Well folks, it finally happened. At 36 years of age, I threw out my back. I never had a back injury before, and as of the time of this writing (2 days since the injury), things are looking up, but man, back injuries suck. I was at a trampoline park for a 4 year old’s birthday party, bouncing around with my daughter, when all of a sudden everything went south. It wasn’t 5 minutes on the damn trampoline and I knew something went wrong.

Apparently, when you are jumping 8+ feet high up in the air repeatedly, there exists a sort of “optimal form” you need to get into to buffer your landings, else you risk an extreme “axial load” down your spinal column. Hey, lesson learned.

So why am I telling you this? Well I’ve had a lot of time to play Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown.

It’s currently sitting as my favorite game of 2024, which by the way is set to be an extremely STACKED year. Astrobot on PS5, a new Legend of Zelda game, Mario & Luigi, the list goes on. Last year was solid for video games and 2024 has been no slouch either. Speaking of slouching, let me scoot over to a better place to type this all out.

…yep… that’s way better.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown slipped under my radar, somehow. I adore Metroidvanias, and even though I truly can’t stand the genre name, they seem to focus on one primary thing: gameplay. Collecting things, moving quickly around a map, beating up bad guys with some sort of ever-expanding and upgrading arsenal, and they’re packed with “a-HA!” moments where you get a new ability and know just where to return with it to progress further. The Lost Crown has a story of course, but as with most games I play these days, I typically breeze through conversations (brief as they may be) in favor of getting another dopamine hit.

First of all, the game is, for a ‘vania, enormous. We’re talking 20+ hours if you want to complete everything, which for a game like this is a no-brainer. Collecting everything is where I derive my enjoyment of games from this genre, after all.

There are environment puzzles as one would expect, but the physical challenges of hopping around and trying not to fall into spikes or spinning sharp things is an absolute delight to immerse yourself in. The world is gorgeous, unsurprising coming from Ubisoft Montpellier, the big name behind Rayman Legends, one of my favorite 2D platformers of all time. Paired with a perfect musical score and you have a massive world which is pure bliss to blast through.

The gameplay is fast-paced and requires some pinpoint input accuracy, particularly when it comes to the combat. Speaking of the combat, I cannot express enough how satisfying this game feels to play when it comes to the combat. The Switch Joy Cons and Pro Controller grants the perfect level of feedback, and a well-timed parry dumps pure endorphins into your bloodstream. Yeah, Ubisoft NAILED the combat. I honestly cannot remember the last time combat felt this intense.

I decided to challenge myself and play on the highest difficulty, and boy, challenge myself I did. The bosses absolutely do not mess around, as is to be expected, but even the regular enemies can team up to completely wreck your evening in the blink of an eye. While those regular enemies range from easy to insanely frustrating, each has their own set of choreographed moves that, given enough time in the saddle, you will figure out the patterns, resulting in gratifying combat as you hack and slash your way through mob after mob.

The bosses are epic and it feels on par with Hollow Knight when it comes to memorizing tells before an attack happens. I nearly pooped myself when I saw a giant goddamn CRAB appear and rip me in half probably a dozen times before I took it down. One of the bosses (the jailer of a prison) had an interesting fight, where other mobs of increasing difficulty would spawn in throughout the battle in several phases, totally wrecking your shit if you didn’t hit everything perfectly or parry at the right time. All of the boss fights so far have been a blast, truly FUN in the sense that I was almost bummed out after the adrenaline wore off from the win. Of course, you can go back and fight any bosses you bested at your chosen difficulty, because this game is all about options.

Speaking of options, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is quite keen on letting you customize your build. It’s not overly complicated, but you can really dive into it and try different skills and buffs via the Amulet system. You find them all over the map and they grant all sorts of bonuses – higher arrow damage, lowering flame debuffs, speeding up your power attack generation, as well as some convenience perks like picking up dropped items from afar, or playing a little chime when you’re in a room with a secret chest. Oh and of course, most of the Amulets can be upgraded for a pretty penny, along with damn near everything else in the game.

For instance, my current loadout gives me a bonus on my basic attack, adds another hit to my main combo, and heals me “greatly” (because I upgraded this one) whenever I parry. However, if I wanted to be more of a distant fighter, I could throw on Amulets that boost my bow damage or create AoE attacks when I use my “teleport” skill (which is basically a recall from other games).

Throughout the behemoth map you run into a young boy who sells you maps to areas, and you can also pay him to mark the location of treasures on your map to help you find them later as you unlock skills and thus new passageways.

I’m still pretty amped up from the two hours I just spent playing this game, so the words are flying fast and loose tonight (it’s also 12:30am where I live, and my 2 month old is due to wake up at any point, so please pardon the rushed post). If you like Metroid games, you will adore Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, I assure you. The Switch is no stranger to terrific metroidvanias but this is truly the best of the best.

Go check it out!