Time bends to your will

It’s good to see the Prince of Persia collection again in motion. Whereas the Sands of Time remake continues to be cooking, the collection goes again to its 2D roots with The Misplaced Crown, an Ubisoft Montpellier mission. And after enjoying a small slice of it, I’m fairly excited concerning the full recreation.

The Misplaced Crown feels prefer it pays homage to the inspiration of Prince of Persia. The participant takes up the position of Sargon, a brand new character who’s a part of an elite band of warriors on the lookout for the kidnapped Prince Ghassan. Within the demo I performed as a part of Ubisoft’s presence in Los Angeles throughout Summer season Sport Fest 2023, I obtained a reasonably good have a look at how Sargon’s journey performs out. There’s a complete lot of working, leaping, parrying, and loads of spikes to dodge.

The seeker

Whereas some followers are extra acquainted with the 3D period of Prince of Persia, this iteration seems to be again in the direction of the 2D. It’s a search-action, Metroidvania-style recreation. Sargon can walljump, slide round, sprint, and transfer at an honest clip. It’s not terribly stunning to see, as Ubisoft Montpellier has fairly a legacy in 2D motion with Rayman Origins and Legends.
The studio feels prefer it’s in full kind right here with The Misplaced Crown, as navigating is a pleasure. Inside minutes, I used to be already experimenting with methods of mixing my motion skills to easily fly via the extent. I performed it twice, as soon as on a hefty PC set-up and once more on Nintendo Change (which Ubisoft says is working at 60 FPS, and was very stable in my expertise). It felt nice to discover a degree with all I’d realized, effortlessly flipping and sliding previous spikes and enemies.

In fact, it’s not simply platforming, however these aforementioned enemies too. Some sort of undead plague has struck the temple Sargon and crew are exploring, and zombie troopers are milling about. There’s a fundamental assault, which you could chain collectively right into a combo or maintain to cost up for a knockback. Sargon additionally has a restricted pool of arrows and a chakram he can throw, and he can expend ranges of a preventing game-like meter to execute particular assaults, like a wave of harm or a therapeutic circle.

On high of all that, there’s a parry mechanic. Regular enemy assaults will be parried, which builds meter and opens up combo alternatives, whereas crimson assaults can’t be parried. These with a yellow flash open up a particular parry, which lets Sargon do a particular execution with a cut-in and animation.
There are even deeper programs, too. I discovered I might wall-bounce enemies for combos, and carry out a launcher assault earlier than pelting them with arrows whereas they hung within the air. Animation cancelling and little optimizations are all right here, too. Prince of Persia: The Misplaced Crown has each platforming and motion locked down already.

A wrinkle in time

Add on the additional mechanic of time-warping, and The Misplaced Crown will get much more fascinating. Sargon can depart a static picture that he could warp again to, a bit like a rewind mechanic. Theoretically, this could possibly be used earlier than an enormous platforming part, as a “save my pores and skin” security.

However it may well simply as simply be used to get round enemy defenses, arrange fascinating combos, and dodge assaults. The use instances felt limitless.
The spectacular set of instruments will get additional enhanced as you discover and acquire gems, which you’ll be able to commerce to a service provider for amulet charms. Totally different ones improve Sargon’s skills in several methods, permitting him to fireside three arrows as an alternative of 1, or including additional assaults to his fundamental combo string. A favourite of mine was an amulet you would buy that boosted Sargon’s injury whereas poisoned. And that’s a really fascinating mechanic because of the boss combat that sat on the finish of the demo.

Of gods and monsters

Closing out the demo is a boss battle with an enormous chimaera, who has a reasonably hefty arsenal of assaults. It could actually strike the bottom with its tail, creating swimming pools of poison. The beast flies up and down, slamming the earth when it lands, and in addition unleashes claw assaults, a floating magical cloud of dying, and extra.

This battle was an awesome problem to finish on, because it pushed me to utilize all my instruments. In a single combat, I felt like I used to be rigorously managing my meter, dodging assaults and timing my strikes. It was rewarding once I landed a very good parry and obtained a stable combo in. And ultimately, after just a few tries, I introduced the boss down. It felt even higher to select up the Change model, speedrun to his enviornment, and fell him in a single go.

Prince of Persia: The Misplaced Crown is sincerely certainly one of my favourite video games from the final week or so I spent in LA, and that’s a welcome shock. It’s a profitable mixture of a stable franchise and gifted studio, and actually feels prefer it could possibly be a house run if the entire recreation pans out like this. It’s nonetheless a methods off, with a deliberate launch date set for January 18, 2024. Nevertheless it looks like The Misplaced Crown may be well worth the wait.

Eric Van Allen

Senior Information Reporter – Whereas Eric’s been writing about video games since 2014, he is been enjoying them for lots longer. Normally discovered grinding RPG battles, digging into an indie gem, or hanging out across the Limsa Aethryte.

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