Full video review: https://youtu.be/2NU7YZFD0h0

What happens when you take the studio that made the excellent Rayman Legends and task them with tackling a new Prince of Persia game? Well, you get a pretty solid metroidvania.

Background
When this game was revealed, it was blasted by negative comments. It is a bit of a change of pace for the series, but I am a pretty big metroidvania fan and also a fan of the studio’s past works so I was looking forward to this one. And the devs pretty much delivered on that expectation. This is a full-fledged, high production value metroidvania that comes with just about everything I like about the genre plus some.

Combat
When I first started playing, I was actually a bit disappointed by the combat. You have your single attack button you just press repeatedly - and that’s pretty much it. There isn’t really much in the way of additional moves or alternate combos outside of some directional changes. This makes the early game a bit basic. As I played though, the game gradually introduced more mechanics and I kinda grew to like it.

The combat is fast-paced, challenging even on the game’s normal difficulty, and has a nice sense of weight to it. You don’t just ragdoll, you get slapped around and you actually feel it. Within a few hours, I was dashing, parrying, dodging, shooting, comboing, and all of this just felt good to do. The simplicity of its inputs became a nonissue for me.

Exploration and Movement
The Lost Crown is a proper metroidvania through and through, giving you access to large sections of the map right off the bat, but you not really fully being able to explore it all the first time you see it. You’ll have to come back at some point when you have that air dash or that teleportation move, and only then will you access that that previously inaccessible ledge leads to an entirely new area with like 20 new rooms to go through.

The map here is massive and I quite liked the variety offered by the different biomes. You get your usual desert areas and catacombs, but also a forest area, a sunken harbor, a snowy mountaintop - it’s got a lot going on and each biome has its own set of enemies too. The game in general does a great job at avoiding that sense of repetition, both through its enemy variety and the actual levels too.

The pacing is also solid. You are introduced to new mechanics right up until the end of the game and I really liked how each made movement even more fun than the last.

Content and Length
There are a ton of secrets, collectibles, and even full side quests to complete that you can find just wandering around. Some of these sidequests are pretty simple, but some are genuinely fun, like the one that introduces eight different minibosses that need their spirits freed or the one that has you repeatedly freeing this guy from getting stuck in the oddest of places, often requiring you to parkour your way into the room he’s found himself in.

I think best of all, this side content was added without making the experience feel bloated, like what is typical from Ubisoft releases. It took me around 15 hours to beat the game and that felt like a really nice length for a metroidvania like this. Not too long, not too short, and still plenty of room for me to complete all of the side content. I can easily see completionists getting a good 20-30 hours out of this one.

Story
I can’t say I really liked the story, but I also cannot deny that it wasn’t outright bad. It is just average. The characters are forgettable and while the twists can be surprising, I can’t say they had much impact on me due to not really caring for the characters. They’re just not given really any time to develop, making the story come off as basic.

Graphics and Music
On the whole, I cannot say that the game looks bad. It looks fine for what it is. I liked the stylized approach, the detailing was decent, the lighting, camera, and all of that was fine, it’s just brought down a bit by the fact that this is still obviously a game designed for the last console generation and it shows. The UI design in particular might be even worse than that, it looks like something I would get in a mobile game. Same with the music, which I liked in game, but not quite enough to listen to outside of it. Again, just fine.

Performance
No issues playing at 4k 144fps on my 3080 Ti and nothing in the way of frame stutters, freezing, or crashes. That said, I did run into several bugs. I had the camera break on me a few times, including during a boss fight where a cutscene was playing and my camera wasn’t focused on it so it kinda just looked like a mess. I also had my character get their model stuck in one pose a few times and the animations sometimes bugged out on me too. Nothing too major aside from that one cutscene one, but the game could use a bit more polish regardless.

Overall
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a solid metroidvania and easily one of the best I have played in years. The combat, despite its initial simplicity, grows to become much more than that, with a full slate of abilities used both there and in exploration. The exploration is also really rewarding, with excellent level design, plenty of biome and enemy variety, and tons of secrets to find. The story and graphics may be a bit disappointing, but I had a lot of fun with this one, much more so than I thought I would going into it. An easy recommendation for metroidvania fans, regardless of your experience with Prince of Persia titles.

Glad to say that Ubisoft Montpellier delivered. After resurrecting the Rayman franchise in a spectacular fashion and then being stuck with working on Beyond Good & Evil 2 for years, they came back swing and revived another beloved franchise and ended up creating what I now consider my favorite Prince of Persia game.

The Lost Crown is a visually stunning game that manages to tell a compelling story. The whole gang surrounding main character Sargon consists of fun characters and especially for a metroidvania, a genre that isn't particularly known for good stories, it's really well done.

It seems like the developers tried to rethink some of the genre conventions and focused a lot on quality of life improvements. For example checkpoints are heavily hinted at with a golden glimmer, indicating which direction you need to go for a safe haven and there's the option to instantly restart bossfights if you end up losing, saving you potentially multiple trips.

My favorite mechanic however are the memory shards. I can't count the amount of times I was stuck in a metroidvania game and totally forgot which paths on the map needed a specific ability. In PoP you can just press a button and create a screenshot that shows exactly what 'problem' stopped your progress in an area, making it very easy to check back where to go with your new unlocked ability or gadget.

The abilities are mostly your typical stuff like a double jump and dash but there are also some creative skills that lead to interesting puzzle solving and even found their way into combat. None of the abilities feel restrictive or forced.

Which leads me to the combat, which is ridiculously in-depth for a 2D game. We're talking multiple combos, launchers, sweeps, chargables, animation cancelling, parries ... all that good stuff. There's even a training area that lets you practice combos and tutorials which reveal combat possibilities I myself have not thought of until that point.

Bosses are not always launchable and therefore it's harder to style on them, but due to the fast pacing of combat you barely have any downtime and are able to keep attacking. There are rarely phases where you need to constantly dodge to then get one or two hits in, which I was thankful for. Unlockable super attacks added a nice touch, especially since trying to fill the gauge leads to more tactical risk/reward aspects. Like parrying an attack is harder than simply dodging, but it also fills up your 'Athra' by a decent amount. But getting hit also lets you lose some of it.

The platforming passages feel very fluid and provided a nice challenge. There is even an equivalent to Celestes strawberries in the form of coins you can only collect by safely returning to a safe zone landing on your feet. The platforming might even be my favorite aspect of the game, even though the fights, puzzles and exploration are also great.

I have very little critcism about the game. I think the RPG elements, like upgrading your weapons and amulets (which are just straight-up the charms of Hollow Knight) are not really needed and maybe it could need some more bosses, but it never really bothered me much. Even the length of the game felt fine because I kept unlocking new abilities and areas feel very much different from each other. They knew how to mix things up over the 20+ hours it took me to beat the game. The side quests are also a nice touch that manage to tell some nice stories and are never forced on you.

The worst I can say about the game is probably that it feels like a "best of Metroidvania". There aren't many original aspects to the game and they happily helped themselves to mechanics of other popular games. However, it's all executed very well and never feels shoehorned in.

The 50 bucks feel like a fair price considering the quality and length of the game and it would be nice seeing this game succeed because having Ubisoft develop more AA singleplayer experiences like this would be great.

Didn't really keep an eye on this one's development but after hearing recently that the Rayman team was working on it I decided to take a crack at it.

They clearly have a good grasp on what makes a compelling metroidvania. Well placed upgrades and abilities to keep the pacing consistent, easy to get into flashy combat with depth and customisation, plenty of visual cues to encourage exploration, hell if I was good enough I could even perform a few instances of sequence breaking. However I feel like there was something lost in their attempt to balance accessibility and open-ended structure. The linear (and honestly subpar) narrative structure doesn't translate well for this kind of game unless you use Guided mode religiously because there's no guarantee you won't go out of order. It doesn't really help when the game opens it's map 60% through the campaign to ask you to hunt for key items in tucked away in far corners. This could've been a great 15 hour puzzle platformer if they kept the more linear design instead of shifting the more metroid-like level design.

Outside the screenshot map marker this won't the most innovative game out there but Montpellier has something going for them right now and I hope to see this utilised in future projects because the fact a modern Ubisoft game of this caliber can exist is more of a miracle than I can say really.

I need girls to look at me the same way white people looked at the Killmonger cut after PoC said they were tired of afros and fades in media.

After years without a remarkable new game in the series—the last one being Forgotten Sands back in 2010—Ubisoft decided to revive the forgotten Prince of Persia franchise, this time with a smaller investment than their AAA Assassin's Creed titles, but this one is perhaps incredibly better.

The Lost Crown was produced by Ubisoft Montpellier, a studio that has not worked on AAA games for a long time, and was mainly responsible for Rayman games in the late UbiArt era, along with some Just Dance and the acclaimed Beyond Good & Evil. I have the impression that this Prince of Persia revival was the idea of the studio heads themselves, given their history of creating smaller-scale games, and it turned out to be a perfect match.

2D gameplay
It's difficult to write any text about this game without mentioning the already tired—but still relevant—term "metroidvania." This is, if I'm not mistaken, the first game in the series that follows this style of non-linear exploration, and it's impressive how Ubisoft never took the series in this direction before, even during the era of handhelds like GBA or Nintendo DS, as it fitted perfectly with those platforms.

Our hero, Sargon, explores Mount Qaf to try to save the Prince—who is not the protagonist this time—along with the other Champions of the Persian kingdom, but ends up trapped in the mountain's curse. There, time passes strangely, and everyone present becomes confused and lost in this mysterious mountain.

The Mount Qaf would be this time's Dracula's castle, with various diverse environments such as forests, sewers, towers, temples, and other places that do not limit themselves to the sandy environments that always illustrate the series'' previous iterations.

The map is in the Metroid/Castlevania style, with places that cannot be explored immediately and must be visited later. A very cool thing here is an internal function of the game to take screenshots of places and save them in the map location you want to revisit later. This way, points of interest can be recalled at any time during the journey. Those screenshots are limited and there are collectables that enable the player to take more of those when he gets further into the game.

Story and Setting
As already mentioned, the Prince is not the protagonist this time, but Sargon, a Persian warrior who, after a fierce battle with his war comrades, sees his prince being kidnapped by a general who fought by his side. Chasing her to Mount Qaf, everyone gets emprisioned in the mountain, and the adventure unfolds through encounters on the map throughout the game.

Not only enemies appear, but also other characters who will help you, like the Mage and the goddess Kaheva, who sell items and forge improvements for your weapons and accessories; Artaban, who teaches combos and new moves to Sargon, and the guide Fariba, a child who seems to know the entire game map and gives you guides not to get lost during the main quest.

The game's environments, as mentioned above, are quite varied, and the player doesn't get bored with repetitions of scenarios and themes. The map is HUGE, perhaps about 6 or 7 times larger than the castle in Symphony of the Night. This may explain the 25-hour duration of the game if the player follows only the main path.

Combat
One of the most enjoyable things about Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is the combat; Sargon has several combos at his disposal, which can be chained with arrow shots, low blows, and aerial attacks, reminiscent of games in the Devil May Cry series at some points.

In addition, Sargon has special abilities that help him finish enemies faster and must be recharged with the parry system. Regarding the parry, the button press window to counter an enemy attack is generous on normal difficulty, but not all attacks are telegraphed, so even the simplest enemies on the map will require some attention from the player.
Differently from Symphony of the Night, this isn't the type of game where monsters are made of paper; each encounter can be decisive in sending you back a good chunk to the last checkpoint.

Quality of Life, Engine, and Other Details
This analysis was made on the PC, but it is known that the game runs smoothly at 60 FPS even on the Switch.
On the PS5 and PC, it can run at up to 144 FPS, making difficult parries easier and everything much smoother and more beautiful to watch.

Graphically the game is impeccable. Although it runs on Unity, the game does not suffer from common hiccups associated with misuse of the engine. Everything is very well animated, and the transitions between scenes are harmonious and subtle. The animations of special attacks and some cutscenes that run directly in the engine are also flawless.

The art style is reminiscent of Overwatch, with characters with strong but expressive features, clearly developed on 2D sketches that have been masterfully translated into 3D.

In addition, the game has native support for Dual Sense even on PC, displaying the Sony controller buttons without the need for external software for the game to recognize the controller.

A negative point for brazilian readers of this review is that Ubisoft left Portuguese out of the list of dubbing options. The text translation is great, but it would be perfect if we also had a dubbing in our language. Even Persian is present—which I find very fair—but portuguese is not one of the available options, unfortunately.

Soundtrack
The music of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is perhaps the weakest point. I remember very well the soundtrack of the Sands of Time game, which had Arabic tones, perhaps even stereotyped, but very enjoyable to listen to during exploration.
Here in The Lost Crown, the music is very subtle and not very remarkable. Even increasing the volume in the options, there is no standout track during gameplay. This can be considered a negative point because around the middle of the game, where exploration becomes more difficult and the player starts to walk in circles—if the guide option is not activated—hearing the same bland music leaves the experience a bit below what it could deliver, and maybe makes the player seek out a podcast or video to listen to on the second screen or on their phone.

Conclusion
With at least 25 hours of gameplay, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a triumphant return to the series we thought was forgotten in Ubisoft's chests.

With flawless gameplay, ranging from combat to exploration where there are no design flaws, we have a well-rounded game that not only delivers in the quality of its structure but also in the technical aspect.

Running perfectly on all available platforms, the newest Prince's game shows the passion, dedication, and talent of Ubisoft Montpellier studio, which even with a smaller investment, delivered a product that competes head-to-head with even the best Assassin's Creed titles. And maybe beats them all.

"𝑷𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑰𝒔 𝑭𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝑩𝒂𝒄𝒌..."

"𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂𝒏 𝑨𝒎𝒂𝒛𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚..."

"𝑨𝒏 𝑨𝒎𝒂𝒛𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑮𝒂𝒎𝒆..."

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown... Diversão Senhoras e Senhores DIVERSÃO é o Nome...

Cara, eu não vou mentir, joguei a demo desse jogo e fiquei feliz pelo o que foi apresentado nela... E devo dizer que apenas ela já foi o suficiente para me fazer querer jogar o game por completo.... Mas antes de falar disso queria falar sobre o estúdio desse carinha aqui...

PoP: The Lost Crow foi feito pela Ubisoft Montpelier, que é, ao menos para mim, o único estúdio interno da Ubisoft que me chama atenção... Isso pois, de uns anos para cá, especificamente de 2013 prá cá, eu tenho perdido bastante interesse nos jogos dessa distribuidora em geral... Acho que o público em si também tem perdido o interesse, por muitos motivos diferentes que não pretendo citar aqui...

Todavia o estúdio Montpelier sempre foi uma exceção dentro da Ubisoft por si, principalmente pelo fato de que seus jogos sempre tentavam ser mais experimentais... A ideia de Child of Light veio desse estúdio, mesmo que eles em si não o tenha desenvolvido... Porém jogos como Rayman Origins e Legends e Honest Hearts forem feitos por eles... E todos esses três são extremamente únicos em suas ideias e aplicações, principalmente...

Então quando vi que eles estavam fazendo um Metroidvania de Prince of Persia definitivamente coloquei o jogo em meu radar, porém ele ainda precisa se provar.... E bom a Demo serviu pra isso...

Eu gostei muito do que foi apresentado nela, mas ainda assim tinha um probleminha, o preço, não rolava pagar cinquenta dólares nesse momento então decidi seguir outro caminho... O Ubisoft+ meio que me ajudou a economizar dinheiro, já que eu paguei um mês da assinatura, fiz 100% do que o game tinha, e ainda consegui começar a jogar ele dia 15... Pois a versão do serviço era a Deluxe...

O grande problema é que depois que o serviço terminar eu não vou conseguir jogar novamente, mas não me preocupo com isso agora, pois tenho vários jogos pelo caminho...

Mas falando do jogo em si... Rapaz eu me diverti demais jogando ele, não apenas porque tendo a afirmar que o combate de The Last Crow é o melhor combate já apresentado em um Metroidvania, tipo, de Todos os Tempos... Mas principalmente pois achei ele extremamente coeso do começo ao fim...

A historia tem ótimos Twists ao longo dela, alguns me surpreenderam muito, e também é contada de forma bem cadenciada, sem acelerar nos momentos errados, ou desacelerar desnecessariamente... Em geral os personagens também são interessantes, e o Sargon, protagonista, me deixou com uma sensação boa no final, ele tem personalidade, embora falte um pouco de carisma... Mas devo dizer que ele segura muito bem as pontas, naquilo que lhe é proposto.

Agora um ponto negativo é que o jogo poderia sim ter algumas skills a mais, para diversificar um pouco mais sua gameplay, não precisa ser exagerado ao ponto de não utilizarmos nada... Mas precisa ter ao ponto de não sentirmos falta, e as vezes em The Lost Crown eu senti falta de uma pitadinha a mais...

Mas sendo sincero, isso não reduz nem um pouco os acertos desse jogo, sua exploração é maravilhosa, e a movimentação é ainda melhor, tinha vezes que eu apenas me pegava andando de um lado para o outro do mapa simplesmente por que era divertido... As animações são muito bem construídas, seja a de saltar e atacar até a de trocar de direção quando se está correndo...

The Lost Crown acerta em cheio no que torna um Metrodvania bom... Um mundo bem construído, com um mapa interessante, que recompensa a exploração e convida os jogadores a tal... Além de ter algo que chama muitos jogadores, embora eu mesmo não priorize tanto isso, o combate, que como disse é maravilhoso...

No final das contas Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown não tem um mapa e mundo tão fantásticos como Hollow Knight, não é tão bonito quanto Ori, nem tem a mágica exploração de Metroid ou a essência especial de Castlevania.... Mas ele não precisa, pois é tão coeso e divertido, que talvez ele esteja na mesma prateleira dos citados acima...

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown não é nenhum deles, fato, mas ele é The Lost Crown, único em sua aplicação, divertido em sua essência, e bem aplicado na realidade...

Um acerto que me deixou muito feliz, e que torço para que torço para que a Ubisoft repita... Acredito que ele deve ficar na minha lista de melhores do ano até o final de 2024, ao menos assim espero... Para Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, um maravilhoso 9.4/10 ou 4.5/5... Gostei muito de joga-lo...

Absolutely amazing, do not sleep on this, this was an insane amount of fun from beginning to end. The lost crown is a new metroidvania that takes plenty of notes from the likes of hollow knight and the ori games, but it has plenty more to offer and might even set a new standard for fast-paced 2D platforming.

When I say it takes a lot of notes from hollow knight, that’s true in many aspects and I don’t think its a bad thing at all, the best games borrow from other great games and this doesn’t feel overly derivative. In HK’s case (my favourite game ever), its a no brainer, because its a masterclass of design and more games should borrow from it and put their own spin on things. The amulet system is straight up hollow knight’s charms and there’s an innocent npc who hums and gives you maps cheap (and is somehow able to reach impossible locations). Other than that there’s a general feel to the gameplay and the vibe of some areas that feel highly inspired by HK and ori. For the most part, massive portions of this play like the white palace / path of pain but more forgiving. This isn’t to say the game isn’t challenging though, some parts are really tricky to manoeuvre and solve but it all works brilliantly.

Movement is by far this games’ biggest success, I also feel like it has basically no dips in quality, it takes some getting used to because the gamefeel is quite different to other metroidvanias but once it clicks it feels absolutely fantastic. It starts off a little generic but when you stick with it it just gets better and better, I LOVE the fact that it never dips or slows the pace down, many would argue even hollow knight has its weaker moments, this game just doesn’t? At least not in the gameplay, the story and vibe aren’t as gripping. In pure gameplay this is a 10/10 for real, it is addictive, neuron-activating joy with 0 fluff. What’s crazy to me is that it keeps getting better too, just when you think you’ve seen the coolest part of the game, it hits you with a delightful new challenge that satisfied me time and again. This is a decent length for a metroidvania too, taking me about 18 hours to finish with quite a lot of exploration packed in.

In essence, prince of persia: the lost crown is a giant climbing frame that also functions as a interlocking maze. Everything I love about metroidvanias is brought out in full force and then they take it a step further with unique and clever new abilities and intense, punishing combat that takes a lot of practice but delivers outstandingly tight action with dozens of amazing finishers and special moves, it feels almost like what a 2D sekiro would look like and that’s some of the highest praise I can give. There is a focus on ‘juggling’ enemies and maintaining your combo whilst you weave around attacks and projectiles and anticipate your chance for a counter, in some ways it kind of made me think of smash bros too which is an odd comparison but the range of moves sargon has (he basically has ‘tilts’ and different combo routes) combined with the 2D platform fighting and floaty airtime the game allows did not feel all that dissimilar! Attacking an enemy from below a platform with an up air attack and capitalising from that into a punishing air combo, that’s some smash stuff right there, sargon for smash bros?? Then there’s the bosses, taking everything that’s already great about the combat and heightening it further. There’s a really nice range to the bosses in this game, covering all bases and testing your reactions in many different situations, plus their movesets are limited but not too limited and the ‘tells’ feel just right to give you a window to anticipate and react to certain attacks, the devs really did their homework on hollow knight! That’s what this game is really, it is passionate devs demonstrating that they know what makes a great metroidvania since every aspect of the gameplay from exploration to platforming to combat to the power fantasy is delivered.

Now, what I will say is the gameplay and story don’t entirely marry up for me, neither does the overall atmosphere. This is a very pretty game with awesome audio design on the gameplay side, but ‘vibe’ and driving motivations are also important in this genre and this game isn’t bad for that but its not great either. The story feels like a fairly generic fantasy story about royalty and magic powers, complete with quite boring npcs and voice acting that, sadly, left something to be desired. I never found any of it to be terrible but there’s just a lack of convincing drama or compelling characters, but it still has its own sort of appeal in the same way a modern superhero movie does I guess, in terms of quality its in that sort of vein too. The story leads your exploration and moment to moment gameplay nicely enough, giving enough context to your powers and your objectives to make it all feel worth it, but it could have been better.

Must say though, I was incredibly positively surprised by this, I fell in love with it a couple hours in and went from ‘yeah this is good’ to ‘this is one of the best metroidvanias of all time’, plus there really is something for everyone here. While i’m sprinting, dashing, vaulting and grappling my way though the game at 100 miles per hour there’s this massive grin on my face at all times and it just doesn’t let up at any point, its constant, for those with attention span issues: this shit is going to blow your mind and keep you concentrated. On top of all this, it controls flawlessly, has tons of great quality of life features like generous coyote time and near instant load / waiting times (I did play on ps5 though) and notably, there are generous accessibility options like aim assist and objective markers which are often lacking in this genre.

Outstanding, play this asap.

Obrigado Ubisoft, essa é a desculpa perfeita depois daquela bomba de Skull and Bones (e Assassin's Creed Mirage). Prince of Persia Lost Crown é literalmente o melhor jogo da Ubi nos ultimos 5 anos.
- Não ficou repetitivo em nenhum momento já que o jogo ainda apresenta novos aspectos interessantes de gameplay.
- O mapa é ENORME, parecido com o Ori, os cenários vão ficando cada vez mais difíceis conforme você joga, com diferentes tipos de obstáculos e inimigos, MUITO PARA EXPLORAR.
- O combate é viciante, não é daqueles jogos smash buttons, já que o jogo pode ser bastante desafiador dependendo da dificuldade que você joga, há também muitos combos e habilidades que você desbloqueará enquanto joga.
- A variedade de inimigos é MUITO vasta, nas minhas 15 horas de jogo, ainda estou encontrando novos inimigos em cada cenário que entro, alguns deles podem te fazer gritar por serem irritantes demais (o que é ótimo).
- As lutas contra chefes são bem feitas, únicas e não se repetem durante o jogo. Alguns deles são mais fáceis, mas alguns deles podem ser bastante desafiadores se você jogar em dificuldades mais altas.
- Animações belissimas nos golpes.
- A história em si é bastante simples, admito que não prestei atenção em todos os detalhes dela pois há muito para ler mas gosto dos personagens e do personagem principal.
- A OST e o design de som são bons.
- Os primeiros 30 minutos de jogo podem ser um pouco lentos, mas o ritmo melhora muito quando você chega ao mapa principal.
- Acredito que o estilo gráfico/arte do jogo não será impressionante para muitos de vocês, mas ele realmente brilha em alguns momentos, especialmente em algumas cenas de combate ou animações de parry/habilidades.
Não estou acostumado com esse tipo de jogo, pois só joguei Ori 1 e 2, mas Prince of Persia The Lost Crown é um jogo excelente, bom trabalho Ubisoft, espero mais jogos de qualidade como esse.

Hoje, vou falar sobre o recém-jogado por mim Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Como sou um grande fã da série Prince of Persia, não poderia deixar de jogar essa maravilha. Apesar de o jogo ter um tom bastante diferente dos anteriores da franquia, eu simplesmente o amei da maneira que foi lançado em 2024.

No jogo, assumimos o papel de Sargon, um jovem muito poderoso cujo poder o permite ingressar em uma unidade de elite que defende a Pérsia contra ameaças. Em uma teia de traições, Sargon terá que colocar sua lealdade à prova. Em sua jornada para salvar o príncipe Ghassan, ele atravessará a montanha Qaf, enfeitiçada pelo tempo, e os segredos que descobrirá mudarão para sempre o destino de seu reino.

À primeira vista, ou mesmo após algumas horas, a história pode parecer superficial e previsível. Bem, não é uma obra-prima da narrativa, mas contrariando minhas preocupações iniciais, a história apresentada conseguiu se sustentar. Os plots presentes no game não são totalmente fracos; ao contrário, os segredos dos antigos deuses, conflitos imperiais e o passado dos personagens trazem um tom muito agradável a esse mundo e se tornam um baita complemento à jogabilidade. Um complemento, porque, afinal, esse jogo nunca se tratou realmente do enredo. Em primeiro plano, geralmente está a jogabilidade: exploração agradável e fluida, puzzles de ambiente interessantes e combate espetacular. Em suas premissas, o novo Prince of Persia é uma metroidvania típica. Somos lançados em uma grande localidade composta por vários biomas, entre os quais teoricamente podemos nos mover sem restrições, mas na prática desbloquearemos atalhos e adquiriremos novos Poderes Temporais para avançar. No final de cada estágio, enfrentaremos um chefe, e no final das sequências de plataforma mais difíceis, encontraremos recompensas. Certamente, eu curti para caramba o trabalho da nossa querida Ubisoft nesse game, afinal, assim como em Avatar, aqui também eles jogam no seguro, não tentam redefinir o gênero, nem buscam introduzir inovações de forma forçada. Ele é simplesmente o que é, um metroidvania.

Falando um pouco mais sobre nossa jogabilidade no game, Sargon é capaz de correr pelas paredes, saltar delas e executar uma série de outras acrobacias que o levam aos lugares desejados. Inicialmente, os elementos de plataforma não apresentam muita dificuldade, mas à medida que avançamos, a diversão se complica. Por um lado, é necessário compreender bem os poderes e habilidades que aprendemos com Sargon durante o jogo, por outro, é preciso saber usá-los. E embora o controle seja muito preciso, o personagem se move suavemente, e as armadilhas e elementos do ambiente são distribuídos de maneira justa ao jogador. Nas últimas fases, eu realmente senti que deveria focar muito mais para conseguir passar, porém foi apenas perto do fim mesmo. A cada derrota, eu me saía cada vez melhor, foi uma sensação bem parecida com um game que joguei recentemente, que foi o Ghostrunner, a sensação de você morrer, morrer e morrer, e a cada volta você sente que está ficando cada vez melhor com os seus erros. Poucos jogos conseguem criar esse estado tão bem, então, grandes elogios para a Ubisoft. Foi realmente incrível jogar nesse sentido. As mesmas regras se aplicam à luta. Embora simples no papel, apenas um ataque, esquiva, bloqueio e algumas habilidades desbloqueadas com o tempo, ela se destaca ao mesmo tempo por uma profundidade surpreendente.

Sobre o combate com os chefes, praticamente cada confronto com um "chefe" é único, bem equilibrado e devidamente desafiador. Precisamos masterizar completamente não apenas as regras básicas de movimentação e combate, mas também todas as outras opções disponíveis, além de aprender o que e quando funcionará melhor. Vou ser bem sincero, em algumas dessas batalhas foi bem hard, mas no fim foi muito mais gostoso jogar o game do que propriamente difícil.

Existem outros fatores que fazem esse game também ser muito mais gostoso de jogar do que propriamente dito "frustrante", digamos assim, a começar pela própria construção do jogo. O sistema de progressão é muito bem planejado, e sempre recebemos tempo e oportunidades adequadas para aprender novos truques.

Os gráficos do game são lindamente criativos e belos de se ver, apesar de não ser nenhum game de "nova geração" graficamente falando, o game puxa muito cores neon-pastel e personagens e ambiente são apenas uma parte da identidade visual desse novo Prince of Persia. Em muitos momentos, a tela ganha ação digna de animes como Dragon Ball. Isso é especialmente visível nas animações de golpes especiais ou contra-ataques, e devo admitir que... funciona muito bem.

O áudio também merece elogios - os atores e atrizes fizeram um ótimo trabalho, e a trilha sonora delicada e não intrusiva tornava a navegação pelos corredores cheios de armadilhas ainda mais agradável.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown é um excelente game, com jogabilidade fluida e satisfatória, elementos desafiadores de plataforma, confrontos com chefes e um sistema de combate rico em possibilidades. Janeiro mal começou, e eu já tenho basicamente um dos games da minha lista de GOTY pessoal para o ano de 2024.

Pontos positivos:

- excelentes combates
- gráficos belos e estilizados, semelhantes a um anime
- controle simples, mas oferecendo muitas possibilidades

Pontos negativos:

- Alguns chefes são bem cansativos de enfrentar

Versão utilizada para análise: Xbox Series.

This game is an incredible metroidvania with very fun combat and fluid movement that feels great even without every upgrade. The mechanics feel very fun, each new upgrade improving both movement and combat felt very good as more and more of the map unlocked. I love games that push the extents of their movement abilities, so the constant sets of platforming challenges were also incredibly fun. Enemies were plenty varied and fun to fight. Bosses had varied mechanics and interactions with combat that felt really fun to fight, even if initially a bit difficult. The plentiful quality of life was appreciated, especially with the memory shards helping with backtracking.

My main issues with the game were the environments, backtracking, and ending (spoiler free). While stunning to look at with nicely varied environments to explore, there were often rooms that felt empty. Sometimes there were just rooms that served no real purpose or even the lack of objects like pots and stuff to break made it less interesting to backtrack a lot. Small wish that I could have interacted with the environment a bit more, but not a huge issue. In regards to backtracking, I wish the fast travel system wasn't as inconvenient to get around. The fast travel points ranged from being in okay spots to being not very useful to backtrack to. I found myself running through the same rooms too often just to get to a new part of the map or come back to something I had marked. Lastly, the ending and resolution to the story didn't feel particularly satisfying to me. I felt like there were bits that were unresolved, or if they were, did not feel executed well.

Admittedly, most of my issues were pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, only the ending being my biggest let down from an otherwise fantastic game. I would love to be able to refight all the bosses too, so a replay might be warranted in the future.

"Why does the Final Boss look like Fadel Gamescage."

holy FUCK THIS GAME IS SO PEAK. This is a QuagFire-Core game if I've ever seen one. Not only is this, like Metroid Dread, an incredibly polished and fun metroidvania, but, unlike dread, it also manages to push the genre forward in incredible ways!

First, the two issues I have with the game, because they're minor enough to not hurt it at all, but it still is worth bringing up as it kept it from the perfect score it was so close to getting. First, it's fairly buggy, but that's to be expected for a Ubisoft game. And even then, FOR a Ubisoft game it's actually pretty tame. The only ones I noticed were audio bugs, some delayed events, and a character using a TTS voice. Not great, but it's fairly minor. The Enemy Design is also a little suspect because sometimes the wind-ups for unblockable moves don't appear until right before the attack go through, and sometimes it can be a little bullshit.

And that's it. The entire rest of the game is AMAZING. The story starts out slow, but picks up pretty early on and then throughout the rest of the story I'm hooked, with each turn genuinely surprising me, and leading to a very satisfying ending. This is supported by the amazingly polished visuals and the GOD-TIER soundtrack by Mr Ori composer Gareth Coker.

And on top of all of that, this game also has possibly the best combat in... any 2D game ever?? Like the amount of options you have and the speed you can pull this off makes me feel like fucking GOKU. The platforming mechanics and level design also feel super smooth and challenging. Speaking of challenging, the bosses were exhilarating and the stakes get upped each time leading to a bombastic and amazing ass ending.

But exploration is the Metroidvania's core, and not only are there plenty of secrets to find in this game, but it also introduces one of the best mechanics in any MetroidVanias ever. Memory Shards are a reusable tool. It's like map markers, but there is a screenshot attached to them so you can remember why you left that marker later on. This is an absolute GAME CHANGER and something every metroidvania needs from now on. Throw in some smart platforming puzzles and a suite of nice accessibility options and you got yourself one of the most special 2D Side-Scrollers in a fat fucking minute.

I can't believe people hated this game on reveal. What is wrong with yall.

Really rock-solid Metroidvania with exceptional boss fights and flashy presentation.

Also Persian Vergil.

The atmosphere is a bit lacking and the story is pretty rough. Add in a handful of bugs and these problems do detract from the overall package, but the game easily makes up for these shortcomings and ends up being an easy recommend.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown é o suco de Ubisoft, mas com açúcar.

Começando essa review, eu me sinto obrigado a ser sincero e dizer que não concordo com todas as reviews desse game que dizem que ele é um jogo extremamente foda ou uma masterpiece da mídia (tem gente já até falando de indicação ao GOTY).

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown é um metroidvania bem competente, o combate é bom, a ambientação funciona e ainda possui um mapa gigantesco para explorar durante toda a campanha.

Mas fora a direção de arte que funciona muito bem e os bosses que são muito diferentes uns dos outros, devo dizer que esse jogo não me pegou como eu achei que pegaria, com um começo de gameplay lotado de bugs que me fizeram resetar o game duas vezes na mesma parte e um sistema de exploração longo demais ao ponto de ser frustrante para mim.

A história, na minha opinião, não tem nada demais, por mais que tenha sua profundidade. Tem algo nos diálogos estáticos que me incomoda muito, já que todas as cutscenes desse jogo são absolutamente lindas (ter que ficar lendo um diálogo gigantesco ouvindo a dublagem logo após ver um esplendor visual realmente é meio meh).

Os bosses do game são fenomenais, mas se tem algo que me incomodou de verdade foi a quantidade de tempo que cada uma dessas batalhas dura, mesmo com todas as armas upadas e até mesmo depois de você aprender todo o moveset da batalha, cada uma dessas fights é um parto pelo fato delas demorarem demais.

No meio pro final o jogo deu um salto de qualidade gigantesco, já que cada vez mais as mecânicas individuais do game vão sendo desbloqueadas, mas não tenho como não tirar o gosto amargo de que esse jogo simplesmente demora demais para acontecer.

O game tem toda a carinha da Ubisoft, com todos os seus prós e contras, mas mesmo assim, sendo um jogo apenas "acima da média" pra mim, ainda é o melhor lançamento do estúdio em anos, inclusive, tenho que destacar a decisão criativa de incluir dublagem em persa, isso pra mim foi simplesmente incrível para a ambientação do game.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown é um bom jogo, que ensaia boas ideias, mas que devido a alguns bugs matadores, uma gameplay que demora demais a acontecer e uma sensação constante de falta de polimento, a minha experiência foi muito afetada.

Mas ainda assim, vale dar uma olhada, sinto que muita gente vai curtir muito esse jogo, mas ele não me agradou no 100%.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown es un metroidvania muy ágil y frenético en todos sus apartados. El combate te obliga a hacer combos, parrys y esquivar en el momento justo. En el plataformeo es obligatorio no solo ser preciso, sino también saber reaccionar rápido. Esto hace que haya una dinámica de juego que se siente siempre entretenida y fresca. Además, si sumamos a la ecuación una gran inspiración en Hollow Knight nos da como mínimo, un metroidvania muy recomendable.

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‎| ‎Historia:‎★★✩✩✩ | Jugabilidad:★★★★✩ | Gráficos:★★★✩✩ | Música:★★✩✩✩ | RECOMENDADO
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