Prince of Persia The Lost Crown

A really excellent game plagued by a malaware: ubisoft connect. It forces you to register, then it often fails to connect, sometimes crashes during game, and it prevents you from saving the game progress on steam forcing you to sync save files to their own cloud.

Surprisingly an good game. Not enough of bosses tho, after the mid game you can tank anyhting. Cool puzzles and challenging levels, but if you cleared Silksong, its mostly a child play.

The aesthetic and gameplay feel like games from ten to fifteen years ago, and I mean that as a compliment. Simple, pastel visuals without unnecessary fuss, extremely fluid controls and combat, it reminds me of 2010-2014ish. It's the kind of game that feels immediately familiar yet totally fresh. The main strong point is the exploration: the ability to pin screenshots directly onto the map is one of the most genuinely brilliant quality-of-life features this genre has seen in years, and it should become standard going forward. The designers have clearly studied the best the genre has to offer, from Ori, to Hollow Knight, to Celeste, and coherently synthesized those influences into this project. The optional challenge levels are tough (yet rewarding) and test both technical platforming skill and problem solving, well beyond what the main path ever demands. The boss fights require attention and pattern recognition, usually defeating me once or twice before I could crack them, which I find to be a very good sweet spot difficulty-wise. The unlockable powers are centered on space and time manipulation (a nod to the PS2-era Sands trilogy, surely). They are more interesting in puzzle-…

I'm very skeptical when it comes to Ubisoft, but this game exceeded all of my expectations. The graphics are breathtaking, beautiful composition, charming models, satisfying hand painted textures, cool RFX, the story is interesting too, especially since I've recently caught an interest in the history of Persia / Iran. Looks very good on an OLED screen. The gameplay is well designed, movement feels smooth and pleasant, fighting is challenging, but not too hard. The platforming is creative and non repetitive. This is the first Prince of Persia game I'm playing, had no opportunity to play the older titles as a kid, but I've seen others playing it and it looked cool. Very happy with it. + it's a PERFECT Steam Deck title! Note: I have several hours in this game which seem to not have counted due to playing without internet.

combat is just okay but platforming is fun. A good metroidvania

At first glance, the game seems simple. The story is completely different from the earlier Prince of Persia titles, but the gameplay is engaging and feels very similar to the original 2D Prince of Persia. As I progressed, however, the game started to feel unnecessarily long. The map is too large, many areas feel empty, and the hidden chests that require significant effort to reach often contain underwhelming rewards. The best abilities, such as the double jump and teleportation, are unlocked very late in the game. Because of this, it often feels like the game is artificially extending its playtime, forcing you to spend more time traveling between locations than actually progressing. The boss fights are very challenging, which is a major positive because they encourage you to think carefully about your strategy and defense throughout each encounter. Overall, it's not a bad game, but I don't think it's worth paying full price. The story could have been told comfortably in 12–15 hours instead of stretching it to around 30 hours.