I played a lot of the original Prince of Persia for the Amiga (1990). It was a marvelous game. I dare to say that I played it so much that I got really good at it, and I found most of its secrets. I’ve not played another Prince of Persia since the original, until now, and the reason for playing this game is that in The Lost Crown, Prince of Persia returns to 2D platforming.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a 2D platforming metroidvania. You play as the hero Sargon, and your mission is to rescue the Prince of Persia. This is kind of funny, as in the first game you played as the Prince of Persia, and were to rescue the princess. It would have been more cool if you played as the princess in The Lost Crown, but you can’t have it all.
As in any metroidvania you start with a limited set of skills, you travel around the map and discover more skills, which opens up the map further. You go back and rediscover new paths that have opened up with your new skills.
The game stays somewhat true to the original. You’re in a palace, you need to fight through the dungeons, up to the more luxurious parts in order to finally rescue the prince. Along the way you need to fight bosses and solve puzzles and do a series of platforming challenges. We all recognize it from other games. One aspect they kept from the original is the ability to parry enemy attacks and riposte. It makes the action a bit more interesting and challanging.
The game has a couple of problems. The first one is that Sargon, the main protagonist, is totally unlikable. He looks like some iron muscled super hero, and I really despise him. The story is not great. There is a lot of magic hokus-pokus going on, time travel and crap that I don’t care about, but what’s even worse is the dialogue which is horrible.
I don’t really enjoy the graphics. It’s kind of muted. The sewers aren’t grimey, the church is not holy, the astronomy tower is not magical and the forest doesn’t feel foresty. The animations are also kind of sloppy, which makes combat a bit hard to understand, as you try to see what you and your enemies are doing. What stands out in the graphics are the backgrounds which are so splendid they sometimes take away focus from what’s going on in the foreground.
I don’t really understand the character progression. You don’t have a leveling system, but you can improve Sargon by upgrading weapons and finding new skills. However I never used any other skills than the ones I got from the start. You gain a bit more damage here and there, but in all I think they could’ve made a better job with the progression system.
Most of the bosses were alright. I’m glad I played them on the easiest difficulty, because I wouldn’t have had the patience to learn them properly. It was only one boss that I found excruciatingly annoying and it was Menolias, a bowman that jumps around the arena so you can’t get close hitting him. It almost made me rage quit, not because it was hard, but because it was frustrating.
The game is mostly mediocre. The story is bad. The dialogue is bad. The graphics are okay. The fighting is okay. The bosses are mostly okay. But there is something about this game that makes me want to play it. I think it’s the level design that makes it fun, despite the game’s other drawbacks. And what does it matter if the individual parts are bad, as long as I’m having fun playing it.
I rate this game as GOOD.
Replay 