This game was awesome, it was REALLY nice to have a prince of persia game to play again. At first it felt more like a standard metroidvania but the game is constantly edging the challenge up, laying in the traversal abilities on top of each other and it hits that point where it doesn't just feel like a metroidvania, it does genuinely feel like a prince of persia game as well with extended chained traversal sequences that ask alot from your timing and accuracy by the time you make it to the end of the game. This game probably has the best combat of any PoP game I've played too, the moveset is fun, enemies are nice and varied very soulsy bosses, controls is smooth and responsive and when you die you know it was your fault. Not something I really thought about pre-release or expected much of, so big thumbs up.

Kind of an interesting take story/world wise, it largely eschews the more common PoP mythology and tropes, there's no sands of time or dagger here, but there's more of a tale to be told than I expected particularly if you take the time to do the side missions and read all the lore.

So I'll go with four stars, my only nitpick is I thought the art direction was great but the actual visuals in execution were a little plain, I would love to have saw something a little more stylized, particularly knowing this team worked on the rayman games previously. Overall though,, a great game and a really good kickoff to 2024.