Way back in 1989, Jordan Mechner's original Prince of Persia represented one of the first and best examples of what's become known as the 'cinematic platformer'. It's a traditionally challenging genre, one that combines strong art, fun storylines, and fluidly animated protagonists to bring us adventures that test reflexes and puzzling abilities to their limits. You know the sort of thing, stuff like Flashback and Another World; y'know, the classics.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is the latest rebirth of sorts for the franchise — following on from The Sands of Time and 2008's Prince of Persia revamp — one that takes the established lore of past entries and ditches them in favour of a tangentially-related new lead character, and a bit of role-switching fun. Yes, this brand-new tale sees you play as Sargon, a member of The Immortals (crime-fighting hero types), and a man who meets all the criteria required of a bonafide action hero.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

In the opening moments of The Lost Crown, our new swashbuckler finds himself on a mission to rescue the actual Prince of Persia (plot twist!) at the same time that he's betrayed by The Immortals and left floundering at the bottom of a pit. It's a spectacular fall from grace for Sargon — he's been proper framed by some right slags — and one that results in a constantly compelling and wonderfully well-crafted slice of platforming action from the maestros at Ubisoft Montpellier.

Of course, with these devs at the reigns (the same team behind the phenomenal Rayman series), we had a feeling this would end up being a bit of a belter, and we've only gone and been proven right. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown serves up 20 fantastic hours of platform-puzzling (more if you're a completionist) that brings kinetic action and satisfyingly crunchy, responsive combat. It's got top-notch environmental design — par for the course with Ubisoft Montpellier, let's face it — and a supremely clever melding of time-based powers, acrobatic skills, and puzzles that gently stretch that grey matter you've got wasting away between your earholes. This team knows how to make super clever and extra stylish platformers, and it shows in every moment spent exploring and battling here.

Giving us a new story and protagonist, whilst also ensuring some nice ties to the past for fans, allows the series to reset its stall somewhat, to step back from the excesses of the bigger 3D entries to a more 'traditional' 2.5D viewpoint. This is a return to the core principles of 1989's original and puts gameplay, constant challenge, and immaculately-crafted platforming front and centre. The Lost Crown also brings some core changes to the mix though, with Metroidvania-styled backtracking and map-studying now a much bigger part of the overall experience, a change that adds replayability in spades.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

It's genuinely emotional at points — especially if you're old enough to remember the first game clearly — as so often The Lost Crown perfectly replicates the magical flow of the OG Prince of Persia. In terms of vibes, Ubisoft Montpellier nails the atmosphere and attitude of that first adventure whilst delivering a game that revels in how slick, pretty, and clever modern platformers have become.

As you embark upon a tale that takes you through lush forests, across sandy deserts, the rooftops of great Persian temples, and beyond, you pick up a whole bevy of skills and powers that transform Sargon from dab-hand hero to reality-shifting manipulator of time itself. Now, we could detail all of these skills and powers here but we'd ruin a lot of the fun of progressing and discovering secrets and abilities for yourself. Abilities that are drip-fed to you at just the right time to keep the core gameplay loop from getting stale.

You'll know the general drill anyway, especially if you've been indulging in the likes of Dead Cells, Metroid Dread, or even Dark Souls, to name a few more recent examples. There's a lot of Dead Cells here, in particular, in terms of just how much tweaking you can do with boons and boosts, and the good old bonfire mechanics of FromSoftware have also made their way into yet another game.

On its default difficulty, the menagerie of skeletons, ghouls, and other monstrosities keeps you on your toes with tight, parry-based combat. There are some fantastically colourful boss fights dotted along the way, too. Each new location looks great — even if they lack originality in places — and the world is packed full of secrets, lore, collectibles, and shortcuts that open up new paths and routes through an enormous Swiss-cheese warren of a world map.

We even get a dip into full-on horror at one point as Sargon makes his way through dark, damp caves that do a fantastic job of highlighting the atmospheric soundtrack. Oh, and remember those stealthy, insta-kill E.M.M.I. bits from Metroid Dread? There are a few sequences that work a little like that thrown in for good measure. It all feels great, nothing comes off as extraneous, and what's been pilfered has been adapted to fit beautifully.

So, we've got smooth and responsive combat, fancy specials and finishers to reward perfect parries, pixel-perfect platforming, slick parkour, and clever gauntlets that test all of your accumulated skills. We've also got plenty of challenge in the form of timed challenges and tougher routes for better rewards and secrets. However, one of the most impressive aspects is how The Lost Crown gives fans of challenging platformers exactly what they want — to the point of almost feeling cruel at higher difficulties — whilst also delivering a ton of smart accessibility options that busts the genre wide open to newcomers.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)

The headline new mechanic in this regard is the 'Memory Shard' ability, which allows you to press down on your D-Pad to take a screenshot that's automatically added to your location on your map. It's so simple, it's so brilliant, and we guess it's a natural progression of the screenshot functions found in later Assassin's Creed games. With the ability to tag puzzles or treasures in this way, or simply to mark a route you don't have the skills to traverse just now, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown makes it easy as pie to keep tags on everything.

We've also got the game's amulets - collectible items that tweak and boost all manner of aspects of gameplay, such as attack power and max health, whilst also giving you new moves like flashy dodges, exploding enemies, and more. Then, on top of all of this, a comprehensive accessibility menu allows players to turn on a clever platform assist mechanic that warps you past tricky sections, as well as giving you HUD scaling, a High Contrast Mode, target assistance, and sliders for damage input and output. Heck, you can even change dodge windows, parry timings, and how fast Athra — used to charge up those special Athra attacks — is accumulated. Choose your own adventure, indeed.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

This all results in a Prince of Persia game that pays its due respects to the past by taking the fundamentals of the original and fully modernising them. The fact that it does this whilst also addressing many of the main issues some folk may have with this genre — i.e. the often crazy difficulty — is just the icing on top. The difficulty is there should you want it, let's be clear, but newcomers, or those in search of something more relaxing, will find plenty to enjoy, too. Let's hope this serves as the starting point for a new series, because we are absolutely down for more.

On a final note, and perhaps most importantly for the Switch version of the game, we've had very few issues with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown in terms of its performance. It looks fantastically bright and colourful in both docked and handheld (1080p and 720p respectively) and plays at 60fps across the board, so big wins all around there. We also happened to be playing the Series X version alongside this one (you can check out our review for that port at our sister site, Pure Xbox) and the graphical differences are slight to say the least. It may lack a little fancy lighting or shadows here and there, but this is a very pretty game, especially on the console's handheld screen.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

Performance isn't 100% perfect - there are some slight stutters when moving into new areas (thankfully these transitions never involve gameplay and the jitters are short-lived and minor in our experience), and some non-transitional cutscenes also had a few hiccups. Beyond this, some extra loading screens are the only other changes we noticed between the two versions; it's a very tasty Switch port, and a game that rockets to very near the top of our list of essential action platformers. 2024 is kicking off in style.

Conclusion

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a slick return to the roots of this franchise that serves up clever 2.5D action wrapped up in a delightful art style and satisfying story. There's a smart balance here between old-school levels of action and challenge, moreish combat, and neat puzzles, all mixed with accessibility options and fine-tuning that open things up to newcomers and casual players. We knew Ubisoft Montpellier was a pair of safe hands and the team hasn't let us down, serving up the first must-play of 2024 in a Switch port that absolutely does the business.

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