Picture the following: there’s this widely acclaimed gaming franchise, one loved by fans and critics, which has been laying dormant for many years. From out of nowhere, its publisher decides to bring it back, but in a completely new style, ditching its older gameplay loop, the one that made people love it in the first place, in favor of something different. You have to be a madman in order to try to pull this off… or Nintendo. Just look at their previous attempts with F-Zero 99, Star Fox Zero, or Chibi-Robo!: Zip Lash. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is the first game in the franchise in nearly a decade and a half, a brand new 2D metroidvania take on what was previously known as a 3D action-adventure franchise, or a cinematic platformer.

And it works. It works incredibly well. This was a risky revival that paid off magnificently.

Before you jump into Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (and if you take my word on it, I hope you will), be advised this is not a follow-up on the plot from any previous Prince of Persia game. I wouldn’t even call it a reboot. It’s almost like a side story set centuries before any other game in the franchise, but with a much higher emphasis on the supernatural. Lots of inspirations were taken from Zoroastrianism and Persian mythology. Famous names like Darius, Cyrus, and even Hercules are mentioned from time to time. So don’t take this as something related to the previous games to the 2000s, and more of its own thing set in the same world as Prince of Persia.

And that is a good thing. The higher emphasis on mythological beings and the supernatural allowed for more creativity in the character design department. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown does not try to boast ultra-realistic graphics, preferring to follow a mixture between realism and cartoonish, but never touching its feet onto the realm of silly. Yes, the game was created by the same people behind Rayman Legends, and some character portraits resemble people from that game to a striking degree, but Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is not silly, nor a Saturday morning cartoon take on the source material.

This was a genius decision. Given how Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a metroidvania heavily inspired by games like Hollow Knight, it needed the opportunity to have you fight against giant monsters, and not just the previous assortment of enemies seen in other games in the franchise. Granted, the PS2-era trilogy has offered battles against zombies and jinn, but The Lost Crown dives deeper with fights against some truly grotesques, Dark Souls-esque entities, as well as mythological monstrosities and even gods. It is a game with a shocking amount of variety in its character design, as well as its level design.

Our immediate mental image of Persia (or modern-day Iran, for that matter) is always sand and wastelands. That is not true at all. The Lost Crown showcases the sheer amount of variety the Persian Empire had to offer, from lush green valleys to frozen mountains. The addition of the supernatural also allowed for some exciting locales such as a pirate village, a gigantic maze-like library, and even a machine house. Sure, the clichéed locales (catacombs, sewers, an immense central vertical tower) are also present, but this is a metroidvania, with a big emphasis on the “Vania”. The level design is reminiscent of Konami’s classic games, especially the GBA trilogy, so some similarities were obviously going to show up at any given moment.

What’s the other very important element that’s crucial in any metroidvania? Yep, the progression system. The Lost Crown doesn’t feature experience points or RPG elements, opting, in this case, for something more akin to the “Metroid” side of metroidvania. In its place, we have an amulet system, which grants the player some extra buffs, such as additional damage, more health, elemental resistances, and so on. You only have a set amount of amulet slots, but you can acquire more of them throughout the game.

The other important progression bit is the steady acquisition of items and/or power-ups which help open the map up the more you play the game. This is where The Lost Crown impressed me. There aren’t that many power-ups, to be honest, but most of them felt absolutely crucial to the game’s overall progression. They were also spaced out well enough, making me feel absolutely overpowered and acrobatic by the end of the game. Some of these power-ups were a double jump, an air dash, a teleportation system, and so on. Nothing too crazy, but still pretty good.

Pretty much every single power-up handed out to you after killing a boss is platforming-based. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown‘s combat system is absolutely OUTSTANDING, but it also has a huge emphasis on platforming challenges, not unlike Ubisoft Montpellier’s previous masterpiece, Rayman Legends. You will constantly have to hop on walls, perform air hops, and take advantage of your abilities to get past some ridiculously overkill obstacle courses, in a quasi-Meat Boy degree of “bruh, there’s no need for these many spike traps”. But they are all beatable with enough trial and error. The main critical path ones are tough, but still the easiest ones in the game. You will go out of your way to explore the map and find some extra challenges, which grant you additional items. Those are the real rage-inducing sections, but are all optional.

What are these important items that are so well-hidden throughout the map, you may be asking? Well, besides the aforementioned amulet slots, there are lots of hidden amulets of their own, sacred ingots which can be used as forging material in order to upgrade your sword, jars containing prophecies (for every five you collect, you get a big prize), health enhancers acting exactly like a Legend of Zelda Piece of Heart, and Xerxes, an ancient currency which can be used in some specific shops. There is a LOT to unveil in this game. I beat it at around the twenty hour mark, and my completion rate was still at 60%.

Thankfully, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is polished to downright perfection when it comes to its controls and performance. Its platforming and puzzle-solving sections demand absolute precision, and the game delivers magnificently in return. Maybe this was the reason why it didn’t exactly decide to follow the Avatar route of ultra-realism. The game ran at a staggering 180fps at all times during my twenty hours with it, on Ultra settings, on a pretty decent, but still modest RTX 3060. Loading times were pretty much nonexistent. Not a single game-breaking glitch in sight, just one instance in which the camera locked at an NPC after the conversation was over. All I had to do was walk out of the room for it to be solved.

So, was there anything wrong with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown? To be honest, not a lot of issues. Certainly none of them were based on technical problems or glitches, stuff you would expect from a Ubisoft release. Maybe it’s the fact The Lost Crown is not a major title trying to push visual boundaries or appeal to a mass demographic. Just like some previous titles released over the years by some major labels (Hi-Fi Rush, Star Wars: Squadrons, Pentiment, even Ubisoft’s own Assassin’s Creed: Mirage), if you lower the stakes and just tell a team to make a game aimed at a specific audience, with enough development time and leeway, you get results.

The only somewhat significant issue I’ve had with the game is more of annoying nitpick. I didn’t like the voice acting that much. It wasn’t bad, but, well, it didn’t blow my mind. It was just… decent. Some people have British accents, some sound Americanized, one of them reminded me of Torbjörn from Overwatch (that’s a deep cut)… and the NPCs just weren’t as impactful. I did love the villain’s performance, however, in that clear case of “you are a villain, but I get your point, and you are making me think a bit before judging you”. It works every single time.

On the other hand, the soundtrack just slaps. Ubisoft Montpellier hired Gareth Coker, the main behind the two Ori soundtracks. You can imagine it’s some good stuff. Whenever exploring the map, or fighting normal enemies, the soundtrack opts for Persian, ancient scales. It sounds mystical, mysterious, with bars rarely used in popular Western music. But that is kept for these sections only. Whenever you are fighting a boss, the music ramps up. There’s the occasional choir and epic chant, as well as the occasional heavy power chord or guitar shredding to convey the following message: “you are about to face a beast of a boss, and you’re gonna die”.

I had high hopes for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, but it still managed to surpass them. More than just a risky, experimental revival of a dormant franchise, it basically showcases that Prince of Persia works magnificently well as a metroidvania, almost in a “why haven’t you done this before” kind of way. Between its unique art style, tough-as-nails bosses, excellent level design, delightful bosses, and challenging platforming, there is a lot to do and explore in this delightful platformer. The year 2024 is off to a good start, with one of Ubisoft’s better surprises in recent memory, as well as a mandatory metroidvania for genre enthusiasts. Good enough to make me forget about Silksong being more absent than rain on the Atacama.

Graphics: 8.5 Ubisoft Montpellier opted for a more cartoonish art style over realistic visuals, and I think that was a smart decision. It’s not the biggest graphical showcase out there, but it looks great, and it runs like an absolute beast.	Gameplay: 9.5 Fast-paced, precise, with a delightful combat system and acrobatic platforming. It might be a metroidvania, but the amount of power-ups isn’t immense. It’s quite ideal, in fact. Boss battles and the excellent level/map design are the highlight.
Sound: 8.5 The voice acting might not exactly be the greatest achievement in the world, but Gareth Coker’s soundtrack, comprised of Persian scales and the occasional heavy guitar riff, is excellent.	Fun Factor: 9.5 A shockingly entertaining metroidvania with great combat and platforming. It perfectly balances combat sections with platforming and puzzle-solving, even if the latter can be rage-inducing at times. There is a lot to do, explore and unveil, making The Lost Crown one of the beefiest games in the genre in recent memory.
Final Verdict: 9.0

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB.

A copy of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was provided by the publisher.