Prince of Persia The Lost Crown Reviews

What an absolute triumph! While PoP: TLC might not push the boundaries of the Metroidvania genre, it takes everything there is to love about it—exploration, platforming, combat, and collection—and polishes it to an absolutely brilliant shine. Simply playing the game is an utter joy thanks to ultra-responsive controls, butter-smooth movement abilities, and impeccable level design. The game balances depth in both combat and platforming expertly, being complex but not complicated: the result is that the game systems are meaty enough to sink your teeth into, but never cumbersome or alienating. Additionally, the macro-design of the game world is excellent; the map is absolutely gigantic, but it unfolds and redoubles back on itself in such a way that navigating its litany of zones never feels confusing. While the game has its warts (forgettable story and characters, weak boss fights, and subpar music), PoP: TLC is an absolute MUST-PLAY for Metroidvania and platforming fans alike. While the atmosphere and aesthetic of the game are undeniably weaker than titles like Hollow Knight and Blasphemous, the gameplay itself is, in my opinion, the pinnacle of the modern Metroidvania genre. I don't think I've ever played a game that simply FEELS as good as this one. So do yourself a favor and pick this game up—frankly, I think the quality is worth full retail price, and it often goes on 50% sale. Don't miss out!

EDITED version after way more hour and nearing the endgame. I'm still going to give an average review to this game, leaning towards 'not recommended' : The game has very good elements in my opinion, such as : - the voice acting - the general art direction, the backgrounds are gorgeous, animations smooth, and the soundtrack fits perfectly - the boss fights are quite challenging at first but once you find the patterns it becomes satisfying - some platforming puzzles are fun BUT : - requires Uconnect - if the boss fights are mostly satisfying, traversing the map is sometimes very tedious because of regular mobs, who are very punitive (even not on hardest difficulty). they can dodge, parry, feint and wreck you, especially because.. - there is no invincibility frame after getting hit, which means that if you're in a crowd, you can get stunlocked and die pretty quick, without a chance to dodge, parry or even touch the floor from the attacks. This is not a soul-like but sometimes you're just minding your own business and a melee + archer combo decide you're going to die, and you do. quite frustrating. - flying enemies have a random hitbox I still haven't figured out, it feels my blades go through them half of the time - some platforming puzzles are NOT FUN. it feels like they tried to compete in the 'impossibly unfair platform' category : you'll get killed by some environment elements you couldn't see, or once you see them it's too late to do anything about it. Too many times, the only way out of a puzzle is die, remember why, and don't get caught the next time. (For examples, sawblades covering the whole room necessitating you to create a teleport anchor on the other side BEFORE you know the sawblades will come from a side. That, several times in a row). Some people have fun doing that, dying traps after traps until the whole sequence is learned, I don't. - General sound bugs, freezes, crashes and infinite load screens. So, this game has excellent elements and this is why I'm going to push through and finish it. But I'm a completionist, I find satisfaction in 100%ing achievements, and I won't do it with this one for all these reasons. EDIT 2 for bonus rage : the last platforming side quest with the bells to retrieve is so infuriating and has environment hitboxes so unpredictable I just raged uninstalled the game after spending 20 minutes on it. I won't buy the DLC, if only, simply because of that platforming puzzle. I wonder how the devs feel about making things so annoying it pushes people to not buy their content. Anyway I'm done and I feel better for that !

I've really enjoyed this game a lot. I've completed the story and trying to get all the collectibles out of the main story. I think the game is challenging but not to challenging. I was playing on easy and it's definitely not that easy compared to other games that I've played. Some of the collectibles are hard to reach and takes you a few times to get to them but they can be gotten with enough practice. I haven't bought the DLC for the game but plan to once I get everything out of the main game. Overall, I think the game is great and if you are a fan of the Prince of Persia series you should definitely give it a try also.

[h1]9/10[/h1] [i]The Lost Crown[/i] is a fantastic Metroidvania that combines the strengths of modern titles like [i]Hollow Knight[/i] with the charm of the time bending [i]Prince of Persia[/i] series. I cannot believe that such a fun title came from [i]Ubisoft[/i], a company notorious for filling their games with bloat. While the game could’ve brought some more original ideas, the focus on delivering a fast and fluid gameplay loop results in such a fun time from the second you pick up the controller. [table] [tr] [th]Positives[/th] [th]Negatives[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]✅ Giant levels full of secrets ✅ Fantastic combat & platforming ✅ Incredible animations and visuals. ✅ Fun & unique upgrades [/td] [td]❌ Bland story ❌ Needed more originality ❌ Uplay… [/td] [/tr] [/table] [h1]The Dreaded Uplay…[/h1] As always with Ubisoft, the Steam version is hindered with unnecessary integration with Uplay. It’s not a deal breaker for me, but it causes frustrating limitations such as manual cloud saving, issues when launching, and occasional forced online integration. I mainly played Lost Crown on Steam Deck, and it ran fantastic, but these issues made jumping devices quite a pain. Ubisoft have been releasing games on Steam for decades, it is unbelievable how much of a mess Uplay is, when other developers integrate third party launchers seamlessly. [h1]Sargon of the Immortals[/h1] It's remarkable just how well Sargon controls, they’ve done an amazing job building controls that blend combat and platforming perfectly. Combat is fast yet responsive, with a simple flashy 3-hit combo, a dash, and some extras like a kick and a backstep. It's so easy to understand, yet there are so many ways to combine these abilities to build your own exciting combos, or adapt to enemies on the fly. These movements translate perfectly into platforming. Sargon moves so smoothly, I love all the additional animations he has for specific types of jumps. I loved platforming just as much as combat as a result, however there are some jumping sequences that go on for far too long without checkpoints. There’s also a universal parry which feels really great, and includes cool animations when parrying attacks. The animations on Sargon are incredible, there are so many cool flourishes without compromising readability. Sargon's actions also include a shattered mystical blue flair, which is a beautiful little touch. The most varied element in The Lost Crown are the power ups Sargon acquires. There are some expected inclusions like a double jump or a grappling hook, as well as some curveballs like a shadow the player can place and teleport to at any time. These abilities improve Sargon’s gameplay so much, when the foundations were already excellent. Customisable upgrades add even more variety to Sargon. Amulets hidden across the world can be equipped to modify your abilities significantly, but I was always drawn to Athra Surges, Sargon’s ultimate attacks. The surges can really turn the tide of battle but they’re also awesome flashy attacks, just another example of Sargon’s excellent animations. For all the amazing elements of Sargon, a very notable miss is his character. He's a very serious, jaded and bland protagonist compared to prior Princes, but these faults apply to the entire cast. This really diminishes the Immortals, Sargon's team of warriors with great designs, but lacking stories. A lot of them are underused throughout the adventure, and one disappears entirely without notice unless you buy DLC, which just feels like cut content. [h1]Exploring Mount Qaf[/h1] For being set entirely within a mountain, the areas you visit are excitingly diverse. Mount Qaf is “trapped in time,” with each area being a chaotic mix of different environments across time and space. There's some really cool surprises in the later areas, and of course they’re all filled with fun little secrets. The map is actually massive, and while areas feel rather self contained compared to other metroidvanias, they still interconnect in clever ways. I really enjoyed exploring old areas with new abilities, which has never been easier thanks to the ability to take photos of your surroundings and place them on your map. This is incredible for tracking where you wish to return, it's an innovation I hope to see in many future metroidvanias. The side content definitely could’ve been more fleshed out. Side quests are pretty standard, although I appreciate when they expand on Mount Qaf’s story. There are plenty of optional collectibles and varied challenges, but there aren’t any major hidden areas and a lot of the rewards are static upgrades. Despite this, I still loved secret hunting, as the game just feels amazing to traverse. Mount Qaf takes advantage of your capabilities by including a healthy blend of enemies, but the real stars are the boss fights. Again, the animation really pops off in these encounters, each fight tends to have one really climactic moment that looks amazing. Bosses do start quite simple, but improve a lot as you acquire more movement options as they can challenge you in several ways. However, some enemies tend to rely on annoying tactics. Late game foes love to spam unblockable attacks, which diminish Sargon’s varied options when used constantly. Some of the bigger attacks with long wind ups tend to have very unusual and frustrating parry windows. [h1]Mask of Darkness[/h1] The Lost Crown’s DLC expands on Radjen, a character who seemingly vanishes from the main story halfway through. Unlike The Lost Crown, this really isn’t worth your time. The extra story snippets don’t add a lot beyond expanding a pretty dull character and their relationship with the antagonist. However the main issue stems from just how unfun it is to play. Mask of Darkness strips you of all of your upgrades. Reduced health, limited healing, all your abilities, amulets, all gone! I was really hoping Mask of Darkness would do more with a fully empowered Sargon, but instead you get a version that's weaker than the beginning of the game! All this really accomplishes is making this DLC an annoying trial. Most of the adventure is built around really long parkour sequences without checkpoints. These sequences were already the worst element of the base game, but now without healing, mistakes are far more costly. I think there are a couple good ideas sprinkled in this DLC, but the majority of its runtime is just an aggravating play that adds nothing to the experience. [h1] Final Thoughts[/h1] [i]The Lost Crown[/i] is the sleeper hit of 2024, it's a game that deserves far more attention than it got last year. I’d implore you to try it out if you’re a fan of Action games, Metroidvanias, or the [i]Prince of Persia[/i] franchise.

Beatiful game but ubisoft connect takes 15 minutes to launch (no exaggeration) and there is no way to play it native on steam so its basically unplayable.

Played this for 20 hours on my Switch before buying it on sale on Steam to experience the smooth combat at 120 FPS. Game looks and runs flawlessly, kudos to the devs for such a fun and well made metroidvania. However, Ubisoft ruins everything with their always online "Ubisoft Connect" + Denuvo DRM and forcing you to create a Ubisoft account. No other platform (PS5, Switch, Xbox) has this requirement, making the PC version the objectively worst experience. I also learned that Ubi disbanded the team after this game launched. I will rebuy the game when/if the online DRM + Denuvo get removed. Mega thumbs up to the devs, and screw Ubisoft management.

Unplayable on Steam Deck. The game requires you to sign in, but refuses to connect to the servers. You're stuck in an endless loop of entering Ubisoft login details, clicking Login, and then the page refreshes saying your session timed out. I wrestled with this for 15 minutes and gave up. Refund. It's too bad, it looks like a fun game and I was excited to play it. But their online requirement and broken servers actively prevent me from playing their game. Ridiculous.

Absolutely fantastic game, do yourself a favor and pick it up right now. Let's start with the platforming, this game absolutely knocks it out of the park with the platforming sections and level design as well, especially how well integrated it is with the metroidvania level design, I honestly couldn't get enough of it. Secondly, I want to mention that the movement in this game is very smooth and it's very fun to explore around this game with the dashes and slides, I found myself sometimes ignoring the fast travel mechanic as it is just fun to go to a place and re-do the platforming sections. Combat is very satisfying and fairly deep with a lot of combos, mechanics and enemy variety. The parrying in this game is especially satisfying especially with the amulet that makes it slow down enemies. The bosses are really good and well balanced, they're on the easier side, but one of them in particular, Artaban, is absolutely amazing and very challenging, defeating him gave me a sense of satisfaction I rarely find in similar games and I even went in and fought him again in the boss revenge mode that allows you to re-challenge bosses again. Everything else in this game is really well done including story, plot, dialogue, art direction, art style, audio, music... etc. Everything is just perfect. On the technical side, this game is very polished and I encountered very few minor bugs. My only issue with the game is the last third of it feels a lot easier and more boring than before, and I think it is mainly due to the advanced movement abilities that you unlock, because at that point you can pretty much be anywhere on the screen at any time which I found made the level design a bit lacking and requires little to no percision with the platforming. As for the DLC, it seems to be mixed on the playerbase side, which is surprising to me because I found it just as good as the base game, mainly because it feels like it was supposed to be part of the main game but the publisher wanted to squeeze a bit more money out of its customers oh well. The main complaint I've seen from people is that it's very frustrating and requires perfect percision, which is something I kinda understand but disagree with. The platforming sections are definitely more challenging than the main sections of the base game but there are side areas there that are way harder than anything in the DLC. My favorite thing the DLC added is an amulet that allows you to riposte after a successful parry, which is very satisfying to pull off against bosses, but I wish it was in the early game to allow more uses of it. Overall, I think this game is absolutely amazing and I loved every minute I spent on it. I highly recommend it! P.S. I would also like to mention is that this game takes heavy inspiration from hollow knight, so if you like that game, I think you'll love this one too. A few mechanics are directly lifted from HK, such as amulets/charms and ash pots/grubs.

This game is great. Platforming and fights are fun. Bosses are well-designed and their fights are great. Environment and music is also really good. Overall it's really fun to play this game. That being said, you are forced to connect to the Ubisoft Connect which in my case made my game crash constantly forcing me to re-fight some bosses multiple times. This issue only happens with games that require Ubisoft Connect. When I purchase a game on STEAM, I don't wanna have to connect to another game platform, especially if it makes my game crash. Get rid of this and I'll change my vote.

Good thing Ubislop disbanded the entire team after releasing the game. I was worried they were gonna start making good games again.