Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

 

Add Prince of Persia to the list of famous video game franchises that I played for the first time in the past year.  I initially played The Lost Crown on the Switch as a demo and enjoyed it enough that I thought it would be a good game to play on the Portal if I ever got access to the game via Playstation Plus. I lost access to the demo on the Switch and kind of forgot about the game, to be honest. It eventually did come to Playstation Plus, however, and I quickly picked it up and started playing it on the weekends on the Portal.

This game is described as a metroidvania game, meaning as you progress through the game and gain new abilities, you can advance and reach areas that previously could be seen but not reached. I've never heard of this term until I was doing research on this game. It is a combination of the words Metroid and Castlevania. I never played much of the Castlevania games, but I did play a bit of Super Metroid on the Super Nintendo, and this is classic Nintendo game design that I've always enjoyed. The game is a platformer at heart, but unlike Mario games where you always go left to right and the stages are broken up into individual sections, in The Lost Crown you sometimes have to go left, down, or up in order to advance, not just left to right, and the entire game takes up one massive stage/map. The platforming is the best part of the game, and as you advance and acquire new skills, the platforming becomes progressively more difficult. Some sections of the game require you to perfectly time and land 10-15 jumps in a row, in very quick succession, without any rest or stopping points in the middle. Weekend gaming on the Portal almost always includes weekend adult beverages as well, and as this game progressed it actually became quite difficult. At one point I died probably 10 times in a row trying to cross a certain section, and the game actually asked if I wanted to turn on a feature that would allow me to portal through difficult platforming sections. Given the circumstances, I decided to turn on this feature, even though it felt a bit like cheating. This is possibly the most challenging game I've played since Tunic.

The second best part of the game is the boss battles. They are challenging, but force you to rely on the multiple tools and skills that you gain throughout the game. The battles make you think about which tool to use, and oftentimes you have to think quite fast in order to pull off the move and not get hit. This type of battle is much more challenging and engaging than a traditional hack-n-slash style of fight. The graphics are really good as well. I feel like almost all games these days look fantastic, but the 2.5D style utilized in this game was great to look at, especially the backgrounds. The only small concern that I have about the game is that the story was a bit confusing and honestly not all that relevant to the gameplay experience. It involves saving the prince by manipulating time and traveling back prior...you know what, never mind. The cutscenes that explain the story are few and far between, and the gameplay in between the cutscenes is so good that you tend to skip over the plot description in order to get back to the game itself. Otherwise, this game was quite enjoyable and I'll look forward to playing other games in the series when the chance arises.