The Rogue: Prince of Persia

There’s been a large amount of roguelikes over the years. To the point where you can ask genre veterans if they've made a roguelike of a specific style yet, and the answer is a resounding yes. Is there a roguelike for deckbuilder lovers? Slay The Spire, Monster Train, and Griftlands. Any for the tactical strategy players out in the world? Into The Breach, Mewgenics, and The Last Spell. If I want an action packed roguelike I got Hades, Dead Cells, and Absolum to fill me up. Now you can say the genre is a bit oversaturated nowadays, which is fair. For every hit there’s also a miss or a game that fails to click with you. One game I was really excited to try out the previous year was Blue Prince, and four hours in I realized my love for puzzles didn’t mix well with RNG. My mind couldn’t wrap its head around Noita, and wasn’t ready for Darkest Dungeon. Still, I really like these kinds of games and when I’m not working my way through another lengthy experience I like to put these titles on in the background for casual play sessions and fun. I mean I’ve stated a few times now Hades 2 has been my go too recently. Along with Rift of The NecroDancer and the first Slay The Spire. I really wanna play the second, but I don’t review early access titles.

What does shock me is how not a lot of devs have attempted to make platformer roguelikes. We have seen roguelikes with platforming elements. Such as the aforementioned Dead Cells or both of the Rogue Legacy games, but I’ve never seen a roguelike heavily defined by its platforming. The only games I can think of are Shovel Knight Dig and Downwell. Two games where you must navigate sets of obstacles to reach a goal below you, but progression in those games are vertical whereas regular platformers vary how you traverse each zone/level. I always wanted to see a mix between two of my favorite genres, and we are slowly starting to see that. Last year there were two games that attempted to make traversal focused roguelikes.  First was Haste: Broken Worlds, which was essentially the modern Sonic the Hedgehog games turned into an autorunner. Where the main goal is to jet to the goal without colliding with too many obstacles. Second was one I’ve been anticipating ever since it went shown, and it was The Rogue: Prince of Persia. A partnership between Evil Empire and Ubisoft to send the series into a new direction.

If you don’t know who Evil Empire are then let me explain. They were formerly co-developers for Dead Cells and were responsible for a majority of the game’s DLC and expansions. Without them Dead Cells wouldn’t be what it is now, and they were happy to work continuously on their game. That wasn’t until Motion Twin halted further development to put focus on future projects. An action that created issues with Evil Empire and fans of Dead Cells, but whatever your stance on that controversy both studios eventually moved on. Motion Twin is working on their next title Windblown, and Evil Empire developed The Rogue: Prince of Persia. Now I would say there are two things that created hype for this game. It was revealed as a surprise during a Ubisoft show, & earlier the same year Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown released. While not financially successful it was a well beloved game. A well designed and polished metroidvania made by people that you can tell love the genre. The Lost Crown was proof to a Triple A company that smaller scale and niche games were worth investing into. That franchise can continue without having to continue a story that came before. The Lost Crown was great. Ubisoft also canned the team who made it and it’s something I will never forgive them for. Anyways, I was excited for it.

I remember the initial early access launch being rough for a lot of people. Mainly due to the bugs and how little there was of the game at the time. Whatever, early access is a way for them to raise money for future development and show what kind of game they wanna make. If Hades 2 can do it the same year and succeed then this game can too. The Rogue: Prince of Persia came out and a majority of people loved it. The game did choose to come out during a busy time and one month before Hades 2. Yet, it reviewed well and demonstrated what Evil Empire could do beyond their days working on Dead Cells. Now the team are busy tinkering away at Belmont’s Curse, which is their departure from the roguelike genre. To celebrate Evil Empire’s winning streak and what’ll possibly be their grandest project yet, I decided to finally check out The Rogue: Prince of Persia. Play the roguelike of my dreams and see if platformers and roguelikes can truly mesh together. I can confidently say The Rogue: Prince of Persia is as great as I hoped it could be, and to me is a top twenty roguelike. So let’s discuss why this mystical tale deserves your attention.

Story

It’s the Common Era and the Huns are running around invading people. A majority of you know this as most likely you grew up watching Mulan or took a world history class. Huns are having fun pillaging, killing, and starting miniature wars cuz why not? One such was with Persia, and as history taught us, “If it’s war they want then it’s war they get.” The Persian king deployed a multitude of men to safeguard his borders. With one such guard being his son, simply known as the Prince. The outskirts are torn apart by explosions, fire, and the clashing of blades. We see the Prince standing against the Hun leader Nogai. Ready to strike, but sadly our hero is outmatched and left bleeding on the ground. Fate could’ve taken him, but a strange event then occurred. The amulet the Prince wears sucks the life back into his chest, and  he is sprung back onto his feet once again. It’s a relic his parents gave him as a child, but they were unaware of its magic. The Prince knew since childhood as he once fell off a high wall, but instead of revealing this secret he has been hiding it since. Using the amulet to master time and become an elite fighter.

The amulet helped the Prince a lot throughout life, and good thing he chose to wear it for this one specific moment. The Prince wakes up in the last place he slept, which was an oasis miles away from palace grounds. Three days after the Huns started attacking, which gave the Prince time to run back home. He’s assisted by a masked girl named Paachi who’s aware of his relic, and says fate is trying  hard to prevent what is about to come. Balance has been disrupted, and the villains the Prince are about to face are not the same as the ones he faced earlier. Having transformed and now spreading a mutatious disease among the public. Main goal now is for our Prince to make his way back to the palace, locate his three family members, figure out how to save them, and kill Nogai so this war can finally end. Do this if it means following an endless cycle of death.

Gameplay

When you start playing The Rogue: Prince of Persia you can see a lot of DNA from Dead Cells. Every run starts with you entering an area, choosing one of few randomly selected weapons, and jetting towards an exit. Combat is pretty similar. Slash away and dodge when an enemy indicates it is about to attack. There are a couple differences. You can kick enemies, and this can be really useful especially if there’s an environmental hazard. Some enemies have barriers, which makes them immune to stun. The only way to take down said barrier is to either hack away, or kick another enemy into them. Meaning you always have to look out for opportunities or quickly think on the fly. Dead Cells had sidearms with cooldowns and this game instead has an energy meter. Built up by striking enemies, so there’s encouragement to fight actively and quickly. The dodgeroll is instead a slide and when directed towards an enemy you can vault over. With some weapons you can strike immediately, allowing you to keep up the flow. Enemies indicate attacks with a flash icon rather than an exclamation point, and your health flask refills one per checkpoint rather than all at once. Pretty similar to Dead Cells, but the big difference here is the heavy emphasis on platforming. There’s more platforming and speed here than Dead Cells. 

The Prince can jump, wall run, jump from walls, climb poles, vault from poles, swing on bars, and ground pound. Wallrunning does just apply to basic surfaces, but also surfaces in the background. What seems like set dressing is something you can interact with, and the way wall running works on background surfaces is interesting. As the Prince can wallrun to either side, upward, or diagonally upward but only for a few meters. Meaning you have to react a bit quickly. You also build up Fayru’s spirit if you time jumps and chain them together. Building up Fayru’s spirit boosts sprint speed and attack power, and this can even be improved if you pick up the right charms. Throughout your runs you obtain charms and they offer perks until they’re scrapped or when you die. Same goes for your weapons, money, and any upgrades gained during a run. What you do keep are Soul Cinders, which is a special currency you gain between runs. They can be spent at Paachi or the blacksmith to unlock new charms and weapons you can possibly pick up during runs. Offering different strategies when provided or variety so you don’t get tired of using one weapon all the time.

Progression in The Rogue is pretty unique. Dead Cells had different areas you can go to during runs, and The Rogue: Prince of Persia is the same. You unlock new paths to take, and you consider if you take an easier route to move forward or the one with the better reward. The path forward is straight, but exploring nets you more money and better gear so future areas in a run are less hard. There are five zones to trek in total with every two zones having a boss fight. It’s all about pattern recognition and hitting when they are exposed. The thing that makes progression unique is how story missions work. You need to rescue three family members, but they’re not all in the same place. You gotta explore, find any clues you can, read documents, and talk to NPCs to learn where they went. Opening up different areas to venture to, and sometimes finding them doesn’t mean instant saving. You might need to solve a puzzle, or find something in a previous area so you may open a door or solve a current puzzle. All this info is filled out on your Mind Map, and you can check it whenever during a run if you’re confused. The Rogue: Prince of Persia despite drawing bits from Dead Cells does do a  handful of tricks to keep itself fresh. It’s addicting like any good roguelike and ends just before it gets too repetitive. Let’s just hope destiny plays in your favor.

Thoughts

I really enjoyed my time with The Rogue: Prince of Persia. There are some flaws, but overall the core gameplay loop is strong and I’d love to see what Evil Empire could do next if they’re given the chance to make another game like it. Telling by the story’s ending they probably will. To me this game showcased how to make a roguelike platformer work. The procedural generation is set up well so that every platforming section is tightly designed, you can see what’s up ahead, and can react accordingly. Not once did the game set up a challenge that was unfair, unaligned, or did not match what limiting skills my character could handle. There are some cases where you can tell they pre-programmed a path and randomized when the path shows up. For example, once in a while you get these challenge rooms you can tackle to earn extra rewards. After more than 20 runs I started to see a few of these challenges repeat, so I could tell not everything was shoved full of RNG. Yet, it’s the low reliance on RNG that lets The Rogue: Prince of Persia feel refined where most genre entries can get rough. The game does a few things excellently and then streamlines it to hell, but that is somewhat my biggest criticism of this game.

There’s not heavy reliance on RNG, but it may lead to runs feeling samey after a bit. It also does not help The Rogue: Prince of Persia doesn’t have as much variety as a game like Dead Cells or Hades. There’s a small selection of weapons, and nine areas only four of which you can choose the order of during a run. The game does try to add incentives to keep replaying. Such as having a heat system similar to Hades. Applying difficulty defactors makes runs harder, and conquering more challenging runs nets larger rewards. However, you can unlock stuff quickly whether you apply these difficult sliders or not. You have the different charms you can earn to forge different builds. For example, one run I picked up a weapon that applies fire. I found a charm that inflicts extra damage when an enemy is on fire, and a bunch of other fire charms. So my build was just setting dudes ablaze and killing them in seconds. It’s fun to become overpowered, but you don’t have too much in the same way Hades 2 and Dead Cells do. As what mostly carries you is skill and occasionally swapping your weapon for a higher grade one when dropped. Whether you overcome platforming challenges or not. I do see that as one of the game’s strengths. Again, not being RNG focused allows the design to be more refined. Platforming, movement, and fluidity. 

This is some of the most crisp movement I’ve seen in a platformer. While the mechanic is wonky as hell, Fayru’s spirit is fun to pull off and turns a speedrunning game into a rhythmic dream. The usage of background objects for gameplay rather than set dressing. Adding verticality to the wall run rather than simply horizontal movements. The levels are varied not just in aesthetic, but also the challenges they provide. The Grand Library has two gears you need to activate. One is below and easier to reach. The other requires you to ascend, and you gotta navigate harder challenges. There’s a temple with all sorts of traps you need to avoid or outrun, so you’re always moving. An aqueduct with waterslides, so it’s all circled around constant momentum. Platforming is strong. I wouldn’t say the roguelike aspects are amazing, but Evil Empire’s attempt here is impressive as it was ambitious. The last thing I want to touch on is the Mind Map. It’s a great way of handling the progression, because it gets you to explore and unlock info. Slowly earn new paths to take, and then be encouraged to venture into new territory. That way you further earn new info so you are able to solve a current case you’re stuck at. I don’t wanna spoil any of the solutions as some are pretty clever. It’s just a fun way to get you to go outside your comfort zone while playing. Learn of new paths, bosses, and consider what’ll be the easiest or hardest ways.

Aside from that I really adore the art direction. It’s stylized and makes the game world look as if it were an animated cartoon. I miss when Ubisoft wanted to make stylized games like Rayman or Child of Light. The music kicks ass and is a mix between Persian instruments and the bops you’d hear in Dead Cells. The story I wouldn’t say is great, but it did keep me interested. The main cast is likable enough, they do a good job building them, and occasionally catch you off guard with charming humor. They try to teach a lesson about cycles of violence near the end, and while the execution isn’t perfect and I wish there was a grander final boss for piecing everything together I do feel like it’s satisfying enough. The game took me nine or so hours to beat, and feels right for a game like this. Not enough variety to make it a highly replayable roguelike, but a good runtime so that you may enjoy the main story. The Rogue: Prince of Persia gets a sturdy recommendation in my book. It’s a strong entry from Evil Empire and has gotten me excited for what lies ahead in Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse. They’re probably gonna draw from series past as well as all the other metroidvanias that have come out. I can’t wait to see it skyrocket to being one of the year’s best. In the end I give The Rogue: Prince of Persia a 9/10 for excellence at best.

9/10, Excellence