Just days away from 2024, we already have a strong contender for Game of the Year. Yeah, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown that's good. I want to get back to playing as quickly as possible, so I'll be brief.
(Editor's note: She is not brief.)
The lost crown is a 2D side-scrolling metroidvania. You play as Sargon, a member of the Persian army's elite Immortal squad. After the prince is kidnapped, Sargon and the Immortals travel to Mount Qaf to rescue him. During the journey, Sargon will acquire an arsenal of tools, weapons, and trinkets that will help him overcome the dangers of navigating the mysterious (and enormous) mountain.
This is just a fraction of the map. Is enormous.
This may seem a bit contradictory, but the interesting thing about The lost crown is that, mechanically, it doesn't do anything especially new. The powers Sargon gains to solve the various platforming puzzles are things you've probably seen elsewhere. There's an aerial dash, a bow and arrow (which transforms into a boomerang-like weapon that bounces off surfaces), a dimension-shifting power that reveals disembodied platforms, and an imprinting power that allows Sargon to essentially “save” your place at a location and then you teleport back to it.
I'm not done with the game yet, so this isn't a complete list of powers, but Ubisoft isn't reinventing the platforming wheel here. What he's done is create a game that makes using each and every one of these standard powers ridiculously fun. Shout out to the level designers because the best part of The lost crown It's discovering the complex waltz of buttons I need to press to get from point A to point B, executing that waltz, and then enjoying my divine prowess. Sargon's movement is fluid and the cooldown on powers is forgiving, so even when the puzzles aren't easy (and boy, are they). No), I don't feel frustrated by having to repeat a sequence until I get it right.
One of my favorite puzzles comes a little later in the game, where you're locked in a room and the only way out is to use double ghosts of Sargon to collect a key item out of reach. Ghosts only have a limited amount of time to complete one part of a larger puzzle, such as activating a lever that will open a door allowing another ghost to pass through. Through three ghost doubles I had 12 seconds to fly down a pit, do a double, stand on a pressure plate, double jump to a different pit, activate a lever, teleport to my double's location, and then jump down the wall until reaching the goal. . Yo hate Repetition is the most frustrating part of playing difficult games, but I was so focused, like a saxophonist in the middle of a Charlie Parker solo, that I didn't care that it took me more than 40 tries to not only figure out the solution to the puzzle but to then execute it.
Combat is equally difficult and rewarding. As you progress, everything from regular enemy fights to boss encounters requires you to use every power Sargon has to emerge unscathed. Just like in puzzle platformers, you're memorizing attack patterns, searching your vast arsenal for the right tool, and then executing a complex dance against a boss who will punish you badly for being too greedy with your damage. Throughout the game, Sargon will gain new combat abilities, such as a healing wave or a powerful push, but while some of them are useful for very specific encounters, I found that he could ignore each new ability beyond the first two. They just didn't seem to have consequences or vary enough beyond “hit harder than normal” to justify their use.
Due to the complexity of the puzzles and boss fights, but the relative ease of using your tools and weapons to overcome those obstacles, The lost crown It reminds me more of a soulslike than a metroidvania. What is asked of you, whether in a fight or a puzzle, never feels unfair or tedious, but rather a progressive assessment of your growth. It felt like the game was saying, “Okay, you've had your air dash ability for a while now, let's see how effectively you can use it.” What I like most in video games is when the game reinforces the narrative, and if you combine this idea of the game testing your mastery of skills with the actual narrative of Sargon as a newer, younger member of the Immortals eager to prove his worth, then The lost crown it becomes a game in which you as a player feel like you are growing together with Sargon.
Beyond the fluid platforming and intricate combat, the most innovative aspect of the game is the map. Yes, the map. First of all, it's huge. There are so many places to go and secrets to discover that even when you're not heading towards the next story objective, wherever you end up, you'll get something — either currency to purchase clues or upgrade materials or necklace amulets that enhance Sargon's abilities. On top of that, each area has a distinct theme that influences the type of platforming shenanigans you can expect. There's a sand area that has sand waterfalls that push you through narrow hallways filled with instant-death spikes and in the cursed library section, you'll have to use your bow-boomerang to ring bells that will reveal hidden platforms.
Metroidvanias as a genre can be very tedious if you don't know where to go with the powers you have. In The lost crown, Ubisoft has implemented a wayfinding system whereby you can take screenshots of where you are, which are then pinned to your location on the in-game map. So every time you get a new power-up, you can revisit those screenshots to see if your new toy unlocks a new area. I love these navigation systems, it really shows that Ubisoft respects players' time.
After last year's glut of sprawling, time-consuming but very fun blockbusters, I wanted something smaller and simpler to spend my time on. With The lost crownUbisoft has taken a technically and mechanically simplistic formula (2D side-scrolling metroidvania) and reinvented it into something extraordinary in both narrative and gameplay.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown launches on Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation and PC on January 15.