Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown reviews are in, and critics seem overwhelmingly positive. Ubisoft were clearly wise in returning the franchise to its platforming routes.
Ubisoft were undoubtedly taking a risk when they chose to return to the 2D platforming roots of the franchise with The Lost Crown. Fans have been waiting for so long, and they will each have a strong idea of how these characters should return.
However, it seems that Ubisoft have executed their plan wonderfully (or to be specific, Ubisoft Montpellier, the studio behind Rayman). We don't yet have user scores, but the aggregated critical review score for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is the second highest in franchise history.
The Lost Crown Only Beaten By 2003's Sands of Time, According To Critics
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown currently has an aggregated review score of 86 on Metacritic (based on 65 reviews). This is the highest score of any Prince of Persia game besides Sands of Time, which sits at 92 (based on 44 reviews).
So, what do they love so much about this game? It's best surmised in a passage from Faris Delalic's review, in which he describes how PoP's transition back to platforming remains faithful to the spirit of the 3D games:
In typical Prince of Persia fashion, you have to navigate many tricky parkour sections, full of traps like saw blades, spikes and the like. What was a huge strength of the 3D Sands of Time games has been beautifully translated into 2D. And Ubisoft Montpellier knows how to capitalize this strength. Wherever you go in the game, you constantly have to parkour your way through tricky and cleverly designed gauntlets and it never stops being exciting and rewarding to jump, slide and dash around.
As with almost every game, the user score is expected to be lower, but we aren't anticipating a wild disconnect between players and critics here, and we certainly aren't expecting any review-bombing (there's nothing too offensive or too "woke" in TLC to stir up the masses).
We await more responses to the game, although we can already describe this as a success for Ubisoft. If you plan to get The Lost Crown yourself, check out this comparison of editions before making any hasty purchases: