Turns out that making a Metroid Dread coded Prince of Persia game is a fantastic idea.
I was interested in this one until I heard two things: that it's a Metroidvania and that it's from former Rayman Legends developers. Immediately, the movement feels incredible. I'd go as far saying that it's the Prince of Persia game that feels the best to play. Moving Sargon around feels fluid at the start of the game and only gets better and better as more traversal abilities are unlocked.
Platforming is where it's at here. The bigger than expected map is filled to the brim with different platforming obstacle courses or platforming puzzles that feel great to navigate. It's a really fun map and exploring it constantly gave me that "I have to keep playing to see what's up ahead" feeling.
Oh there's also this amazing feature where you press down on the d-pad and the game logs a picture of the area you're in. This is such an incredible quality of life feature for a Metroidvania game. I want them all to have this now.
There's also combat, which for the most part, is serviceable. It's not particularly exciting but it's also not a huge part of the game. Enemies can be skipped or fought to get the in-game currency. Too many shielded enemies though. Maybe I was bad at fighting them, but they block me so much that they started feeling a little tedious by the end. The bosses though, are definitely the highlight of the combat. Learning the boss patterns was fun. God, some of them took me like 20 tries, I swear. It's good stuff though. Almost always feels fair and they telegraph what they're doing in smart ways.
The story and visuals are fine. I won't really comment much on them because I don't think that's why the game is worth playing. If all you care about is cutting edge graphics, move along. That's not to say PoP is ugly or anything. It looks just fine most of the time, and for the kind of game it is, I'm ok with it. The story, likewise, is kind of skippable. They try to go for a neat twist on the Prince of Persia origin but I didn't care much for most of the characters to be honest. Again, not a reason to play the game imo.
Overall, I'm really impressed by Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. I ended up liking it much more than expected. A great addition to the stable of great Metroidvania games out there. What a great start to 2024!
I was interested in this one until I heard two things: that it's a Metroidvania and that it's from former Rayman Legends developers. Immediately, the movement feels incredible. I'd go as far saying that it's the Prince of Persia game that feels the best to play. Moving Sargon around feels fluid at the start of the game and only gets better and better as more traversal abilities are unlocked.
Platforming is where it's at here. The bigger than expected map is filled to the brim with different platforming obstacle courses or platforming puzzles that feel great to navigate. It's a really fun map and exploring it constantly gave me that "I have to keep playing to see what's up ahead" feeling.
Oh there's also this amazing feature where you press down on the d-pad and the game logs a picture of the area you're in. This is such an incredible quality of life feature for a Metroidvania game. I want them all to have this now.
There's also combat, which for the most part, is serviceable. It's not particularly exciting but it's also not a huge part of the game. Enemies can be skipped or fought to get the in-game currency. Too many shielded enemies though. Maybe I was bad at fighting them, but they block me so much that they started feeling a little tedious by the end. The bosses though, are definitely the highlight of the combat. Learning the boss patterns was fun. God, some of them took me like 20 tries, I swear. It's good stuff though. Almost always feels fair and they telegraph what they're doing in smart ways.
The story and visuals are fine. I won't really comment much on them because I don't think that's why the game is worth playing. If all you care about is cutting edge graphics, move along. That's not to say PoP is ugly or anything. It looks just fine most of the time, and for the kind of game it is, I'm ok with it. The story, likewise, is kind of skippable. They try to go for a neat twist on the Prince of Persia origin but I didn't care much for most of the characters to be honest. Again, not a reason to play the game imo.
Overall, I'm really impressed by Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. I ended up liking it much more than expected. A great addition to the stable of great Metroidvania games out there. What a great start to 2024!