A new Metroidvania - Prince of Persia the Lost Crown | The Completionist

have you ever looked forward to buying a painting or a poster for a long time like you really picked out the place on your wall and found a really nice frame took your time saved up and then you finally hang that painting and then you notice the way that it sits it's just slightly crooked so that whenever you look at the picture you think to yourself wow I love this picture if only there was a way to make it a little level and perfect but no matter what you do there's just a little bit teeny off that's been my experience of completing Prince of Persia the Lost Crown a new metrov Vania from Ubisoft M Pierre hey everyone and welcome back to another brand new episode of the completionist where we don't just beat the games we complete them Prince of Persia the Lost Crown is an exciting time for anyone who's never played a Prince of Persia game before the fact that it's a metroidvania is very interesting and very exciting considering what it's been inspired by things like different anime like Dragon Ball Z to games like Hollow Knight or even other types of Metroid advanas of course Castlevania and Metroid themselves so today I'm excited to take a look at Prince of Persia the Lost crown [Music] going backwards in time last summer I was fortunate enough to visit the Ubisoft M Pierre office interviewed some members of the production team about the making of this game and from the very first conversation I had it was clear to me that the developers had put their heart and soul into not just a new Prince of Persia story but an interpretation of Middle Eastern myths and legends that felt fresh and exciting after playing a couple of early stage demos I felt that Ubisoft mon Pierre had something special on their hands they even made a point of falling out that the Lost Crown was being developed for the Nintendo switch in mind so they were aiming for Rock Solid frame rates and minimal load times even though the switch is definitely showing its age at this point when the trailer dropped early in summer of 2023 the reactions from people in general seemed kind of mixed to me it seemed like what people were mad about was that this wasn't the long awaited stands of time remake that people have been hoping for more information about but as someone who actually played the game pre-t trailer I felt like I was holding on to a secret of how good this game was going to be again zooming back to the initial trailer drop I think that it does its job and shows off the vibe the Lost Crown is going for this game draws inspiration from anime fighting games and mythology in a really intriguing way yeah the main character Sargon has a little of that modern cool character edginess but it totally works in game the story itself instantly drew me in though by the end of completion I felt like it had lost a lot of its steam players are thrusted into the action right away you control Sargon the immortal the newest member of a band of Heroes under the command of the queen each of the seven Immortals has special abilities kind of like the Avengers of ancient Persia if you will after a quick tutorial battle and some conversation with important NPCs the action kicks off princess son is kidnapped right from under the immortal's nose and Spirited Away to the sacred Mount CF The Immortals give Chase but once they reach Mount CF things go arai almost instantly pretty soon Sargon Hassan and everyone else is caught up in an epic tale of murder and conspiracy the main characters are trying to do what they think is right which has ramifications for all of Persia now this may sound like a story that could be told in about a 90-minute movie movie or so but this Prince of Persia game is stretched out over about 30 to 50 hours if you're going to go full completionist at least to my experience and it is barely linear because unlike being a straightforward tale of Adventure like the sands of time this is a 2d Metroid Vania with all the genre trappings that that invokes and this isn't a game that can be fully completed in just a few hours like super metroid this game is pretty massive for better and worse I was genuinely shocked at how much the map had expanded by the end of my time with the Lost Crown it's almost comical how gigantic Mount CF feels once all is said and done every new location introduces new gimmicks and enemies and Sargon himself gains several new traversal abilities by the end of the game at first you're just jumping and slashing and sliding but by the end of the game you're air dashing raining down arrows and straight up teleporting around the map there is a heavy emphasis on really satisfying customizable combat Sargon can equip amulets which functions like charms in Hollow Knight each amulet cost a certain amount of slots and most if not all of them can be upgraded with found currency by the end of the game you're definitely going going to have your preferences and different build options that are totally all viable but the Lost Crown isn't just about fighting your way through a large map and piecing together a story there are dozens of Collectibles to find every location has chests to open sand jars to knock over xerx coins to collect and puzzles to solve Sargon does have different skins to unlock and there are side quests to complete that span the entire map since I completed the game on PlayStation 5 I had 35 trophies to contend with on top of the in-game completion percentage that slly ticked up the more that I did to say the least this is a game absolutely packed with stuff to do fortunately the Lost Crown was made with the accessibility in mind even players who get lost easily or don't Vibe with the combat can tweak settings to find a way to play this game I mess around with easy mode hard mode guided mode a little bit of everything just to see if the game felt different in each mode and the changes are noticeable it is toggleable so it's not that big of a deal I end up completing this game on a customized setting that was a little bit between normal and hard even if you lower all the settings to be as easy as possible possible this game still has a full-fledged completion experience that will take a long time but something about this game's design lowers the overall effect of these elements taken individually on its own Prince of Persia the Lost Crown has some of the best feeling platforming and strongest 2D combat I've experienced in recent memory but in the context of the entire game I found that the whole was actually less than the sum of its parts one of the main currencies in the Lost Crown is time crystals these special glowing shards dictate what you can purchase and upgrade and are even used to get hints from farba an NPC who knows more than she lets on even outside of the time crystals everyone stuck on Mount CF struggles with time they are trapped in time Loops or aging too quickly and are otherwise pushed and pulled by The Whimsy of other time Shenanigans the longer I spent completing the game the more I was struck by the idea that time is the most valuable resource and even though I think the Lost Crown is a fun game almost close to being an all-time great I couldn't help but feel that occasionally the game was not respecting my time sometimes I mean this literally this is a game that is just undercooked enough that is absolutely full of bugs most won't even register to the average player or are infrequent enough that you can quickly forget about them but completionists have to acknowledge that some bugs are downright game breaking and that can be detrimental to the overall experience having a bug that causes the game to crash or forces the player to reset is a waste of time and that can be heartbreaking now I'm holding out hope that by the time you're seeing this or completing this game for yourself that these have all been patched or smoothed out or otherwise completely fixed I can only speak from my personal experience and I got to say some of these bugs were downright frustrating there's an ulent players can get for purchasing the deluxe edition of the game called the prosperity bird doesn't take up a slot so you can have it on for almost the entire game it almost serves as an accessibility feature in that it is supposed to Signal by tweeting to the player little bird noises when there's a hidden treasure nearby now I use this bird because I thought it would help me with the completion process uncovering all the hidden secrets is kind of my thing thing and it makes it more optimized but I swear to God this bird was bug for as long as I had it equipped even after finding everything possible in an area this bird would still tweet and make noise it was more of an annoying inconvenience than anything totally gamebreaking but I did spend more time combing through certain areas for additional Collectibles even though I had found them all according to the map because this damn bird wouldn't shut up but there were definitely more serious bugs which actually made me lose progress there's one side quest involving an NPC who asks Sargon to help him track down pieces of the Moon once I found the MPC a little cut scene took place and then I couldn't move Sargon afterwards the game hadn't Frozen animations were still happening the music was still going but Sargon wouldn't respond to any button inputs turns out I had to turn the controller off and on again nothing major but it wasn't enough for me to make considering restarting the game just in case talking to other people especially switch players this is apparently a known bug that can crash the game so be advised here's the thing these are minor nitpicks but the fact that I'm making them at all kind of bums me out because the Lost Crown is totally stacked in so many other ways yes the graphics glitch occasionally there's some dithering and moments where animation effects lingered on screen instead of Disappearing enemies reacting and behaving at lower frames per second but little stuff like that doesn't ultimately take away from what the game does very well if this new Prince of Persia entry was just an ever increasing series of challenge rooms to complete with the same control scheme and sense of style probably be one of my favorite games if it was just a straightforward 2D platformer with this fully fleshed out combat system I'd say it's phenomenal these elements are so well executed that I had to give the developers a hand here this game is a master class in smooth movement when you're not hitting a bug Sargon speed is just right perfectly tuned to feel fast and responsive the way the challenges are designed you can glance right at the screen and know exactly what to do and once you execute the moves kind of feel like a god there are a couple specific types of challenges that I want to call to attention every biome of the map has four main things to find and pick up chests lore items sand jars and Zer seats coins pretty much all these are hidden behind some kind of challenge maybe a chest maybe behind a hidden wall a lore item that can't be picked up until you defeat a few waves of difficult enemies speaking of which the coins end up really pushing you to your limits if you're going to complete the game you must collect all 47 cires coins so you can purchase and upgrade every amulet in the game now these floating coins are often cleverly placed in a room full of spikes or over Bottomless Pits you have to use a combination of all of your skills to pick them up tricky part is that you must do more than just make it to the coin you don't have to bring it back to a stable ground without dying it's like the strawberries from Celeste and it's awesome and you can't just use your magical teleporting powers to cheat your way through it you have to do it legit as a guy who loves momentum and expression via platforming games I can confidently say that moving through the spaces as Sargon is genuinely pleasurable there's this Blissful feeling of flow that I was happy to sink into of course with the good comes the annoying and sometimes the rewards for these amazing movement challenges or finding a chest made me feel like I was wasting my time for instance some of these puzzles or movement challenges I spent an hour or so on mastering the most complex movement pattern possible that the game could throw at me and the reward was either a weird skin in a chest which I'll never complain about or a handful of these items called memory shards which let you take screenshots of the game and pin them to the ingame map for later on now don't get me wrong this is a genius idea and honestly I hope every game starts to implement something like this going forward it is extremely empowering to come across a locked door or otherwise gated progression snap a picture of it to reference it later on and move on with my life until I found the double jump or whatever skill I got but it feels kind of backwards to make these shards a limited resource especially when this is touted as an accessibility feature it's even more insulting to be in the late game when I've already unlocked most of the special abilities and to find a hidden chest with more memory shards is weird just a strange reward I would have happily taken an interesting amulet or even a unique lore collectible item instead goes without saying but I have played a lot of games in this genre I was surprised at how the Lost crown made things like a double jump or air Dash feel new and exciting these ability is tied to the World building and that's another point in this game's favor the storytelling and the writing is pretty well done I don't think it's as well implemented as it could be but what's on page here is pretty great Sargon and the Immortals are really well characterized and I was along for the journey the whole time through but then through some plot contrivances Saron is pretty much by himself the entire game now I understand why they did that it makes Mount CF feel more mysterious and imposing but I found myself wanting a bit more back and forth to the Immortals especially when certain plot beats happened and I struggled to remember the last time I even saw that character sorry Neath I haven't seen you for about 17 hours and I'm having a hard time remembering you I do like the Shades of Gray present in the storytelling everyone is losing something in the Lost crown and the stakes feel high for individual characters throughout the story but it's the momentum that is lost because of the game's design this map is gigantic and when the map is this huge and there is such an emphasis on backtracking especially for a completionist to play through the game plot stuff is actually going to suffer as a result that said the lore of this game is fascinating and it's extremely cool to see the myths and legends of ancient Persia told in this way this game does for Middle Eastern lore kind of what God of War has done for Greek and nors myths gods and legends are handled with care and attention and feel Larger than Life in a great way this game could function as kind of a reboot for 2D Prince of Persia games and I'd be very interested in seeing Sargon or any other Immortal or side character in a different story or context after this game even the music reflects the culture the Iranian artist MRI compos the environmental music and each track is a perfect representation of the area infusing pieces like the sacred archives with a specific flavor the developers also tapped Gareth Coker who worked on other Ubisoft titles like Mario plus rabbit Sparks of Hope and Immortals Phoenix Rising to compose the boss tracks those tracks rule incredibly hard music and art direction are some of the biggest highlights in the Lost Crown the environments are absolutely gorgeous with one biome in particular really stealing the show here the ranging sea an area all the way to the east of the map you can reach about halfway or about 2/3 of the way through the game depicts a fleet of ships going through a tumultuous lightning storm that is frozen in time you can run across the water zipping past Pirates and warriors engaged in conflict and try to avoid bloated drown zombies who try and bring you down to the deaths it's a stunning location and honestly I wanted this area a lot more I wanted to play an entire game in this setting in location every second I spent in this area I was a struck this was easily my favorite set piece or environment in the entire game each area has unique things about it and you'll definitely get to know them all very well because there is a ton of backtracking to do there are plenty of save points in the form of walk walk trees and many fast travel points but by the end of the game I was wishing that those two things were combined when you're in cleanup mode trying to find those last couple Collectibles and you're trying to move on from location to location efficiently you really feel the weight of the map I wouldn't mind the traversal so much if all the things I found felt as as satisfying to collect as the Xerxes coins did like I said before I didn't feel like every collectible was a reward I either wanted cooler skins or more skins instead we ended up with a medium amount of outfits for Saron I didn't feel this way all the time but I definitely had moments where I started to question whether it was really worth it to go all the way across the map just for some gems but what was worth doing as soon as I possibly could were the side quests there are nine NPC side quests throughout the Lost crown and each one is memorable and interesting they all contribute to the completion experience in a seamless Way by providing you with really good and useful rewards the Lost Warrior side quest in particular is fantastic early on in your adventure Sargon comes across one of his old enemies who begs Sargon to release his fellow brothers in arms from the curse of Mount CF these eight Warriors are basically mini bosses spread all over the map and each one is a worthy battle with a consumate reward now to me it comes off that Ubisoft M Pierre understood the assignment this game is very satisfying in so many key areas but on the completion front it definitely left something to be [Music] desired I have a tendency to hyper fixer on certain aspects of games that I love it's part of my personality part of why I complete games in the first place if I'm being extra critical of Prince of purge the Lost Crown it's because it's inches away from being a true classic it's still a pretty solid game but fully completing it was a bit draining whether or not the rewards are worth the time cost is up to you obviously for me I'm grateful that they were completion bonuses at all if you're completing this on PlayStation 5 or the Xbox series X or S there's a trophy list or achievement list to contend with in addition to the ingame completion percentage when I rolled credits on this game I had about 97% completion and was missing three trophies including the Platinum if you're already chasing completion hitting trophies is pretty easy you earn trophies for defeating each major boss and for hitting Milestones like acquiring every amulet and fully upgrading your sword and bow the only trophies I was really missing when I finished the story were combat related but very easy to polish off this is actually a fairly simple Platinum to earn it's reaching 100% however in the game's menu that can fill little grindy just to recap on top of the main quests there are nine side quests in completing all nine side quests you'll naturally finish some other completion criteria notably finding all 30 sand jars for the prophecy of Mount CF side quest all side quests reward the player with time crystals and other upgrade materials as well as lore there are 24 somet Tre pedals basically pieces of heart either found as Collectibles or gifted as rewards for certain side quests there are also six Som tree flowers basically heart containers which means if you complete this game you'll have 15 health bars to deal with a little more if you use an amulet I loved collecting all the amulets 37 total by the end of the game I loved customizing my experience with set amulets the fights in this game are already hype and specking out my Sargon by specializing encounters and M combat made me feel awesome truly any build is viable and I love that the game doubles down on what that is is one thing I didn't notice until I'd already rolled credits is that upgrading amulets also contributes to the completion percentage there was definitely a brief moment where I had every collectible in the game uncovered every single Blank Spot on the map and was still a few percentage points away of losing my mind until a couple upgrades later where I breathed a huge sigh of relief the 57 lore Collectibles and five unlockable outfits aren't actually needed for any Trophies the treasures are great letters and missives from NPCs you never met telling creepy stories or laying out the crown War for backstory children's toys coins from defeated Warriors basically every single one of these helps make the world with the Lost Crown feel more and more believable and interesting I love how many there are because it basically guarantees that the average player will come across at least a few that are interesting and hopefully make them want to find more the outfits are all right look I love new skins in games sometimes a new skin is enough to Warrant a whole new playthrough of a game I'm not a big fan of the ones in the Lost crown that said one of the rewards for finishing the game is a new costume it's a classic completion bonus even if I didn't necessarily love how it looked you also get a few thousand extra time crystals for beating the game which was very useful for me in upgrading the amulance I hadn't yet gotten around to doing all this took me roughly 38 hours which was much longer than I thought it would take me this is the game that keeps on giving but it doesn't always feel as rewarding as I had hoped it would in the beginning up through about 2/3 of the run time I thought it was exciting every time I entered a new area but by the time I got to the end game I found the map to feel a bit stretched thin the best part of the Lost CR feel curated specific boss battles where it was like I was playing the most intense part of an anime fighting scene or a platforming challenge that literally gave me sweaty Palms I really wish there was an unlockable challenge mode that had more platforming challenges to do or even a Boss Rush just to see how far I've come but the completionist blow definitely affected me by the end of the playthrough Prince of Persia the Lost Crown is a classic finish it does so many things exceptionally well but stumbles just a bit when it comes to making the player feel compelled to do every possible thing it's an easy Platinum for PlayStation enthusiasts but going for that 100% in-game completion didn't feel quite worth it in my opinion Prince of Persia the Lost Crown is a fascinating look at what could be the future of Prince of Persia I would like to see other games in this style but more importantly I think we just need to rebuild the Prince of Persia Universe it's been a long time since we've had a proper title and this game while very far from what the original could be it's not a bad idea so with that in mind guys I get this game my completionist rating of finish sh thanks for watching and see you around [Music] bye

Channel: The Completionist

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Keywords: prince of persia lost crown, prince of persia, sands of time, prince of persia sands of time, prince of persia lost crown review, prince of persia lost crown gameplay, prince of persia gameplay, prince of persia review, gameplay, game review, review, completionist, ubisoft, nintendo, playstation, the lost crown, prince of persia the lost crown, action, adventure, platformer, nintendo switch, metroidvania, metroidvania games, prince of persia the lost crown trailer

Id: b4pMRu-2b8k

Length: 19min 51sec (1191 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 03 2024