If you read what I do here at all, you are already pretty aware of the fact that there is a great deal of pessimism in almost anything that I play. I can find fault in almost anything and the games that I consider to be complete masterpieces are few and far between. My 2nd favorite type of games are metroidvanias and PoP: The Lost Crown "kind of" fits into that category. Not entirely though...
I am going to point out a few things about this game that will get under the skin of some gamers, as is likely the source of a lot of any negative criticism that this game receives.
src
The opening will scare away many new players
The game is pretty solid, if you can endure the trifling beginning sequence. They say that all good games, or movies and books for that matter, need to have "bookends" in that the beginning and the ending need to be really fantastic. In the case of "The Lost Crown", the start of the game is seriously weak.
src
I often will complain about any game that has too many cutscenes and this is why despite their overall wonderful reception, I absolutely hate the Kingdom Hearts games. The way I look at gaming, is that if I wanted to watch a movie, I would do exactly that. If I am playing a video game, I want to be actively involved in the process. The start of PoP is more movie than game, and you don't have really any control of what happens. It doesn't help that the voice acting is pretty damn terrible considering the immense amount of money that was spent on production.
Also, once they do give you control of the game, the action is completely linear and this is the opposite of what a Metroidvania experience is supposed to be like. By the time you have options as far as which way to go and what to do happens, you are about 30 minutes into the game. Most of the time I would have bailed on the game already at this point but based on the fact that I had seen this game being played at a friend's house before downloading it, I know that it gets better.
Seriously, I could do without almost all of the cutcenes in this game and this includes some especially bad instances where these scenes are built into long battles that you have to take part in.
src
While it does happen every now and then up to this point, there is a "boss battle" that is quite tough with a main baddy named Vahram. If you are not playing the game on easy, or maybe even normal, you are going to be subjected to multiple instances during this rather long battle that a cutscene happens mid fight. To me, this takes me out of my rhythm and screws up my progress. The worst part is when you get him down to like 10% health... die... then realize that you have to sit through all of that completely unnecessary crap again.
Most of the exploration is boring
The thing that made Castlevania and Metroid so incredible is that simple exploration of the available area was fun and not just a slog of run run run, jump over something, then run through an almost completely empty room, then run again, and again, and again, only to finally arrive at a place that you MAYBE can access now that you gained a new skill. Unfortunately that is the case with Prince of Persia quite often.
src
As you can see here, kind of, the map is absolutely huge for a 2D platformer. There are not many fast-travel locations either or when there are, they seem to be lumped together in some sort of strange linear fashion heading towards one particular part of the map. What ends up happening is that this means you have to spend an inordinate amount of time running from one place to the next and after a while you find yourself just avoiding all of the enemies because it is no longer interesting. Some enemies are tedious "ghost" type enemies too, and their sole purpose seems to be to knock you down to the bottom of a level that you have to climb up.
In a perfect Metroidvania-style game, getting a new skill normally means that there are loads of new areas to access all over the place... but not in this game. More often than not a new skill simply opens up a couple of places in addition to the main one that you are meant to be heading towards.
No minimap
I have about 20 hours logged in this game, perhaps a bit less. It would not surprise me at all if about 8 of these hours have been spent hitting the map button to figure out where the hell I am going. I'm sure there are some people out there that have the entire thing memorized but a lot of this issue could be resolved by simply having the OPTION of a minimap in the top corner or something. They could have made it something you could turn on or off but not in this one. If you ever find yourself mildly lost, back to the map to zoom in and out you go!
Most chests contain useless crap
src
In other metroidvania games, there is a reason to get excited when you discover a chest but for the most part, this is not one of them. In most chests you will discover either currency, or some sort of collectible that maybe 100%ers care about, but I certainly don't. One of the most difficult platforming sections of the game that requires pinpoint accuracy and extreme knowledge of skills (as well as their corresponding buttons) results in you arriving at a chest that contains a damn skin. Who are the people that care about skins in a single-player game? I've never met one.
Platforming is too frequent and very tough
src
I realize that this is going to ruffle some feathers and I am ok with that but there are areas, sometimes relatively massive areas, that are covered with insta-death spikes and in order to get to the other side you have to hit certain skills at EXACTLY the correct time in order to get to the other side. These are not optional sections of the game either, even though they do have even more difficult versions of exactly this sort of things that are optional.
After, I dunno like the 30th time of getting a jump slightly wrong and dying and getting sent back to the very start of the whole thing, I kind of start to lose interest. It appears as though Ubi was very aware of how frustrating this is and built in "warp points' that you can use to simply skip all of this. Entire rooms are built on this premise and I believe it does appeal to some people but in my mind this kind of takes away from the whole experience.
One of these "climbs" is called "The Impossible Climb" and good lord.
Watch that just for a peek at what it is that I am talking about. I managed to complete just one of them honestly, and the fact that all of them result in useless loot is quite frustrating.
I'm sure that there are some people out there that are just going to tell me to "git gud" but as I have pointed out in the past, I don't wanna.
I still think this is a great game, but it certainly isn't getting anywhere near the greats in my mind such as I always say Hollow Knight. HK was harder than PoP by far, but the truly difficult stuff was completely optional.
Since this game is free with a wide variety of passes and subscriptions that exist out there I still recommend you give it a go but in my mind, this game will not end up in the memories of being anything particularly noteworthy in the history of gaming.
The old Prince of Persia flavour is different, but this one has an air that makes you say ‘let's give it a chance’. Obviously, the fact that the beginning is like a cinema made me a little cold, I'm playing a game, not a movie 😅 What is a boss fight in a cutscene... As someone who loves Metroidvania, I hesitated, but I guess I can't know until I try it. For the sake of those old days 👑🎮
The original Prince of Persia was hard as nails back on the Apple computer that nobody owned. It became quite famous for its exceptional difficulty
Sheshh
I was on the verge on picking this up but that hard platforming section on the main path will send this to a later date. Those section seem to look a bit unnatural and outside of the game look. The moveset seems awesome though
there is something you can turn on in the options to be able to skip the harder platforming areas but this becomes something that you just use every time because some of them are just too tough. You cannot use these warps for the ones that bring you to some item though but it really doesn't matter since most of the stuff that you find in chests is useless crap. I think the chests being something that isn't even worth getting excited over if one of the worst aspects of the game. Life was easier before trophies on your online network became important. There were no trophies back in the day... just games that needed to be good in order to get people to play them. These days I think games are made intentionally difficult as hell so that it is really tough to get all the digital awards.
If you can get it for a low price or free I still say go for it.
Thanks for pointing out the flaws. It’s always good to hear honest thoughts from real players. Helps others know what to expect.
you're welcome. IN case I didn't make it abundantly clear in the writeup, I still think this game is worth playing especially since it is free by so many different methods right now.