General Gaming Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (PlayStation/Xbox/PC/Switch) - update: "Boss Attack Update" trailer (released today for free)

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

4 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

 

I was surprised when I found out this was a full price game.

 

$50 does strike me as being a little steep for this type of game.

[Greatoneshere]

Same, that's a bit steep, but I'll definitely be playing it at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later. I hope the game sells well so we can get more Prince of Persia (not the remake, unless that's salvaged).

[EternallDarkness]

tried out the demo and it plays pretty well. As for paying full price. It's a damn Ubisoft game so wait two and half weeks and it'll be available for 20 

[Brian]

Love the difficulty setting can be completely customizable. Would like to see this more in games. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

Tried out the demo.

Looks like a game I could get into -- but not at full AAAA price.

[stepee]

I have an active Ubi+ account so I’ll play it there. I almost want to buy it to support ubi doing this sort of thing and I’d like more games like this with some budget behind them but I don’t feel like doing that for an epic  or ubi copy.

[legend]

The original Prince of Persia holds a special place in my heart. When I was kid in something like the third grade, I was not a great student (I wasn't a good student really until grad school when I finally became interested and kind of decent at the end of my undergrad). To get me to do well, my dad showed me the very beginning of Prince of Persia on mac (on mac it is was pretty technically impressive for the time, much more so than the DOS version). He told me if I wanted to play it I had to get a 100 on a spelling quiz or something like that. And Whad'ya know? I got a 100 on the very next quiz. Funny how that just happened to happen.

 

So yeah, I'll play this and pay full price.

[stepee]

Seems to run maxed settings 720p 90fps on deck!

[XxEvil AshxX]

18 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

$50 does strike me as being a little steep for this type of game.

 

Just do what I did for Assassin's Creed Mirage... pay the $18 for a month of Ubi+, play it through, cancel.

[AbsolutSurgen]

Played the demo (or part of it at least).  Stopped playing because the gameplay wasn't really clicking with me.  I read a review on PCGamer this morning, and I think I understand why.  Apparently many of the mechanics that make the platforming interesting are unlocked into the second half of the game,  I'm normally fine with this if the wait is 3-4 hours, but the review said you don't even get a double jump until 15 hours in.

 

While the graphics are serviceable for an indie game, they weren't what I would expect from a AAA game.  Good performance -- I was mostly maxing out the 165 fps of my monitor, but it was locked into a 16:9 screen ratio, and the lower 1% framerate confirmed my sense of minor stuttering.  No HDR.  And graphics leaned into art direction (i.e. cartoony with super saturated colours), rather than any technical excellence. 

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

While the graphics are serviceable for an indie game, they weren't what I would expect from a AAA game.  Good performance -- I was mostly maxing out the 165 fps of my monitor, but it was locked into a 16:9 screen ratio, and the lower 1% framerate confirmed my sense of minor stuttering.  No HDR.  And graphics leaned into art direction (i.e. cartoony with super saturated colours), rather than any technical excellence. 

It's clearly a game that targets Switch at 60fps, with a few extra bells and whistles for more modern platforms.  I don't see anything wrong with that approach for a 2D platformer, where its not going to limit the game design at all.  Must have helped them stick to a budget as well.

 

We'll be past the Switch soon enough.  Then the Deck would be the lowest common denominator.

[AbsolutSurgen]

13 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

It's clearly a game that targets Switch at 60fps, with a few extra bells and whistles for more modern platforms.  I don't see anything wrong with that approach for a 2D platformer, where its not going to limit the game design at all.  Must have helped them stick to a budget as well.

 

We'll be past the Switch soon enough.  Then the Deck would be the lowest common denominator.

For a CAN$70 game on PC -- I expect basic functionality like HDR and 21:9 monitor support.  We've seen in the past games that can be scaled to work on Switch that also are technically very competent (i.e. Hogwart's Legacy).  If it were being sold at half it's price, I wouldn't have commented on it.

[Dexterryu]

It looks good, but I also don't see it as a day 1 purchase at that price.

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

For a CAN$70 game on PC -- I expect basic functionality like HDR and 21:9 monitor support.  We've seen in the past games that can be scaled to work on Switch that also are technically very competent (i.e. Hogwart's Legacy).  If it were being sold at half it's price, I wouldn't have commented on it.

I could actually see an argument against ultrawide for a Metroidvania that doesn’t target that resolution as a baseline.  They’re often designed around what a player can and can’t see in a given moment.  If that extra real estate lets you peer into other rooms, it could change the pacing and flow.  It depends on how ‘screen’ oriented the level design is.

 

HDR is a more obvious gaffe, but that’s true on the consoles as well.  It sounds like Auto-HDR on PC is the best option if you want HDR at all.

[stepee]

2 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

I could actually see an argument against ultrawide for a Metroidvania that doesn’t target that resolution as a baseline.  They’re often designed around what a player can and can’t see in a given moment.  If that extra real estate lets you peer into other rooms, it could change the pacing and flow.  It depends on how ‘screen’ oriented the level design is.

 

HDR is a more obvious gaffe, but that’s true on the consoles as well.  It sounds like Auto-HDR on PC is the best option if you want HDR at all.

 

Yeah using the auto-hdr fix tool to get it to work in Windows seems to be the way to do it (Special K injection also probably if you want to go the extra step) but that there are tools to get support working with literally the press of a button further shows how it’s ridiculous for any game in 2024 to ship without native hdr support!

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Updated the OpenCritic reviews post.

[stepee]

Out now on Ubi+!

[AshsToAshs]

I've played about 8 hours of it over the past week. 

It's great.

The combat in particular feels very tight.

I think a lot of the puzzle rooms are cleaver and well designed.

And it runs buttery smooth.

 

The only part I have had issue with is the story/writing.

Sometimes it feels a little long winded, and (for me personally) not super interesting.

But the voice performances are well done.

[TwinIon]

I've been putting in some time on my Steamdeck and I've found a lot to like, and some that isn't really to my taste. It's no graphical showpiece, but it runs pretty consistently at 90 on my deck, which is great. I've really enjoyed a lot of the exploration and the movement stuff gets pretty crazy at times. It can be pretty difficult, but thankfully there are a lot of options to customize the difficulty.

 

Personally, I think everything "souls like" about this game makes it worse, but I seem to be in the minority with that one. I feel like the generally high difficulty of both combat and platforming makes death more common and more punishing than I think is fun and diminished my desire to explore. That said, it can be satisfying to complete a particularly complex section.

 

Some of the puzzles, even the minor platforming ones, are pretty clever. I wish there were more of them.

 

I got stuck on a snake boss that is really punishing, but only after looking online did I figure out that you can upgrade gear, and that I'd long past unlocked that ability. I'll try again tonight and see if some upgrades make a difference.

[stepee]

5 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

I've been putting in some time on my Steamdeck and I've found a lot to like, and some that isn't really to my taste. It's no graphical showpiece, but it runs pretty consistently at 90 on my deck, which is great. I've really enjoyed a lot of the exploration and the movement stuff gets pretty crazy at times. It can be pretty difficult, but thankfully there are a lot of options to customize the difficulty.

 

Personally, I think everything "souls like" about this game makes it worse, but I seem to be in the minority with that one. I feel like the generally high difficulty of both combat and platforming makes death more common and more punishing than I think is fun and diminished my desire to explore. That said, it can be satisfying to complete a particularly complex section.

 

Some of the puzzles, even the minor platforming ones, are pretty clever. I wish there were more of them.

 

I got stuck on a snake boss that is really punishing, but only after looking online did I figure out that you can upgrade gear, and that I'd long past unlocked that ability. I'll try again tonight and see if some upgrades make a difference.

 

Actually it’s not just you, the Soulslike parts are definitely the worst thing about it imo. I actually would have kept the difficulty at normal as I don’t mind the challenge level of the fights themselves, but the spawn points to return require too much wasted time for me to do that so I set to easy. 

 

Even then certain things like say, the guy who locks you in the prison, that’s a lot of extra effort that isn’t really needed each time he catches you. 

 

Besides that and the story being a bit “whatever” so far it’s a fantastic metroidvania up there with some of the best imo. Great level design and platforming, combat is better than most of the genre, and yeah it’s a delight visually on the deck.

[Captain Pickle]

On 1/11/2024 at 10:46 PM, legend said:

The original Prince of Persia holds a special place in my heart. When I was kid in something like the third grade, I was not a great student (I wasn't a good student really until grad school when I finally became interested and kind of decent at the end of my undergrad). To get me to do well, my dad showed me the very beginning of Prince of Persia on mac (on mac it is was pretty technically impressive for the time, much more so than the DOS version). He told me if I wanted to play it I had to get a 100 on a spelling quiz or something like that. And Whad'ya know? I got a 100 on the very next quiz. Funny how that just happened to happen.

 

So yeah, I'll play this and pay full price.

Fabricated memories, bro. We were able to program our bots to age but we can’t seem to figure out how to make them grow. So, easy fix. All our robots are “born” around age 25 after max height is obtained. You were never dumb. You are smart, robo smart. Day one. Once we uploaded your positronic matrix we added your pre-memory building arc.

 

The rest is as they say… fabricated history.

[stepee]

lol the old man who talks in rhyme but only some times, like commit to the bit or don’t dude 

[Kal-El814]

8 hours ago, stepee said:

lol the old man who talks in rhyme but only some times, like commit to the bit or don’t dude 

 

I'm just here to appreciate the craftsmanship of this comment.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Has Hit Just 300,000 Players, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora at 1.9 Million – Rumour

GAMINGBOLT.COM

---

Despite widespread critical acclaim, it seems Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown has failed to attract a large number of players upon its release.

 

Quote

 

According to a report published by Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson, a couple of Ubisoft’s most recent major releases have failed to perform to expectations, drawing in lower player numbers in their initial post-launch period than expected.

 

One of them is Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, the company’s most recent release. Launching earlier this month, the action-adventure title drew widespread critical acclaim, being praised for returning the series to its sidescrolling roots while reinventing it as a Metroidvania experience. According to Henderson, however, thus far, the game has only been played by around 300,000 players, and estimated to have brought in roughly $15 million in revenue.

 

 

It's a 2.5D side-scrolling Metroidvania game priced at $50 - what the hell did they expect?  If anything, I'd say that they should be damned pleased to have sold that many so far!

[legend]

I haven't bought it yet even though I plan to. But that's primarily because it's not on Steam.

[Phaseknox]

9 minutes ago, legend said:

I haven't bought it yet even though I plan to. But that's primarily because it's not on Steam.

I haven’t bought it yet and I don’t plan to because the main character is the wrong gender. 

[best3444]

9 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

I haven’t bought it yet and I don’t plan to because the main character is the wrong gender. 

 

Do you miss out on a lot of games because of this? I never care if I'm a male or female if the game is good. 

[Keyser_Soze]

12 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

I haven’t bought it yet and I don’t plan to because the main character is the wrong gender. 

 

It's Prince of Persia not Princess of Persia

[Dodger]

I want to play it but I'm being cheap and not wanting to play it for $50 when my backlog is so massive.

[Phaseknox]

28 minutes ago, best3444 said:

Do you miss out on a lot of games because of this? I never care if I'm a male or female if the game is good. 

Yes, I often pass on games that have male protagonists that I would otherwise like if they had female protagonists because I don’t really like playing as dudes in games anymore. There’s exceptions of course, but for the most part I only like to play as female characters in games these days.
 

25 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

It's Prince of Persia not Princess of Persia

You’re rescuing the Prince of Persia in this game, not playing as him.

[best3444]

Just now, Phaseknox said:

Yes, I often pass on games that have male protagonists that I would otherwise like if they had female protagonists because I just don’t really like playing as dudes in games anymore. There’s exceptions of course, but for the most part I only like to play as female characters in games these days.
 

You’re rescuing the Prince of Persia in this game, not playing as him.

 

Is it a sexual thing? Like you prefer to stare at a female protagonists ass rather then a males?

[Phaseknox]

2 minutes ago, best3444 said:

Is it a sexual thing? Like you prefer to stare at a female protagonists ass rather then a males?

That’s part of it, because if I’m going to be looking at a character that I’m playing as for long periods of time then I prefer them to be one that I personally find appealing to look at as opposed to one that I don’t. And I usually find female characters more appealing than male ones in general in terms of personality, and voice acting. But for the most part I’ve just always found athletic badass ass-kicking female characters to be cool, so they’re what I prefer playing as in games. 

[best3444]

2 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

That’s part of it, because if I’m going to be looking at a character that I’m playing as for long periods of time then I prefer them to be one that I personally find appealing to look at as opposed to one that I don’t. And I usually find female characters more appealing than male ones in general in terms of personality, and voice acting. But for the most part I’ve just always found athletic badass ass-kicking female characters to be cool, so they’re what I prefer playing as in games. 

 

I got ya.