Prince of Persia The Lost Crown

Game's far overhyped and full of ubiisms that make it hard to enjoy. The graphics are nice for a metroidvania, but the game keeps zooming in on the low-detail character models during cutscenes, turning what looks fine in gameplay into something fugly. Speaking of cutscenes, in typical ubi fashion the story is dull and cringe. Despite that, they seem to revel in the low quality writing at the player's expense, dragging out the exchanges between characters way longer than they need to be. The exploration feels extremely uneven. Sometimes the savepoints are right next to each other, other times you're crossing a huge chunk of the map just to get back to a teleporter. There's a lot of backtracking in general: you uncover most of the map early on, then spend the rest of the game returning to the same spots over and over. Part of the problem is how the game handles ability unlocks and location gating. Say you find a spot that needs a double jump. You come back once you've got it, only to find you need yet another ability to actually get in. This happens constantly, and it basically tells the player: don't bother exploring off the main path, we're just going to waste your time. And there's a lot of timewasting in this game: 1. There's plenty to find, but again, typical ubi, most of it is pointless. Fun if you're an OCD completionist maybe, but it adds nothing to your character or the gameplay. 2. The jumping puzzles and challenges start off way too easy before slamming you with a wall of difficulty. That means most of them feel like mindnumbing runbacks when you're repeating them to memorize and get through the actually difficult parts. There are a lot of abilities in the game, enough that some start feeling redundant, and it seems like ubi agreed, because they start locking them back down later on. There's an ability where you throw your chakram thing and teleport to it, so you can teleport through bars and grates, except then you hit ones you suddenly can't. Same with wall bouncing and double jumping: eventually you run into walls with special layers that just stop you from bouncing off them. The boss fights, while impressively designed, just don't feel that great. The mid-fight cutscenes add nothing and pull you out of the flow of the fight. Some of the later bosses feel undodgeable, where you have to predict their attacks and use your teleport abilities, because double jumping and dashing away just won't do, and you won't be able to block most attacks. The fights feel unfair, but that still doesn't make the fights difficult. This is no skong and you can comfortably face roll through most of the bosses taking them out on your first attempt. The main thing the game has going for it is the gameplay itself. The platforming is extremely tight, and the combat (outside the aforementioned boss fights) is easily one of the best in the genre. So if you're only about the mechanics, you might enjoy this. I didn't.