhelming. There is a sense of exploration here too: while The Lost Crown never fully embraces the Metroidvania genre, there are plenty of secrets to discover and reasons to return to areas visited previously. You’re even able to mark unreachable areas and secrets on your map.

There is a sense of progress here as well, with new abilities and special moves unlocking in a timely fashion whenever you need them. You’ll need to master the basics first of course, with parrying and dodging being particularly important, but it doesn’t take long before you’re filling up gauges that let you unleash special moves or use new feats of swashbuckling to get to previously unreachable platforms. The game also strikes the right balance between accessibility and being challenging, as you cannot only set the overall difficulty, but you can tailor Sargon to fit your playstyle by tweaking all sorts of parameters, from target assistance to damage output. If you feel out of your depth by the game’s initial difficulty, you can easily dial things down until you feel comfortable enough to take off the training wheels. Veterans on the other hand have plenty to look forward to in the form of brutally difficult boss battles and timed challenges, to name a few of The Lost Crown’s more engaging elements.

We did encounter a handful of hiccups during our time with the game, although these may have just been specific to our hardware setup. We played The Lost Crown on PC with a Switch Pro Controller, and although Ubisoft’s proprietary platform initially recognized this without a hitch, we noticed that the A and B buttons were swapped around while setting up the game. This issue fixed itself when we were actually playing. Combined button inputs, in particular those for sliding, often didn’t register, resulting in Sargon doing anything but sliding, and our attempts to remap button inputs caused the game to crash completely. We assume these issues are non-existent in the console versions of the game, and your mileage may vary with a different controller on PC, but it does warrant mentioning just in case. We did manage to overcome these hurdles by swapping to mouse and keyboard, and this turned out to be a surprisingly smooth and enjoyable experience, even if we typically vastly prefer a controller for this kind of game.

Playing through the main story should take most players around 18 to 20 hours, although completionists can easily add another 8 hours here. In addition, the various difficulty levels and tweaks available here mean that there is plenty of replay value to be found here. We’d say that The Lost Crown is well worth the €49.99 price of entry, but knowing Ubisoft, we’d expect there to be quite a few discounts in The Lost Crown’s future. If you’re eager to set out on this adventure as soon as possible, we wouldn’t blame you, but even if you don’t have any room in your backlog right now, it might be worth it to keep an eye on this one.

Conclusion

While The Lost Crown isn’t a completely blemish-free experience right out of the gates, the game definitely succeeds in reviving the classic Prince of Persia experience. The unprecedented degree of accessibility and customizability ensures that everyone can enjoy what The Lost Crown has to offer, regardless of how experienced they are with the series. The story and audiovisual presentation drive the cinematic atmosphere home and already have us looking forward to seeing the series continue with The Sands of Time. If you’re playing the game on PC, be aware that there may be a handful of compatibility issues depending on which controller you’re using, but other than that, The Lost Crown should be a worthy addition to any self-respecting gamer’s library.

SebastiaanRaats

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