This game mostly gets all of the stars it is earning because I love a giant Metroidvania and the actual gameplay and combat were fun. But the game is full of problems.
The most noticeable issue is that the game has bugs. Several times the game would drop me out of spike death back to my starting position without the ability to control the map, my character would move but the map/camera would not. Other times I got stuck on the map itself, unable to move around or exit, thus bricking the game. One time I opened one my saved photos that you can place on the map and I was unable to exit from it. And all of this would be fine, and somewhat forgivable, if the game had a more robust checkpoint system. But, it does not. The only time the game saves your progress is when you complete a major event (boss fight) or when you save at a tree. Otherwise, if you should happen to exit the game, or your PS5 updates overnight and restarts itself, you will lose all progress up to your last save. For a modern game this is strange, why is progress not caught with every new door you enter?
The combat is incredibly fun, but despite there being a deep combat system a la Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, you can easily finish the game with some hack and slashing. The combat is never required, you can just jump, dodge and dash your way to success. But it's propulsive, and if you want that feeling of being fast and whipping around the map, you have that power.
Once Sargon achieves more of his move set, you can really get going, it is reminiscent of the Ori games.
As Metroidvania's go, the map is gigantic. It seems to go on endlessly and I loved exploring and unraveling secrets. It's hard to go wrong with a giant Metroidvania style game.
A pretty standard 2D side scrolling adventure game doesn't need a complex story, but Prince of Persia tows the line between wanting to have a complex story and wanting to have a simplistic good guy/bad guy thing. Unfortunately, in never fully committing one way or another, the story itself is muddled and confusing, the lore is unclear, and ultimately I just didn't care what happened to any of the characters.
Would definitely play another entry of this game in the future though, some 30 hours of very entertaining combat and mobility.
The most noticeable issue is that the game has bugs. Several times the game would drop me out of spike death back to my starting position without the ability to control the map, my character would move but the map/camera would not. Other times I got stuck on the map itself, unable to move around or exit, thus bricking the game. One time I opened one my saved photos that you can place on the map and I was unable to exit from it. And all of this would be fine, and somewhat forgivable, if the game had a more robust checkpoint system. But, it does not. The only time the game saves your progress is when you complete a major event (boss fight) or when you save at a tree. Otherwise, if you should happen to exit the game, or your PS5 updates overnight and restarts itself, you will lose all progress up to your last save. For a modern game this is strange, why is progress not caught with every new door you enter?
The combat is incredibly fun, but despite there being a deep combat system a la Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, you can easily finish the game with some hack and slashing. The combat is never required, you can just jump, dodge and dash your way to success. But it's propulsive, and if you want that feeling of being fast and whipping around the map, you have that power.
Once Sargon achieves more of his move set, you can really get going, it is reminiscent of the Ori games.
As Metroidvania's go, the map is gigantic. It seems to go on endlessly and I loved exploring and unraveling secrets. It's hard to go wrong with a giant Metroidvania style game.
A pretty standard 2D side scrolling adventure game doesn't need a complex story, but Prince of Persia tows the line between wanting to have a complex story and wanting to have a simplistic good guy/bad guy thing. Unfortunately, in never fully committing one way or another, the story itself is muddled and confusing, the lore is unclear, and ultimately I just didn't care what happened to any of the characters.
Would definitely play another entry of this game in the future though, some 30 hours of very entertaining combat and mobility.