Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown PS5 Review – It’s been thirteen years since a Prince of Persia title graced a console. Though the Sands of Time remake has been delayed indefinitely, The Lost Crown is a different approach to what fans expect from the franchise instead of a whole 3D adventure. The Lost Crown returns to its roots and provides a Metroidvania 2.5D adventure that makes me hope this is the franchise’s future.
Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown PS5 Review
A Fun Story With A Great Setting
You take on the role of Sagron, who, along with his band of mercenaries known as the Immortals, is tasked with rescuing the prince who has been kidnapped. Your journey takes you to Mount Qaf, a massive mountain that hides secrets long forgotten and lost. As you journey with Sagron, you’ll encounter the citizens of Mount Qaf. The mountain sometimes feels like its own island, consisting of a massive city, a forest, a prison, and many more locations.
Some citizens will aid you, providing critical information about the world and revealing parts of the map for a price. Others will upgrade your equipment and relics, and others will task you with quests to complete for them. Your friends could also be found on Mount Qaf, who will provide new abilities and skills to help you along the way.
Exploration is the most satisfying aspect of most Metroidvania-style games, and The Lost Crown doesn’t disappoint in that regard. The world is full of secrets, branching paths, treasure chests, and hidden boss enemies to defeat that unlock special attacks for Sagron.
Plenty Of Secrets To Find And Hidden Locations To Discover
As with all these games, you’ll find plenty of areas and treasures you can’t reach until you’ve unlocked the proper abilities. Some appear very early in the game, and you won’t be able to access these areas until you’ve acquired abilities halfway through the game.
One of the best features of The Lost Crown is your ability to place a marker in an area where you can’t reach a treasure chest or an area you can’t.
This icon is unique because it takes a screenshot of the location so you can enter your map and instantly see a screenshot of what is in that area with the marker. It’s a fantastic feature that every Metroidvania, hell, every game, needs to feature going forward.
As you’d expect for a Prince of Persia game, platforming is a big part of The Lost Crown. Though it starts simply, it quickly becomes a frantic, fast-paced experience. Sometimes, you’ll encounter see-through platforms that you must make solid by striking a bell.
These platforms remain sold for a few seconds, and you must move about quickly. Needless to say, the platforming sections test your reflexes and skills early on and later add traps that can test your patience.
Finding Relics And Upgrading Weapons And Skills Is A Must To Survive
There are many skills to unlock and relics to equip to make your life a little easier. Though the skills you gain are mostly story-related, like unlocking a bow and arrow, the relics you can equip are designed to help you along the way. You can equip multiple relics and unlock more slots later on to equip even more.
Each relic is worth a specific amount of slots. The better the relic, the more slots it will take up. These relics have various uses. One of my favorite relics slows down time every time a parry enemy attacks, leaving them completely open to attack. Other relics increase the damage you do with melee attacks or how much health you regain from potions.
You can also upgrade these relics to make them more potent, but you take the risk of them taking up more slots, leaving you with fewer relics to equip.
Excellent Combat Allows You To Mix Your Powers Into The Action
Sagron is equipped with dual swords to slice through his enemies, and initially starts with a lot of ways in which to take out his adversaries. Besides his standard combo attack, he can launch enemies into the air and do aerial combos. He also has access to quick attacks he pulls off after doing a dodge slide, which sees him hop up and launch a flying kick against an enemy.
You can combine all these attacks to pull off some unique combos to slay the various enemies you’ll encounter. You can combine that with later abilities you unlock to pull off some cool combos, including some with your bow and arrow.
During combat, foes can be parried when they attack, leaving them wide open to counterattack. Some enemies will have a glow effect, indicating they are about to pull off a special attack. If the glow is red, you can’t parry it and must dodge the attack.
If the glow is gold and you parry the attack, Sagron goes into a special counter animation where he pulls off a cool-looking attack. Most of the time, this attack kills the opponent.
Excellent Visual And Audio Design
Visually, the art style is pleasing to the eyes. The character portraits look great during conversations, and the character models and world look like they were ripped from an animated movie. The music and voice work is also exceptional, with great tracks that fit the mood and location perfectly, and the voice cast does an excellent job bringing these characters to life.
I loved my time with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. With a year packed with plenty of high-profile games, The Lost Crown is the first must-have title. Outside of some challenging platforming sections and a lack of fast travel locations, there wasn’t much to complain about; rather, there’s plenty to celebrate here with a fantastic return to one of the most venerable franchises in the industry.