Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Review | Does It Deserve High Scores?
14 years... It sounds very easy to say, but we have waited 14 years for a new game in the Prince of Persia series. During this time, Ubisoft turned from a popular company into a company with a very hated audience. You all already know the criticism that Ubisoft, which was once one of my favorite companies, has received in recent years. But Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown seriously shocked me. So, does this shocker deserve the high scores everyone gives it? Let's look at the answer to this question. Story Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown begins directly in a war between the Persians. The game introduces us to the members of the Immortals team, including our character Sargon, in this war.
After killing the leader of the opposing civilization, we return to Persian lands to receive praise. Here we meet Ghassan, the prince of the game. While we are chatting outside with the Immortals team, we suddenly realize that Prince Ghassan has been kidnapped. As the Immortals team, we are going to the Qaf mountains to save the prince.
To find Ghassan in the Qaf mountains, the Immortal team splits up and begins to search around. But when we go there, we learn that these Qaf mountains are magical and mysterious. Here, the flow of time varies from person to person. While 3 hours have passed for Sargon, it may have been 3 days or even 3 years for someone from the Immortal team. Once I start searching, the real game begins in my eyes. I would like to leave the part of what is happening between these mountains to you because I really liked the story. The point I would criticize in the story is that so
Some of the points you are wondering about are brought to a head like this. But other than that, I was really satisfied with the story of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Presentation of the Story is Magnificent The presentation of the story was also one of the points that made me happy. Of course, I will talk about its visuality in the later 
Additionally, the dialogues and the characters we encounter along the way are very entertaining and interesting. In short, I am very happy that the story part has a style that I like. Reflects the Metroidvania Genre Well Of course, the real story of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown lies in its gameplay rather than its story. First of all, I have to point out that the genre of the game is Metroidvania. To summarize for those who have not heard of this genre before, imagine that most of the map you are left in the game is locked at first.
You unlock these locked points with new features you gain in the later stages of the game. If I had to give an example from this game, the 3rd-4th. You get a spring around the clock. Thanks to this spring, you can intervene in the armrests and mechanisms of the platforms that you could not reach before and gain access to those roads. Of course, normally you have to find your way yourself, but Ubisoft has done a nice thing here and added an assistant mode that shows where you need to go on the map. Of course, it's an event that kills the Metroidvania spirit, but I really liked that there was such an option.
The quality of the designs of the Qaf mountains, the main map of the game, as well as the level designs and puzzles, adds to the pleasure. How to Cut a Creature? This is where my confusion begins. We start the game with our main weapon being a double sword and it ends that way. So for 20-25 hours we only use double swords as main weapons. This incident caused me to faint in the combat system before halfway through the game.
Of course, as the game progresses, as I just wrote, you get bows and similar side equipment and new features, but these are ultimately side tools. This effort to diversify the combat system is, in my opinion, the biggest minus of the game. I don't know, add a spear as our main weapon and let's fight by keeping distance between ourselves and the enemies.
Putting diversity aside, the combat system itself is very satisfying. In addition to the feeling of hitting, the use of the parry system is really well thought out. If you manage to parry the enemies' yellow burning attacks, you can kill almost all of them directly except the boss. Moreover, since you made this killing action specially animated, it manages to be pleasing to the eye. But as I said, the diversity part prevents Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown from taking the combat system to the next level for me. If new main weapons are added in a possible sequel and the number of features we use in combat increases, they may become one of the most enjoyable combat systems on the market.
Successful Puzzles and Platforms For those of you who don't know, the majority of the first Prince of Persia game consisted of puzzles and platforms. We can say that this is the case in this game (even if not as much). So, are the problems with the combat system valid here? With great joy, the answer to this question is no. They have managed to keep these parts fresh thanks to the new abilities you gain throughout your adventure and the new puzzle mechanics that occur during region changes.
From this perspective, I can actually say that The Lost Crown has stayed true to its roots. This means that a very good game can be made by staying true to the roots and using new mechanics, right, Ubisoft... What's the Difficulty? Twitter… Well, I'm sorry, I saw posts on the X platform that some people were complaining about the difficulty of the game. I personally found the difficulty of the game balanced, except for boss battles. Among the normal enemies, there are enemies that you really need to kill, as in every game. Platforms can be really challenging sometimes, but they managed to make me feel balanced because there was no annoying difficulty. Boss battles really challenged me. What I mean is that it was difficult, I could not manage to cut most of them at once. In fact, I think I died like 9 times in one boss fight. From here, I would like to send my greetings to all the family values of that boss.
Trivia Parts Apart from these three basic parts, the game includes things such as side missions, markets and talismans that are in every classic game. The function of the market and the talisman is more or less the same as in every game. In the side quests section, each quest series has its own story. Some of these are interesting, some are not. I didn't want to talk about these parts in detail since they are in every game released now, but of course it wouldn't be possible without mentioning them.
Graphics and Technical Sections Do you remember a sentence I made in the story presentation section? I really find visuals that shift to a more animation/cartoon style more beautiful. The feeling of playing an animated movie gives me more pleasure than realistic visuals. That's why I can say that the graphics of this game are truly amazing. I can say similar things for the technical part. I played the PS5 version of the game fluently in 4K 120FPS without any fps drops. I did not encounter any bugs. It didn't crash even once throughout the game. I mean, what more could I ask for? I seriously congratulate Ubisoft on the technical side.
Sounds and Music Let's guess what I'll say about this part. Yes, I will praise this part of the game too. The music really fits the atmosphere very well. They are not good enough to listen to in your spare time, but the feel they give during the game is really good. It's the same with sounds. From the effects to the voice acting, the sounds are really good. When I had something to bury, I would fill this place, but when praising it, saying "very good" is enough for me. Does It Deserve the Points? Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a really good game. If there was diversity in the combat system, I could say that it really deserves the 90 and above points it received.
However, since it is a relatively long-running game, diversity is truly a sad deficiency for me. As you know, there is no scoring system on our site, but if there was, I would guess I would give it around 83-85. Regardless of the price of the game, I can say that it is a game that everyone should experience. If you wish, you can try it by becoming a 1-month Ubisoft+ subscriber through the Xbox application for PC.
Thanks to the Guided mode added by Ubisoft, I think it is an ideal game for those who will enter the metroidvania genre for the first time. Then Ubisoft… My old friend… These are the performances we wanted to see from you. Thank you again, my old friend, for this wonderful game.
