A well-deserved booster shot for this IP but probably not enough to make it a household name again.
They made a new Ori game in 2024 and I'm totally here for it. The Lost Crown is a welcome return to Prince of Persia by way of a return to its sidescrolling platformer roots that manages to learn most of the right lessons from other more recent games in the genre. The mechanical comparison to Ori and the Will of the Wisps is immediate and constant and there's some definite Metroid Dread DNA here by way of its relatively clean transitions between 2D and 3D. The game sounds great, sports a strong art style, and strikes a great balance between being short and direct on its critical path yet surprisingly challenging once you dig a bit deeper.
Movement is the highlight of the game. Genre mainstays like a double jump and grappling hook are coupled with more unique fair like a positional rewind mechanic and a dimensional shift that all seamlessly combine for some truly satisfying platforming and puzzlesolving. Banging my head against tough platforming challenges was the highlight of the game for me.
Big props for the depth of accessibility/difficulty options for the game. While I didn't tweak them too much in my playthrough, The Lost Crown allows you to choose from 4 different default difficulty settings along with a custom option to edit individual aspects of the difficulty. Being able to edit specific pieces of the difficulty here is huge. No one should have to tap A to break out of ice. It should be illegal.
My main complaint here is the combat. It's far from bad but it never totally clicked for me. Specifically, parrying never quite felt right and basic attacks felt weak for most of my playtime. I felt underpowered for most of the game until the... second to last sword upgrade? At which point the swords were extremely strong. Some strange scaling there.
Overall, a good game that released at the right time in what will be a busy year for games. I wish I liked the game more but as it stands this may be a one-off for the franchise rather than a blueprint to be used in the future.
They made a new Ori game in 2024 and I'm totally here for it. The Lost Crown is a welcome return to Prince of Persia by way of a return to its sidescrolling platformer roots that manages to learn most of the right lessons from other more recent games in the genre. The mechanical comparison to Ori and the Will of the Wisps is immediate and constant and there's some definite Metroid Dread DNA here by way of its relatively clean transitions between 2D and 3D. The game sounds great, sports a strong art style, and strikes a great balance between being short and direct on its critical path yet surprisingly challenging once you dig a bit deeper.
Movement is the highlight of the game. Genre mainstays like a double jump and grappling hook are coupled with more unique fair like a positional rewind mechanic and a dimensional shift that all seamlessly combine for some truly satisfying platforming and puzzlesolving. Banging my head against tough platforming challenges was the highlight of the game for me.
Big props for the depth of accessibility/difficulty options for the game. While I didn't tweak them too much in my playthrough, The Lost Crown allows you to choose from 4 different default difficulty settings along with a custom option to edit individual aspects of the difficulty. Being able to edit specific pieces of the difficulty here is huge. No one should have to tap A to break out of ice. It should be illegal.
My main complaint here is the combat. It's far from bad but it never totally clicked for me. Specifically, parrying never quite felt right and basic attacks felt weak for most of my playtime. I felt underpowered for most of the game until the... second to last sword upgrade? At which point the swords were extremely strong. Some strange scaling there.
Overall, a good game that released at the right time in what will be a busy year for games. I wish I liked the game more but as it stands this may be a one-off for the franchise rather than a blueprint to be used in the future.