I have mentioned many times here how I do like a good (or even, a fair-to-middling) Metroidvania game. So when I discovered that the already great looking Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was such a game in that genre, I leapt on the demo and was so struck by it I did a very rare thing – I bought an actual physical copy.
It’s really good. It does all the great things Metroidvanias do, by giving you additional powers to defeat new foes and reach new, and previously unreachable, areas, eventually turning you into a walking tank. It also has excellent combat, with a huge number of sword based attacks but also a bow and arrow, a boomerang-like chakra thing, magical special attacks, and all sorts of dashes, juggles and dodges making each fight enjoyable and varied. Metroid Dread was a great game, but the combat was mostly shoot or missile or bomb, whereas here it’s much more deep and fluid.
Although not linked to any of the previous Prince of Persia games in any way, there are thematic similarities. There’s the obvious one – it’s set in Persia – but also there’s a “sands of time” thing going on. The story involves Sargon (you) and his friends chasing after a kidnapped prince into a cursed city, In this city time had gone weird, with time loops and stopped time and future, past and alternative timeline events all occurring. Sargon also manages to learn some time related skills, like slowing it or pausing it.
Despite being based in a city, there are a number of varied areas, most housing a boss of some kind. There are a few distinct areas to the city itself (including one that is at night), but also dark caves, an icy mountain, and a whole section where storm-tossed ships are frozen in time. Bosses are difficult, but all can be bested by carefully noting their attack patterns and weaknesses so they always seem fair.
I did run into a game breaking bug, however. Near the end of the game you have to reach and ring three gongs. En-route to one of these you have to fight a series of enemies and every time I killed the second one, the game crashed. It turned out to be a bug introduced in a previous update, which also affected other platforms the game was on, and to be fair Ubisoft did fix it (although it took over a week before I could continue playing). Annoying, but it didn’t make me think anything less of the game, which I loved. So much so I even went and 100%ed it after completing the story!
