Last year, amidst a sea of fairly bog-standard Ubisoft titles that had been flooding the market, well and truly encapsulating the "Ubisoft formula" at this stage of the game, I think everyone was well and truly surprised when out of the blue, this trailer was showcased at a Ubisoft Forward event:

Out of the blue, Prince of Persia - a series dormant since a failed attempt at a revival in 2010 was suddenly back with a downright stunning new game, and to even further surprise - rather than being created to hit upon the 3D gameplay that was more popular (and being headlined via a Sands of Time remake), instead, The Lost Crown was going back to the original 2D roots of the series.

Months passed, and the game's scope was only growing. So much about the game was starting to look up. From being developed by the same team that brought us the legendary Rayman Origins and Legends, to being a high budget but lower priced title, and breaking entirely outside of the usual Ubisoft trademarks, it was when a demo came out that solidified that this was a game I wanted to grab at launch, and so I did.

The Lost Crown is a special game, it's one of those games that downright excels at what genre it's aiming to be to a degree that even fans of that genre can enjoy it. In this case, it's a Metroidvania in which you explore a ancient city that's been hit by a curse of time, leaving it eternally trapped shifting between different time periods, messing with the heads of everyone involved. 

There's so much that the game just does to such a incredible degree. The performance is rock solid, 4K, 60fps, or 120fps if your console/television supports it. Beautiful animations that feel ripped right out of a anime, to the degree where they basically shot for shot recreate All Might's One For All punch from the first major MHA arc. A story that is surprisingly engaging, as you get hooked into the various mysteries surrounding Mount Qaf, the side characters you meet along the way, and the drama that starts to emerge as Sargon and the other Immortals are inflicted by the time curse that spreads all throughout the city, as you begin to learn more about your allies, their alliances, and the true history behind the kingdom. 

The map after awhile becomes fairly simple to navigate, helped by a fast travel system that thankfully isn't too spread out throughout the game. There's only one main location that I'd say did not have nearly enough. The side quests you can find are simple and quick enough to do, but does a great job enhancing the world around you.

Combat...honestly, was not very sold on it. I do appreciate they were trying to make it parry/combo based, but I feel past a certain point, it felt like enemies could block you too easily. Bosses also suffer from this to a degree. Some bosses are pretty well designed and go by very fast, but other bosses feels like it takes absolutely forever to deal with, while they have hard-hitting attacks that can whittle your health down massively.

I thought the abilities though was absolutely fantastic. While you get some regular staples of Metroidvanias and platformers like air dashes and such, I thought how the game incorperated the traditional time abilities of Prince of Persia in to expand your moveset was really good, and really creative. Things like being able to do attacks and time cloning yourself to get a second attack out of it was just incredibly clever. 

Platforming for most of the game is what I say is it's best feature. Most of the platforming sections are incredibly well designed, make good use of Satgon's additional abilities as he unlocks them, offers a lot of challenge, yet don't feel too punishing. Which is great considering the game lives or dies by it's platforming. My only main problem is when you got to insta-kill hazards that would send you back to a pre-determined location if you so much as touched the edge of a spike. It got really annoying as later sections such as the Tower of Silence and the Pits of Shifting Sand heavily relied on it, and it didn't feel particularly fun to be punished so severely for so little error.

Still though, despite the fact Ubisoft games always go down in price so easily, this is the one big exception where I'd advise anyone to go out and get it as soon as possible. Ubisoft took a gamble with this game, being so completely outside of it's regular wheelhouse, on a dormant franchise at this point. The Ubisoft Montpellier team remains the best development team at Ubisoft, and deserve as much credit as possible for the incredible work they did with this game. It's a high budget, high quality, and lengthy metroidvania that's been allowed to be experimental, and still be a cheaper priced game in this day and age, doing so alongside AC Mirage, although I'd say Prince of Persia is the clear winner between the two. Either way, I think it's something that should be encouraged, and I have no issues recommending the game to anyone, even non fans of Metroidvanias.