StarTopic Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown |ST| The Franchise Formerly Starring Prince

[jariw]

I’m currently over 3 hours into this game after picking up after a sale, and after all of the praise it got back 2 months ago and my personal excitement I had for it back when it was announced, I have to say I’m pretty whelmed so far. It’s not bad but after all of the 9/10 scores and people saying it was up there with Metroid Dread in terms of quality I just can’t say I see it. There’s just alot of little things that are adding up for me:

The Combat: Enemies take way, way too long to kill on normal difficulty. I had to set the difficulty to easy and even then I’m still wailing on soldiers for quite a while before they die. And even with their health lowered I still end up running past most of them to save on time and health. Combat itself is fun but not particularly interesting

The Chatter: This is a chatty game. Yes it improves after a certain point but it’s still a pace breaker when it happens. I don’t want to skip any dialogue but I also want to get a move on sometimes.

No Minimap: I don’t even know how this happened, I’m constantly pulling up the whole map to see where I am. Not the end of the world but it’s a very baffling exclusion.

The Level Design: I saw this be one of the most praised aspects of the game, but in my opinion the rooms tend to be too large and empty, and there’s several rooms that just straight up have nothing in them for some reason.

The Pacing: Maybe I’m spoiled by Metroid games but it takes hours between getting new power ups, which is what I personally believe to be the draw of MetroidVanias. But progress just feels extremely slow here, both with how long it takes to get places, constant talking moments bogging down the pacing, and with how far apart meaningful power-ups are. Also apparently this game is 20 hours??? I don’t think I can do another 15 hours of this game, even if I was loving it.

I really want to love this game after all the praise it got & my love for Metroid Dread. Unfortunately I just don’t and it bums me out. Maybe I don’t love MetroidVanias as much as I think I do as I’m also one of the only people on planet Earth that really doesn’t care for Hollow Knight but I’m not sure. I loved Ori 2, and it’s not like that game plays like Metroid Dread. But please tell me what I’m missing with this game that has people so enamored with it. I want to love it too

The Combat/Chatter/Pacing/Level Design are connected. The things accelerates throughout the game. At the start, you're underpowered, you move slowly, and there's a LOT of story elements. At the end, you're overpowered, you breeze quickly through the levels, and the cut scenes are very far apart.

If you encounter screens where there's nothing, there's probably something there after all (such as a puzzle).

IMO, the best way to experience the game is to not try to turn it into a game it isn't. Metroid Dread, HK, PoP, Ori all have different game designs.

 

[em]

Well Hollow Knight also being such a slow burn is one of the many things I didn’t like about that game too, so idk. I greatly prefer a concise 10 hour long MetroidVania where I’m constantly unlocking new things than one stretched out to 20 hours with very slow progression. And I'm saying 3 hours because that's what the game says, but I feel like I’ve been playing for at least 5 by this point.

I had much the same experience as you with both PoP and HK. I will say that the later platforming challenges are pretty neat, but whether a couple hours of fun content are worth fifteen hours of drudgery is something you'll have to evaluate for yourself.

I've said it before: for me, The Lost Crown would have been a much more enjoyable experience as a shorter, linear game that focused on platforming around traps (like both the original 2D Prince of Persia and The Sands of Time). The new powers would still have made TLC feel fresh and innovative. I suppose it's easier to market a Metroidvania than a classic PoP-like, though.

 

[Tailzo]

How hard are you finding the game?

 

[jariw]

How hard are you finding the game?

That depends totally on how you set/tweak difficulty levels, and you can change those option at any time. The optional platforming stuff is something that can't be tweaked, but the crucial platforming passages can be bypassed with an option. The game is extremely flexible in that regard.

 

[Tailzo]

That depends totally on how you set/tweak difficulty levels, and you can change those option at any time. The optional platforming stuff is something that can't be tweaked, but the crucial platforming passages can be bypassed with an option. The game is extremely flexible in that regard.

Thank you. I wanted to like Hollow Knight, but I suck at games I guess

I'm going to wishlist this.

 

[DittoM]

How hard are you finding the game?

Hard. I so badly wanted to play this game on normal but it was testing my patience. And I switched to easy & haven’t looked back. Granted that only effects enemy encounters as platforming challenges can still be very difficult.

 

[Tailzo]

Hard. I so badly wanted to play this game on normal but it was testing my patience. And I switched to easy & haven’t looked back. Granted that only effects enemy encounters as platforming challenges can still be very difficult.

Oh... Can you compare it to Hollow Knight or Monster boy?

 

[oomoepoo]

Oh... Can you compare it to Hollow Knight or Monster boy?

This is very dependant on your settings as you can adjust stuff like enemy HP, how much damage they do and parry timing to your likings. Personally, I struggled with Hollow Knight's bossfights more though. But the platforming is definitely harder in PoP, especially some of the non-skippable stuff is spicy.

 

[DittoM]

Oh... Can you compare it to Hollow Knight or Monster boy?

Didn’t play Monster Boy and didn’t finish Hollow Knight, but I don’t remember enemies being as spongy early on in HK as early-game enemies are in this one. I can’t speak on difficulty much beyond that though since I had to switch to PoP’s easy mode, and that wouldn’t be a fair comparison.

 

[jariw]

Oh... Can you compare it to Hollow Knight or Monster boy?

I'd suggest you download the demo and get familiar with all the difficulty settings. The "Easy" preset is still not the easiest setting, since you can scale down things even more if needed. Or scale up something else that doesn't bother you. Or whatever you like, almost.

 

[DittoM]

Beat the game 3 days ago after around 11 hours of playtime. I’d give it like a 7. It’s good but it’s just obnoxiously difficult at times. Already mentioned I played on easy to face the spongy enemies, but I also used platforming assist for certain areas. I got close to 100% but some of those challenges tested my patience, so I think I’m done at 96.56%. Anyone who completed the hidden floor or got the Xerxes at the top of the Sacred Archives has my respect. Other than that I did everything else. Metroid games really make me appreciate level design where 95% of the room isn’t made of spikes like this game likes to do.