Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown Review
We've played four hours of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown which is a 2.5D platform action-adventure video game developed and published by Ubisoft. It also turned out to be a rather good game.
Category
🎮️
GamingTranscript
00:00 [Gameplay]
00:05 Sam's been playing Prince of Persia The Lost Crown and the biggest thing that I think most people will know and I want to know is
00:11 is this just a cash grab using the Prince of Persia IP or have they actually made a really good game?
00:16 It's a really good game.
00:18 Yay!
00:19 Like, I've played it four hours this morning and I did not want it to end.
00:24 I've kind of been describing it in my head as like Rayman Origins meets Hollow Knight in terms of how it presents.
00:31 So it's a really good Metrovania game in terms of the exploration but also the combat.
00:37 The bosses are really hard and obviously it takes a while to warm into these games and some of them start off quite simple.
00:45 You've just got a basic attack and then you kind of get an air dash and then you get a bow and arrow
00:50 and then you get a sort of boomerang version of the bow and arrow and it is layering and layering and layering
00:57 but it's also like you've got to make sure that you're dodging out of the way and parrying and blocking and like it's...
01:02 And obviously the whole point of it is that you're supposed to be... that you're rescuing the Prince of Persia
01:06 and you're not playing as the Prince of Persia which I think for a lot of people they were quite cross about that
01:12 rather than like... yeah, celebratory with the fact that hey look it's the first new Prince of Persia game we've had for a long time, right?
01:18 Like the remake. 13, 14 years? Really? Oh my god that's longer than I thought and you know it's like that remake...
01:24 It may come out at some point but at least we're getting a really, really good side-scrolling platformer
01:30 Metrovania game where you're rescuing the Prince of Persia and like things are going to get timey-wimey.
01:36 Like I can feel it.
01:37 I do empathise with people it not being the Prince of Persia because I had the same reaction when I watched the trailer.
01:43 I went oh they're going for a new aesthetic with the Prince of Persia. This looks amazing. He looks fantastic.
01:47 And then as the trailer went on it was like oh you're rescuing the Prince and I kind of had to re-watch the trailer and went
01:52 well he's not the Prince and I was a bit like I don't understand then why is it called...
01:56 And then immediately my first thought, like you said getting timey-wimey, I was just like well if he isn't now he will be.
02:02 Or it was just that clear thing where it was like all of the people getting angry. I understood it but partly I was like
02:08 just wait until you play the game. Then you can get angry if you don't ever play as the Prince or it doesn't work out
02:13 or you don't story canon it or time loop it somehow. Fine you get angry then.
02:17 You've just watched an amazing gameplay trailer. The style of it is amazing as well. It looks so good.
02:22 You start out the game in sort of like a battleground and then you move into Mount Kath which I think it's like
02:28 if I'm pronouncing that correctly it's like the mountain where the main game takes place and you're kind of like
02:34 in the land of the gods then and like that's when things start to get like weird and like there's lots of like
02:40 interesting characters that start popping up and going like oh you think you haven't got time and then like
02:44 the people that you followed in there have been in there for 30 years even though it's been like
02:48 five minutes since you've like followed them in there or like a couple of hours so
02:53 there's a lot of intrigue already with like the idea of time and like you encounter some statues which have kind of
02:59 been frozen as they're falling and then eventually you can like hit these orbs and then the entire map will like
03:05 move around, well not the entire map, the whole area around you will move around and platforms will like
03:10 go back into place which is another part of that kind of Metroidvania unlocking thing but it's also like a really
03:16 cool way of doing that that plays into the gameplay mechanics and stuff that we know from the Prince of Persia series
03:22 and like it just looks visually amazing as well. It's got a slightly like cartoony element to it that
03:28 makes everything look really pretty. Like there's lots of different areas that you move through.
03:32 Like there's like an underground level where there's a bit with like these horrible birds that come at you but it's all
03:37 sort of like lovely tropical jungles and like waterfalls and things so they've had a lot of fun with
03:43 the sort of mystical element allowing it to have loads of different kind of locations.
03:47 The graphical style as well also means that while it will come to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S,
03:54 Xbox One I want to say? Yep, Xbox One. It's also going to fulfil the Metroid dreadhole that I've had since I've
04:02 completed it because it's going to come to Switch as well because again it's that very similar thing.
04:06 So this graphical style just means it's going to, it just looks like the perfect game to have on the Switch
04:10 and playing on the couch which is fantastic. So all in all very, very good. Is there anything that was a little bit
04:15 jarring with it? Like difficulty levels, something that people need to get, be aware of because that's kind of again
04:21 going back to the original, original Prince of Persia games where there is a difficulty bar that you do need to be hitting.
04:27 Yeah it's definitely not easy. Like you've got to be quick on your feet and it is very Metroidvania in that way.
04:35 Like lots of dodging, lots of parrying, lots of like well timed, very Metroid you know, very Metroid dread in terms of like
04:43 the bosses, if you go through the door then you know you're stuck in a boss fight for a bit or whatever.
04:48 How are the checkpoints? Yes there's checkpoints in the form of Wack Wack Trees. W-A-K, W-A-K.
04:54 I love, I'm definitely not saying that in, you know, I played it all in Persian as well with like English subtitles.
05:01 Oh but that's so good. Very nice kind of like building that atmosphere really like, but yeah so you,
05:06 these beautiful trees sort of unfurl and it was interesting there was two different modes which is a very Ubisoft thing to do.
05:12 There's like the guided version and the exploration version. They put me on guided because they were like
05:18 let's make sure that you get to see everything that you can do in this preview and occasionally the sort of
05:22 golden glistening leaves of the Wack Wack Tree will kind of be like, you should probably go this way rather than
05:28 like trying to beat your head against the wall and I think that was quite nice kind of balancing of,
05:32 it's hard, like you can't like cheese through the boss battles but at least like if you're not used to playing a
05:38 Metrovania game and you want to get involved like it's not like, you know, where you can get lost and you're like
05:44 actually I don't need to be going this way right now. You can kind of just let the tree just be like, just
05:48 maybe go up that way rather than, you know, go left rather than right at the next sort of fork.
05:53 Which was good for me trying to get through as much as you can and you know, in limited time but actually
05:58 is a really nice thing for new players as well. One interesting thing that I think my partner who over heard me
06:05 playing throughout the whole thing, well remember is there's a prison guard who is kind of patrolling certain
06:13 areas of the map and he's kind of got like this purple aura around him where if you get inside the aura
06:19 he's got a magic stick that just sends you to jail. So like you've got to avoid this thing and again
06:26 very Metroid Dread in that sort of way apart from it's not death you're being put into jail and like
06:31 the first time you have to figure out how to break out of jail and then every time you go back the door's
06:35 still open but it means you've got to like, crap, retrace my entire steps and go back to it and it made it
06:42 really tense because you're just like, I know I was like two doors away from the next tree but this blinking
06:51 guard kept like just stabbing me with his little magic stick and sending me back to prison and it was
06:56 very clever because it was very unexpected. I was like, oh it's another boss battle blah blah blah
07:00 went up to give him like a whack with my sword and he just went, boop, straight to prison.
07:04 It was very good, it was very unexpected and yeah it's a very clever creative game that has lots of
07:10 clever puzzles, very interesting enemies that constantly challenge you and it was way better than I
07:16 expected it to be.
07:18 I've been hearing lots of good things and I'm glad that four hours of playing it has just reinforced the fact
07:24 that it is very good and it is very fun and there's lots there to explore as well. The fact that you've
07:28 played four hours of it and you're just like, give me more, give me more, give me more.
07:31 When's it coming out?
07:32 January 18th, so really not that long away now.
07:35 Oh yeah but that's so close to Christmas, this would be a perfect Christmas game where I could ignore
07:39 my family and just sit on the sofa. Hey, I'm still not going outside, it's too cold as it is so January's
07:43 perfect, this is going to be great. Especially the Prince of Persia, like, oh look at the sands, look how
07:47 warm it is, all the palm trees and then you look outside and it's -2 whatever it is here right now.
07:53 Fantastic, alright thank you. I can't wait for this, it sounds really, really interesting.
07:56 Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown, coming in January.
08:00 [Music]