Thought there was a topic about this already, but seemingly not. Ubi's latest shot at a Prince of Persia is in the metroidvania ilk. I'm not one for posting spoilers, however it did not meet sales expectations and the studio's already dissolved - blink and you'll miss it, folks!
It looks nice and seems to be more generously sized than I'd expected. Probably the most surprising thing for me playing this is that there's actually a reasonable amount of challenge in here. It's not the hardest game in genre, but it's also far from the easiest. The usual array of combo, launcher, and aerial follow-ups are supplemented by ranged attacks, dodges and parries, and though these can be managed easily enough in single enemy configurations, and thrives in (annoyingly infrequent) boss fights, it does love to punish you extra hard when your timing's off, or even worse when you get sprung by multiple enemies at once and the hits chain into each other.
It's pretty rough from a platforming standpoint too - incorporating a load of movement tech that just compounds the difficulty as sequences get longer and more fiddly. A dimensional shift one (similar to one in Guacamelee) I just got is competing for inputs so badly that it's ended up bound to R3, and even still you're expected to hit this multiple times in sequences. These aren't complaints - ok the R3 thing is - but mainly it is just a surprise to find yourself back tracking so often.
Best new feature by far is the one-button ability to screenshot an area and have it stamped on your map; the idea being that you see a ledge too tall, or a particular type of barrier, so you snap it and then when you get the ability that'll get you through, you're able to go through your photos and see where you can go back to. It's a nice idea, and it's implemented reasonably well.
Oh yeah - Ubisoft account required, awful overlays of their own awful achievement system *on top* of whatever one your system of choice uses. Very tasteful.
It looks nice and seems to be more generously sized than I'd expected. Probably the most surprising thing for me playing this is that there's actually a reasonable amount of challenge in here. It's not the hardest game in genre, but it's also far from the easiest. The usual array of combo, launcher, and aerial follow-ups are supplemented by ranged attacks, dodges and parries, and though these can be managed easily enough in single enemy configurations, and thrives in (annoyingly infrequent) boss fights, it does love to punish you extra hard when your timing's off, or even worse when you get sprung by multiple enemies at once and the hits chain into each other.
It's pretty rough from a platforming standpoint too - incorporating a load of movement tech that just compounds the difficulty as sequences get longer and more fiddly. A dimensional shift one (similar to one in Guacamelee) I just got is competing for inputs so badly that it's ended up bound to R3, and even still you're expected to hit this multiple times in sequences. These aren't complaints - ok the R3 thing is - but mainly it is just a surprise to find yourself back tracking so often.
Best new feature by far is the one-button ability to screenshot an area and have it stamped on your map; the idea being that you see a ledge too tall, or a particular type of barrier, so you snap it and then when you get the ability that'll get you through, you're able to go through your photos and see where you can go back to. It's a nice idea, and it's implemented reasonably well.
Oh yeah - Ubisoft account required, awful overlays of their own awful achievement system *on top* of whatever one your system of choice uses. Very tasteful.
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