Originally published at: Preview | Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (Hands-On) - XboxEra
A few weeks ago I got to play a couple of hours of The Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown through Ubisoft’s cloud setup. It’s a frenetic, fun Metroidvania oozing with style. I came away mighty impressed with how this one is shaping up.
The Setup
You are Sargon, one of the Immortals of Persia. You serve the crown as its fiercest warriors, able to turn the tide of battle when all hope is lost. The game starts with an epic battle as you and your comrades tutorialize your way through dozens of enemies. It’s big, bombastic, and gorgeous. Gareth Coker’s soundtrack compliments it all well, and even playing through the cloud using my mediocre cellular internet it was a blast.
“Things” happen and eventually you end up in an enormous labyrinth of a castle. Time flows oddly here, and demons run amok. Without getting into any spoilers I was at first disappointed and then greatly intrigued with the plot. I could see the initial story beats coming from a mile away, but then things shifted unexpectedly. It was exciting to see tropes being messed with, as the timey-wimey wibbly-wobblyness of it all started to sink in.
The Gameplay
Sargon has two blades which you will mostly use by tapping or holding X. Eventually you’ll have two ranged attacks accessed by tapping or holding Y. A is your jump and even through a noticeably laggy cloud connection it felt GOOD. The right trigger is a dodge & slide that turns into a run when held down. The left trigger is extremely important as it is your parry. While you can defeat most enemies without mastering it the parry is extremely useful and powerful, especially against the bosses I faced during the first two hours of the game that I was allowed to play through.
The left trigger is also used to access your Athra abilities. These are meter-powered super moves, and look incredible visually while potentially dealing massive damage or offering you up very necessary heals. You do have a potion available on the d-pad, accessed by pressing up and these replenish whenever you save at a checkpoint. There are time crystals that you can use to upgrade your weapons and many other forms of currency and materials because this game is HUGE.
The tiny part of the Mount Qaf map, that’s the stronghold you’ll spend the majority of the game in, that I got to see was large. Once I zoomed things out I was shocked at just how freaking big this game seems to be. When I asked PR how long a run typically would take the “30-to-40-hour range” was their answer. In the short period I got to experience it I’m in. It feels great to play and despite being simplistic the variety of enemy attacks and how good it felt to counter them never grew old.
The Looks & Sounds
Prince of Persia the Lost Crown is f’ing gorgeous. It’s that familiar 2.5D look, with movement in the back and foreground while your character is always on a 2D plane. The art style is tremendous, with a visual flare added to certain attacks and parries that had me ready to jump out of my seat and yell at how good they looked. Even though most of the game takes place in what is ostensibly one location the environment variety was high.
Mount Qaf is huge, and thanks to its issues with time manipulation it can change in cool ways. Rebuilding destroyed obelisks to be able to access higher points is par for the course, and I cannot wait to see what the sewers I was teased about after beating the first major boss are all about. The voice acting was great, with solid direction that kept the initial cheesy lines from feeling forced. Early on I was afraid of how tropey it would all feel but things swiftly changed and the voice actors matched the tonal differences from their first-level outing with aplomb.
The music is brilliant, which I’ve come to expect from Gareth Coker. He never misses, fitting the world he’s in beautifully while having a familiar style that subtly peeks its way in. The musical direction during boss fights and cutscenes early on is a master class in knowing when to jump in with something big and also knowing how to back off to let the voice acting and action take center stage.
In Conclusion
A Demo is coming in early January, and if this genre appeals to you then you have to try it. I’ll have a full review closer to the game’s launch a few weeks after the demo hits, and if it can keep up the pace of the blazing fast start it will get 2024 started with one hell of a bang.
Hope you have been keeping well 