This text is a part of Run, Die, Repeat, gamerlifemedia’s week-long collection exploring roguelikes.
Generally it takes an entire lot of phrases to elucidate a online game adequately. Different instances, it simply takes seven: Prince of Persia however it’s Useless Cells.
That succinct elevator pitch tells you virtually every little thing you have to find out about The Rogue Prince of Persia. The 2D motion recreation, which surprise-launched in 1.0 this week after an early entry run of a bit greater than a yr, isn’t a lot attempting to evolve the roguelite style a lot because it’s utilizing a confirmed method to present the Prince of Persia collection a dependable hit. It accomplishes that mission by merely taking all of the items that made Useless Cells such a style staple and peppering in an additional platforming twist that captures the spirit of Ubisoft’s collection – plus some killer tunes.
In addition to the acrobatic mash-up works from second to second, The Rogue Prince of Persia by no means fairly climbs to its inspiration’s heights. It’s a reminder that motion roguelikes are a fragile style: You may hit all the suitable notes, however one key misstep might make or break your run.
The journey kicks off when the Huns assault the Persian Palace and their chief, Nogai, commandeers the throne. That inciting siege is all it takes to set the titular Prince into motion. To succeed in Nogai, he should journey by labyrinthian biomes and take down a few interstitial bosses guarding the trail to the throne room. In conventional rogue style, the objective of every run is to amass higher weapons, passive perks by way of medallions, and well being upgrades to piece collectively a construct robust sufficient to beat the Huns.
It performs precisely like Useless Cells, proper all the way down to a meta-progression system the place Soul Cinders will be collected and spent so as to add extra weapons and secondary instruments to the merchandise pool. The similarity is not any accident. The Rogue Prince of Persia is developed by Evil Empire, the studio that took over Useless Cells growth obligation from Movement Twin in 2019. Whereas the studio didn’t create that recreation, it has turn out to be intimately aware of it by years of upkeep and work on standout DLCs like Return to Castlevania. The hack-and-slash motion is fast-paced, the extent design is sufficiently maze-like, and there are many dangers to weigh as you poke round each nook of a biome for helpful treasure.
Evil Empire does attempt to put its personal stamp on a dependable format. To higher signify the collection it is working with, The Rogue Prince of Persia provides a bit extra platforming to the combination. The Prince can run up the 2D backdrop’s partitions to succeed in increased areas and stick onto footholds. It’s imperfect, as I typically discover myself sticking onto partitions more durable than I anticipate or magnetizing to a foothold when evading enemy assaults mid-battle. Even with these quirks, it’s nonetheless a sensible solution to pay tribute to Prince of Persia’s roots, and it retains motion as fast and fluid as fight.
There’s an emphasis on story too, as there are sub-missions to finish throughout a number of makes an attempt. These are linked collectively by a function known as Thoughts Map, the place any collected lore or data is splayed out on an internet that slowly unravels the story and the way its characters are related. Although the story comes off as white noise between bouts of thrilling motion, it does assist the journey stand out from numerous video games that observe the Useless Cells method to a T. Pair that with an illustrative artwork model and a few terrific grooves, and you need to have all you want for a robust roguelite.
However as I performed, one thing felt ever so barely off. I couldn’t fairly put my finger on it at first; in spite of everything, I used to be enjoying a recreation that was structurally equivalent to 1 I really like. The basis downside, I discovered, is that runs in The Rogue Prince of Persia are too stagnant. The biome layouts change (although some are extra static than others), however my makes an attempt by no means really feel all that totally different from each other. I’m at all times funneled in direction of the identical bosses who’ve the identical telegraphed assaults. I at all times should do the identical platforming gauntlets to unlock new merchandise blueprints. Runs begin to really feel stale inside just a few hours, even after I’ve unlocked branching paths that allow me discover new biomes in a run.
Even fight suffers from that, because the core hacking-and-slashing not often feels too totally different from weapon to weapon. In a single run, I traded a pair of poison daggers for a set of fists. Once I began attacking, I believed I’d unintentionally requipped the daggers. They simply felt that related. Secondary gadgets like bows and saws add a bit selection, however I felt like I by no means wanted to vary my play model to suit the playing cards I used to be dealt — that’s, till round 5 hours in, once I unlocked additional medallions with utilities past merely elevating my assault energy. I lastly discovered a groove at that time, as one run let me form my character round beautiful enemies and getting additional harm on them. The construct potential was there, however I needed to work for it.
That’s the fragile design problem that any roguelite has to deal with. You wish to give gamers an excellent purpose to maintain coming again for an additional run. However you additionally don’t wish to make it really feel like your first makes an attempt are a complete wash it doesn’t matter what your talent degree is. The Rogue Prince of Persia will get tripped up throughout that tightrope act. At instances, I used to be left feeling that the purpose of my runs was merely to amass sufficient talent factors to present me extra therapeutic potions so I might survive lengthy sufficient to unlock extra thrilling medallions. I might see the invisible grind behind my hopeless makes an attempt a bit too clearly.
You would levy the identical criticism towards beloved video games like Hades and even Useless Cells that hinge on slow-burn development, however each video games are massive sufficient in scope to make the grind really feel like a secondary perk. Hades particularly solves for this with fight that radically modifications from run to run relying on what boon you select. The draw is the joy that comes from beginning over with a clean slate every time. The Rogue Prince of Persia takes hours simply to reach at understated selection, which places the hunt for progress boosters at middle stage. The degrees simply don’t have sufficient thriller on their very own.
These quirks aren’t sufficient to spoil an excellent time. Even when runs don’t really feel as propulsive as these in Useless Cells, the acrobatic twist on the method has stored me coming again. That’s the place The Rogue Prince of Persia leaves its mark, even when it by no means totally transcends its simple pitch. Wallrunning will be irritating to get the grasp of, however there’s a satisfaction in slowly mastering it till you’re capable of fluidly minimize by a biome with out stopping for air. It’s the one talent that I don’t have to unlock.
