Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown review

Our VerdictA palatable metroidvania with a mediocre story, my biggest frustration with The Lost Crown is how long it takes to get to the good stuff.

Our Verdict

A palatable metroidvania with a mediocre story, my biggest frustration with The Lost Crown is how long it takes to get to the good stuff.

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Need to KnowWhat is it?A time-bending metroidvania that marks a new era of Prince of Persia.Release dateJanuary 18, 2024Expect to pay£45 / $50DeveloperUbisoft Montpellier, UbisoftPublisherUbisoftReviewed onNvidia GeForce RTX3070, AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, 32GB RAMSteam DeckN/ALinkOfficial site$19.99View at GameStop$26.93View at AmazonLow Stock$27View at WalmartSee all prices (16 found)2 Amazon customer reviews☆☆☆☆☆

Need to Know

What is it?A time-bending metroidvania that marks a new era of Prince of Persia.Release dateJanuary 18, 2024Expect to pay£45 / $50DeveloperUbisoft Montpellier, UbisoftPublisherUbisoftReviewed onNvidia GeForce RTX3070, AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, 32GB RAMSteam DeckN/ALinkOfficial site$19.99View at GameStop$26.93View at AmazonLow Stock$27View at WalmartSee all prices (16 found)2 Amazon customer reviews☆☆☆☆☆

$19.99View at GameStop$26.93View at AmazonLow Stock$27View at WalmartSee all prices (16 found)2 Amazon customer reviews☆☆☆☆☆

$19.99View at GameStop$26.93View at AmazonLow Stock$27View at WalmartSee all prices (16 found)

$19.99View at GameStop

$26.93View at Amazon

Low Stock$27View at Walmart

Low Stock

$27View at Walmart

See all prices (16 found)

2 Amazon customer reviews☆☆☆☆☆

☆☆☆☆☆

Immortal reign

Though I may not have dabbled in Prince of Persia previously, I do at least know that this is the series' first appearance in a long 14 years. Not only has it swapped out its 3D perspective to return to its 2D platforming roots, it’s also forgone its eponymous prince character in favour of new protagonist Sargon. This lad isn’t royalty, but rather a member of the Immortals, a group tasked with protecting the prince Ghassan and keeping Persia safe.

He doesn’t do a very good job of the whole protecting thing though, as his mentor Anahita snatches Ghassan away to Mount Qaf, where time is all funky and nonlinear, causing some strange behaviour and mysterious characters to crop up all over the place. Sargon then jets off with the rest of the Immortals to try and save Ghassan while combating all of Mount Qaf’s weirdness.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

At least, I’m pretty sure that’s the premise of the story. The Lost Crown’s narrative is incredibly underbaked. It feels like pieces of the worldbuilding and overarching story are missing—outside of the Immortals members, I was often lost in who people were and their motives. Characters would talk to each other as if I was supposed to know what was happening, even though nobody had bothered to explain it to me.

It’s all well and good for introducing me to the platforming basics—dash over this gap, wall jump up between these two columns, slide under these dangling spikes—but the training wheels stay on for a little too long. New abilities eventually come in the form of Time Powers, which are handed to me every few hours as I progress through the story. They allow me to do things like airdash, create copies of Sargon to teleport back to, grab objects like bombs, flick between dimensions to make platforms pop in and out of existence, grapple and double jump.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

The problem is they’re handed out a little too slowly for my liking. The airdash, the first Time Power I obtained, came after a couple hours of playing through The Lost Crown. It doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but the lack of such a basic platformer function left me feeling a little held back, which is reflected in the game’s early puzzles. I breezed through the early exploration a little too easily—nothing was particularly challenging for the first several hours, even as someone who doesn’t dabble in this genre that often.

Need more time

Thankfully, as I collected more Time Powers, Ubisoft was finally able to unleash its platforming creativity a little more. This became especially true as I obtained the double jump ability, which I nabbed around 15 hours into my playthrough. For me, this is when The Lost Crown really comes to life. The difficulty spike in puzzles and platforming once I had a double jump in my toolkit was whiplash-inducing.

I went from flying through each area with ease to suddenly hitting wall after wall, whether that be from tight and tricky execution or a puzzle that left me scratching my head for which powers I needed to be utilising to complete it.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Some of the abilities were also great even when they weren’t meant to be used to complete a platforming puzzle. The one where I was able to create and teleport back to a copy of myself proved particularly handy for tackling more difficult sections, allowing me to quickly zip back to a safe point and try again rather than falling to my death and having to start from the beginning.

Sargon Spirit Bomb

It’s not just movement that Time Powers are used for, either. The game heavily encourages you to make use of them in combat, weaving them in with Sargon’s standard dual blade and bow-and-arrow attacks. I could use the grappling hook to bring lighter enemies crashing down to the ground or whipping armour off a larger enemy. Sargon’s teleportation can be used to snapshot a ready-to-rip charged attack, allowing me to fire one off, return and automatically do another one.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Something I really enjoyed was that enemies were equally capable of dishing out the same—they could evade me mid-combo, parry their way out of a sticky situation and dish out some hefty damage. Some of the parry animations from bosses were even cooler than Sargon’s too, feeling more full of character than anything I saw from actual story dialogue.

The parry animations are fantastic, colourful as heck and a lot of them feel reminiscent of Dragon Ball Z and other similar anime flavours.

Unfortunately I often found that it was easier to simply mash out the basic attack button and dodge with the occasional parry sprinkled in. It meant I rarely got to see these big setups pay off, and the parry animations were less frequent than I’d like. This became increasingly apparent as I ventured further into the story, where I was tasked with taking on more enemies at once. It wasn’t all too easy to set up a charged attack or bait out a parry when another, quicker enemy was gunning for my back while a flying enemy was peppering me with fireballs. It’s another thing that feels like it was so close to being great, but misses the mark.

Combat was easily the most consistently challenging part of The Lost Crown though, and I had a blast figuring out boss battle patterns in particular. I died to bosses more often than anything else in the game, but it also proved to be the most satisfying when I finally figured out the optimal ways to position Sargon, avoid big moves and land in just the right place to swing my swords and deal some big damage.

Uncrowning

While I never struggled enough to tweak the difficulty, The Lost Crown offers plenty of options to fit the entire experience for maximum enjoyment. Combat difficulty can be adjusted across standardised options, but also offers more in-depth sliders for things like damage dealt, taken, meter buildup and timing windows on parrying and dodging.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

It also offers two difficulties that dictate how hand-holdy the overall experience is. Exploration mode fits more with a traditional metroidvania experience, while guided mode marks out objectives and blocked paths for quicker and easier navigation. I personally opted for exploration for my entire playthrough, but I was given the option to freely switch between the two at will.

The Lost Crown offers some neat accessibility features too, like being able to zip past platforming segments that some may have difficulty completing. It’s completely optional, tucked away in a menu and toggleable at any point throughout the playthrough for those who struggle. Again, it’s something I never wound up using, but I love that it’s included as an option.

Those aren’t the only things Ubisoft has done to make the metroidvania genre a little more approachable. Easily one of my favourite things about the entire game is the implementation of the Memory Shard system. Whenever I came across something I hadn’t seen before, a room I couldn’t access yet or something I knew I had to backtrack to later, I could hit a button to take a screenshot and pin it to the location on the map.

It became my saving grace multiple times throughout my playthrough, especially as someone who suffers from chronic goldfish brain. It also served much better than a vague icon marker (which are also included) to remind future me of what the hell past me was wanting to go back and check. It’s balanced in that I only had a limited amount I could use, meaning I wasn’t able to leave screenshots all over the Qaf. It’s something I sincerely hope gets implemented in future metroidvanias, because it greatly improved my overall experience in a way I didn’t expect.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Despite all that, I still can’t help but feel somewhat frustrated with how The Lost Crown pans out overall. If I hadn’t been reviewing it, I’m not sure if I would have persevered through the game’s dull, painfully average first half to reach a far more complete and engaging second half. The game never veers into straight-up bad territory, but it spends entirely too long milling around in ‘adequate’ territory, which I think is sometimes worse. Even when it finally gets out of that, it doesn’t get much further. It’s a palatable game throughout and, like I said before, never became overly frustrating which is to its benefit.

If the whole of The Lost Crown played like its final few hours and had a more engaging story, I think it would have had a good shot of being regarded as a surprisingly fantastic metroidvania. For now, it remains a competent one.

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Prince of Persia: The Lost…

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The Verdict72Read our review policyPrince of Persia: The Lost CrownA palatable metroidvania with a mediocre story, my biggest frustration with The Lost Crown is how long it takes to get to the good stuff.

The Verdict

72Read our review policyPrince of Persia: The Lost CrownA palatable metroidvania with a mediocre story, my biggest frustration with The Lost Crown is how long it takes to get to the good stuff.

72Read our review policy

Prince of Persia: The Lost CrownA palatable metroidvania with a mediocre story, my biggest frustration with The Lost Crown is how long it takes to get to the good stuff.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

A palatable metroidvania with a mediocre story, my biggest frustration with The Lost Crown is how long it takes to get to the good stuff.

TOPICSUbisoft

TOPICS

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More about prince of persia the lost crown

Baldur’s Gate 3 publishing chief calls out Ubisoft’s ‘broken strategy’: If gamers need to get used to not owning games, ‘developers must get used to not having jobs’Ubisoft made a good Prince of Persia game, so of course it’s disbanded the team shortly after release

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Baldur’s Gate 3 publishing chief calls out Ubisoft’s ‘broken strategy’: If gamers need to get used to not owning games, ‘developers must get used to not having jobs’

Image for Ubisoft made a good Prince of Persia game, so of course it’s disbanded the team shortly after release

Ubisoft made a good Prince of Persia game, so of course it’s disbanded the team shortly after release

LatestToday’s Wordle answer for Monday, January 13See more latest►

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Today’s Wordle answer for Monday, January 13

Wordle today being played on a phone

Today’s Wordle answer for Monday, January 13

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Our Verdict#

Immortal reign#

Need more time#

Sargon Spirit Bomb#

Uncrowning#

Our Verdict

Immortal reign

Need more time

Sargon Spirit Bomb

Uncrowning