Transcript

[00:00:19] Speaker B: What have I been playing? I played a couple things. I played a couple shorter games that I beat recently. So I played and beat Grim Fandango for the first time, which was really fun.

[00:00:29] Speaker A: Grim Fandango is a great classic old school adventure game.

[00:00:33] Speaker B: So.

[00:00:34] Speaker A: And I’m glad you said that you enjoyed it, right?

[00:00:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, I did. Yeah. It was fun. It was good story.

Yeah, yeah, I really enjoyed it. It was quirky. Then I played just for fun. I wanted to play. I played Disney’s the Epic Mickey Rebrushed, which actually was a pretty fun like platformer. Yeah. Not too much of a story, but it was just a fun little platform

[00:00:54] Speaker A: with Mickey and good old family collectibles.

[00:00:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it was just fun.

[00:00:58] Speaker A: Definitely, you know, not. Not.

I was. I think I mentioned you’re not necessarily art style specifically or game. I guess the floatiness of the jumping kind of reminded me of the Rayman series a little bit.

But I have yet to play Mickey Rebrushed, so who knows?

[00:01:14] Speaker B: Mm, no, it was fun. And then they have. It’s like little sections in there too where you jump into a. Like a movie projector screen and it turns into like the 2D.

So it’s side scrolling 2D, like the original like cartoon sort of. It’s really cool. So that was fun. And then I have started not very far into it, Mass Effect because I have never played Mass Effect, so shame on you. Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 1, the first one. So I’m. I’m not very far. I’m only a couple hours into it, but I’m enjoying it so far.

[00:01:44] Speaker A: It’s a bit outdated, but it’s a great game.

[00:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah. I’m playing it on the Legendary Collection and actually looks pretty like they redid some of the ground. It looks good.

[00:01:53] Speaker A: So I played it a couple years ago. It’s a good time.

[00:01:55] Speaker C: Yep.

[00:01:56] Speaker B: So I’m excited to continue that as well as Prince of Persia starting that up.

[00:02:01] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, we’ll be chatting about Mass Effect, that’s for sure. I want to know what, what you end up doing and which characters are you using.

On my end, I’ve really only. I’ve been playing a bit of the Diablo 4 expansion with my wife, we just enjoy slashing demons down. And finally, finally got back into Ghost of Yote, which is, you know, we’ve talked about before on this podcast. And I absolutely loved Ghost of Tsushima and was itching to get back to Yotei ever since I played the first two hours of it back in October. So a long time. And, you know, having a podcast about video games takes away from time to play the other games.

Yes, but here we are.

[00:02:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I’ll have to get back into Yotei at some point. That might be. Maybe that’s after Mass Effect

[00:02:48] Speaker A: this season we will finally be playing Metroidvania. Alex has dabbled slightly and I am downright obsessed with them, but also have so many games and other genres to play that I’ve only tackled somewhere between 10 and 20. Alex, what do you know about the Metroidvania genre? How would you describe it for me?

[00:03:05] Speaker B: Bland, I guess. I don’t know. It’s not. No, no. Bland, as in I haven’t played at really many. That’s like me. It’s just not been something I’ve.

I really just sunk myself into and played a ton of. I’m really not sure other than, I guess was Katana zero sort of Metroidvania.

[00:03:26] Speaker A: No, it definitely was not.

[00:03:28] Speaker B: No, I honestly haven’t played many. I started Hollow Knight a long, long time ago, but never finished it. And that’s one I want to get back into, but otherwise.

[00:03:39] Speaker A: So. Yes, so I would definitely not say the word is bland that you’re looking for. Not bland, but because bland is, you know, insinuating.

[00:03:46] Speaker B: Sorry, it is not bo. I know it’s not a boring genre. I’ve watched, like, many videos of people playing Castlevania and all of them, and I’m very intrigued and I need to get to them myself.

I just.

I always have. There’s always something else that I play, so that’s on first.

[00:04:03] Speaker A: Yes. All right. So.

All righty. Now, because of this particular genre becoming so prominent in the last 10 to 15 years and wanting to do it justice, who better to kick off our season with us than Tom and Eric from the Metroidvania specific podcast, the Inverted Castle?

They’re here to help us break down and guide us a bit in our understanding of Metroidvania’s overall, as well as Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown. Welcome, guys.

[00:04:27] Speaker B: Yes, welcome.

[00:04:28] Speaker C: Thanks for having us. I think Eric was going to challenge Alex to a duel about that bland comment.

[00:04:33] Speaker A: I know.

[00:04:34] Speaker C: I’m so sorry.

[00:04:35] Speaker B: That is a total wrong word on My end, they’re not bland. They. As I said, it’s not a. Hasn’t been a genre for me, but there’s always been intriguing to me.

[00:04:46] Speaker D: Yeah, don’t worry, I called off the hit squad. You’re fine for now. We’ll see how it is at the end of this whole series you got going.

[00:04:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you better give it a glowing review, both game and genre.

Yeah. Well, guys, can you please give everyone an overview of your podcast, how you got started and what keeps you so excited and dedicated to this genre over the years?

[00:05:07] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, like many podcasts started in the pandemic when we were bored and wanted something to do that to like connect. And instead of setting up like a book club for other people, it’s basically just the two of us. I found a way to make Eric play the same games as me every month and then talk about them.

[00:05:29] Speaker D: Yeah, that’s fair enough.

[00:05:31] Speaker A: That’s a good description. That’s, you know, almost how we landed on this concept for ourselves is that we have a lot of overlapping game interests and never seem to play them at the same time or the same times that they were coming out either. So might as well go to the backlog.

[00:05:47] Speaker D: Exactly.

[00:05:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it’s all logic here.

So while the definitions of a Metroidvania vary depending on who you ask, it seems that at its most essential are a couple details. And you guys can correct me if I’m wrong here, but for me, those being a twisting, turning map, findable or unlockable skills or abilities that let you discover new paths through said map, rather than just finding physical keys to open doors and those new abilities, providing opportunities to discover new secrets in areas you’ve already been to before. Therefore providing a very strong incentive to backtrack through the map and explore to your heart’s content.

Combat is a very common element of Metroidvanias, but it doesn’t seem to be an absolute requirement.

Would you guys care to expand on all that or. Yes, Correct me if I’m wrong.

[00:06:34] Speaker D: I mean, you’re coming out of the gate pretty hot there. Completely agree with the whole. Not necessarily like it doesn’t need to have combat, but it often does. I feel like there’s not really a good structural definition of most genres and Metroidvania in particular, but the experiential aspect of it, of non linearity like always kind of shows up. It’s usually a platformer, two dimensional, but not always my favorite. It does not count as one of those, for example. But really like for me, what Makes like a good one is the capacity to get lost without ever actually getting lost is ideally how that would shake itself out.

[00:07:18] Speaker A: Okay. No, I hear.

[00:07:19] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, I guess some people differ on things. Some people insist that if, like, if you could just, like, stretch out the game into a linear path, that that’s not really doing what it’s supposed to do. I kind of disagree with that.

[00:07:35] Speaker D: But, yeah, I feel pretty strongly about, like, the experience of it. So if there’s some smoke and mirrors that make a linear sequence feel like it’s nonlinear, like, at the end of the day, that’s. I’m pretty fast and loose with the definition. And as we’ve done the podcast, I’ve only gotten even less stringent, I’d say.

[00:07:56] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I think I’m looser than the first episode where we described things. I’m just like, whatever. Zelda can be a Metroidvania now.

[00:08:04] Speaker A: I mean, it seems to be the inspiration for many of them in the first place, anyway.

[00:08:09] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. I mean, if you go back to the very beginning, you can make the argument that, like, the original dungeon crawling RPGs kind of have that exploration aspect. The first platformers, your experience may vary, but I found that Zelda games, at the very least, the temples, have Metroidvania, like, experiences in microcosm. And even beyond that, the Overworld often expands as well. So if you squint, I think it makes sense.

[00:08:36] Speaker A: Okay. No, I can buy that. Well, so all that said, this season, we will be playing Prince of the Lost Crown and its DLC Mask of Darkness. And for the first time, we’ve chosen the game of the season based on votes from our wonderful Discord members. We may start doing this more and more after we’ve gotten through our already determined schedule. This time, the options for Metroidvania were this, Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown, Ritual of the Night, the Messenger, Axiom, Verge, and Fist, Forged in Shadow, Torch. But yes, I’m quite glad that the Lost Crown was chosen. All the other options are on my backlog, of course, so would have been happy with any of them, but I think this will be a nice kind of visual palette cleanser for us. Alex. I do very much want to play Fist soon, but the cyberpunk Blade Runner visuals are too close to Astral Chain, which we just finished.

The messenger looks great, but it’s only half Metroidvania, so probably not the best for our first go around here. And we did play Katana Zero in season four.

[00:09:33] Speaker B: Yeah, the messenger is the one I voted on. That was my vote. I’d also heard very good things about it and a good story, so that was one of the key things for my vote.

[00:09:42] Speaker A: But yeah, yeah, exactly. So Prince of Persia and that Time Bending should be fun. Guys. Have you played all of those five options?

[00:09:49] Speaker C: I haven’t played Fist.

[00:09:51] Speaker D: Yeah, I haven’t played Fist, nor the messenger actually. But the other ones I have.

[00:09:57] Speaker C: No, at some point we’ll have to play the messenger on our podcast.

Of the ones that I’ve played, I think Prince of Persia is the best one.

[00:10:06] Speaker A: I don’t know.

[00:10:07] Speaker C: The messenger is all right, but it’s like as a Metroidvania, it’s.

If you were going from I want this genre. Not exactly the best thing to choose.

[00:10:17] Speaker D: Yeah. Bloodstained is pretty janky overall, but also is kind of the melting pot of all of the IGA directed Castlevanias. Just every idea he had through Sympathy of the Night through To Order of Ecclesia.

[00:10:33] Speaker A: Right.

[00:10:34] Speaker D: Like that’s a somewhat janky but very efficient use of time.

[00:10:38] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, you get the full experience of X. Many years of Igavania for sure.

Which seems like what he was going for, to be honest.

[00:10:47] Speaker D: Oh yeah. As a last hurrah. Maybe if this didn’t work out. But I guess there’s a sequel coming. We’ll see.

[00:10:54] Speaker A: We will see. It does have a trailer at least, so there’s something working. Well, curious guys, what is your all time favorite Metroidvania then?

Tough one, I’m sure.

[00:11:06] Speaker D: Yeah, I’ll defer to Tom first because

[00:11:09] Speaker C: I mean this is somewhat easy in that we maintain a list and so theoretically I should just be able to pluck the top of the list, which for me is Hollow Knight. Silksong did not clear it.

[00:11:21] Speaker D: We, we disagree on this, but that’s besides the point.

[00:11:24] Speaker C: I’m kind of, I. I don’t know. Like as I I look about this, I’m actually kind of waffling.

I also really like Astalon.

[00:11:32] Speaker A: Tears of the Earth, Heard good things.

[00:11:35] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:11:35] Speaker A: I don’t know.

Okay. Okay, interesting.

[00:11:40] Speaker D: Fair enough. My personal favorite is the indie title Unsighted. It is a isometric. Like it bores a lot of things design wise from Zelda, but ends up being more open ended than that. It’s is cyberpunky a to. Yeah.

[00:11:57] Speaker A: Sorry, is that the one that gives you a time limit of some sort?

[00:12:01] Speaker D: Exactly.

[00:12:02] Speaker A: I’ve heard of it, yeah.

[00:12:04] Speaker D: Which is not to everyone’s taste, thankfully. You can just flip that off in the settings. No fuss, no muss, nothing gets like barred from you.

[00:12:12] Speaker C: Right.

[00:12:12] Speaker D: But in my experience playing it, if you can, it really does add to the experience. Overall, I’m also a Majora’s Mask sicko, so I’m already primed for that kind of thing.

[00:12:23] Speaker A: Majora’s Mask is great.

[00:12:25] Speaker C: Yeah. Like the timeline is there to make you feel things and it works.

[00:12:30] Speaker A: Feelings are good.

[00:12:32] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:12:33] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, I Hey, I think these are all things we’ll have to try well before we get into the deeper details of Prince of Persia Lost Crown. Alex, you already mentioned your history with Metroidvanias is just starting up a couple maybe over the years and not much on my end. It’s one of my favorite genres actually, but there are so many, so many Metroidvanias at this point that my list of completed ones is pretty low by comparison, I guess to start with the namesake, I’ve played Metroid Zero, Mission Fusion, Super Metroid and Metroid Prime Remastered.

And then I’ve played Symphony of the Night and Circle of the Moon, which is not all that many. I also not Metroidvanias, but I played Super Castlevania IV and Rondo of Blood, which are both great. Additionally, I have a handful of games in each of those series. Besides the ones left to play, I’ve I played Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight’s definitely in my top 10 of all genres. I’ve played Silksong, Wakamele1 Ori, and the Blind Forest, a really goofy short one called spookyghosts.com probably not worth your time

[00:13:31] Speaker C: I don’t think that’s not even on our list of games.

[00:13:35] Speaker A: Probably not worth your time, especially if you haven’t heard of it.

And then Shadow Complex. I also realize that yeah, that’s definitely not that many Metroidvanias, but I have pretty much everyone from most top whatever number Metroidvanias of all time lists either downloaded already or in my backlog or wish list. And last of all, although it amounts to nothing at this point, whenever I play Metroidvania I always come away kind of inventing ideas for settings, characters, and more specifically in depth stories than the traditional Metroidvania guys. Our show typically focuses on games that have fairly engrossing stories, which Metroidvanias have really engrossing lore and worlds, but not necessarily a direct story. So ideas keep popping in my head of all these games that I just listed, you know, as I’ve chosen pretty deliberately over the years on which ones to play.

Curious what your thoughts are on them. Or suppose recommendations for next thing I should jump into Besides Prince of Persia,

[00:14:41] Speaker D: well beyond obviously my own personal favorite. I think Metroid Dread of the Metroids. That’s probably the best of them. Arguably, at least in my opinion. It’s definitely like it’s probably the most modern take. Avoid other M Like the plague.

[00:14:58] Speaker A: Yes. Have heard from your show actually. I just recently listened to your Zero Mission episode.

[00:15:03] Speaker D: Thank you. Yeah. So beyond that, I think Castlevanias, I’ve been kind of hot and cold on, but I think Aria of Sorrow, that’s been my favorite. Although Symphony of the Night, hard to argue against that, but I should probably just bring up our list. But I guess I should ask how are you with or what’s your relationship with parrying? Perfect guarding, otherwise timed defense.

[00:15:28] Speaker A: Well, Sekiro is one of my favorite games, so that says something.

I’ve heard nine Sols is good.

[00:15:35] Speaker D: That is exactly where I was leading. So excellent.

That will also serve you well in Prince of Persia, just while we’re talking about it.

[00:15:44] Speaker A: Good to know.

[00:15:45] Speaker D: It’s not terribly difficult, but it does allow for a lot of, you know, you get a lot of rewards if you invest the time to get good at it.

[00:15:54] Speaker A: Fair.

[00:15:55] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:15:56] Speaker C: I’m a little surprised that Eric was not asking about extremely cryptic puzzles.

[00:16:00] Speaker D: Oh my God, I’m not going to send any living human into La Mulana.

[00:16:06] Speaker A: I was about to say. I will not be blind at any point.

[00:16:11] Speaker D: I almost put it as my favorite, like instead of unsighted.

Not because it fills me with joy, but because it’s not left my brain since I played it. Like the original shareware translated from Japanese back in 2008.

It’s since been like remastered, but it is the most game I’ve seen in a Metroidvania.

[00:16:34] Speaker C: But like the most game per game.

[00:16:36] Speaker D: It’s the most game per game. It is a puzzle box within a puzzle box in a maze. God help you if you try to do it without a guide. There are a lot of good spoiler free hints, like tiered hints kind of things, but woof.

[00:16:50] Speaker C: But I think offline one of you mentioned that you played Tunic. Like if you enjoyed Tunic, you were probably the right level of Degenerate for La Mulana.

[00:17:00] Speaker A: Well, I did love Tunic, but I. And I’ve looked into la mulana 1 and 2 and I think it’s just a step too far because Tunic gets. You get like a bunch of the sort of tough combat gameplay leading up towards the end and then you switch into puzzle mode. But it sounds like La Mulan is like hardcore puzzle mode from step one and Hardcore combat from step one and a half.

[00:17:25] Speaker D: Yeah, the combat, like, it is not particularly, like fluid. It’s very kind of stilted kind of combat. It is not a game that wants to be beaten is how I would describe it. Like a lot of times you can see the game designer’s hand guiding you a little bit. This is not the case in La Mulana.

It will kill you graveyard dead.

[00:17:46] Speaker A: No, no, no, no, I’m good.

[00:17:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I’ll pass on that one too.

[00:17:51] Speaker A: Wow. Okay. Yeah. So I guess while I have definitely gone for 100% or even 112% completion in some of my favorite Metroidvanias, I always decide whether to go for a completionist run in this genre based entirely on how much I’m enjoying the game as a whole and how interesting the requirements are to complete the map. If it’s collecting a ton of the same item, like extra ammo, but times 20, I get bored with it. But if it’s exploring new regions that aren’t even required by the story, or gaining additional power ups or what have you, then I’m usually in optional. Bosses are always fun too. Do you guys usually go like all in for full completion or do you kind of cut yourselves off just as you feel it?

[00:18:31] Speaker D: Yeah, usually I’ll try to. Like the completionist part of my brain is the parasite has not left me yet. I’m less stringent about it as I’ve gotten older, but usually I’ll try to go for if not a hundred percent, then what I consider to be the good parts of the game. Like, maybe I don’t get every like bonus upgrade, but I’ll see every map, like part of the map. I’ll fight every boss, stuff like that.

I can definitely hear the oh Hollow Knight was a very good game from what you’re saying about it’s optional segments, which is all like phenomenal.

[00:19:07] Speaker A: Right?

[00:19:08] Speaker D: Listen, all time are for a reason.

[00:19:11] Speaker A: Oh yeah.

[00:19:12] Speaker D: But occasionally, like, if the game’s just not working for me, I’ll just kind of like, okay, whatever, we’ll just cut this off. I’ve.

They’re not going to win me back, so I’m a bit better about it. But I don’t know, I say that and then sometimes I still just hate myself and be like, okay, what’s another two or three hours to get the achievement?

[00:19:35] Speaker C: Even the ones that I do actually like. Like, I mean, playing Super Metroid for the podcast, I was like, I don’t need to 100% this again because I’ve already done that I’m not gonna chase every missile.

[00:19:46] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. There’s way too many missile packs in that.

[00:19:49] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. And if you’re not looking for the cheesecake pinup at the end, you don’t need it.

[00:19:54] Speaker A: Yeah, no, you really don’t.

[00:19:56] Speaker D: Some games do lock an extra ending behind 100% and that kind of commits me.

[00:20:01] Speaker A: Right, right. No, for sure. And this story and lore completion is in me. That. That’ll get me too. But otherwise, no, thanks.

[00:20:10] Speaker D: Exactly.

[00:20:11] Speaker A: Anyway, that said, since everyone’s degree of interest varies, we are not necessarily shooting for 100% completed map for this season because we don’t want to be too prescriptive. You know, play through a story and as much of the additional content as you want. Everyone.

[00:20:24] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. For this game, you’re well suited to do that.

All right, lovely spoilers, obviously, but yeah, they’re not going to surprise you and lock stuff behind.

[00:20:35] Speaker A: This is great. Great to hear. Alex, do you have any experience with the Prince of Persia series?

[00:20:41] Speaker B: No, I don’t actually. I’m probably one of, I don’t know, maybe a few. No, I’m sure there’s quite a few people out there I haven’t played. I’ve never played a single Prince of Persia game ever.

I’ve seen them. I also have never seen the movie with Jake Gyllenhaal.

[00:20:55] Speaker A: I’m probably not missing out.

[00:20:56] Speaker B: Probably not missing out much on that one.

[00:20:58] Speaker A: It’s pretty forgettable. It’s a fun popcorn action movie. But yeah, you know Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton from. What was it? Which Bond movie was that?

Quantum of Solace. I believe Ben Kingsley was in this Prince of Persia movie as well. It was.

[00:21:14] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:21:15] Speaker A: You don’t need to seek it out, but it was.

If I just find it entertaining enough when it’s on TV with a commercial break and whatnot.

[00:21:21] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I was like, I’ll just find it somewhere streaming that Obviously I have. Maybe I’ll watch it. But yeah, otherwise, games wise. Yeah, I haven’t played any of the games. They’ve looked intriguing to me. I know there’s the Sands of Time. Yeah, that was sort of a bigger one. But I have. I’ve just never.

I’ve never played any.

[00:21:39] Speaker A: Same. Yeah, I always knew about Prince of Persia, especially Sands of Time being very highly praised, but just never got around to playing that, unfortunately. I did also know about Prince of persia of the PS3 generation with the cel shaded graphics, which I was kind of intrigued by. Just based on the art style. I knew it was a bit of a reboot. I may have played a demo of it if it existed. That seems to be roughly in my head, but I don’t know. I do have a copy of it actually in the closet, so maybe if I enjoy this I’ll bring that up, but gotta dig out the PS3 too. Yeah I did about a year ago watch a documentary on YouTube about the prince of Persia series which detailed how the creator came up with the idea and was just trying to enjoy the development process process and used rotoscoping method to basically record a real person as the one that’s jumping around and doing things. So interesting methodology back then. Also definitely know about Rogue Prince of Persia which released around the same time as the Lost Crown and it was made by some of the devs of dead cells which I adore so hope to eventually play that too. I know they were both included in some form of PlayStation plus so one day, but the Metroidvania takes precedent for me.

[00:22:55] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah, I’ve seen.

Obviously I haven’t played. I’ve seen some of the Rogue one as well. I’ve seen little highlights of that one as well.

[00:23:04] Speaker A: It definitely it kicked off with a bit of a backlash because people didn’t like the design of the prince having purple skin and then they kind of readjusted it and then you know everyone. It’s actually a good game so helped to try it out. Now for anyone who’s not familiar with the Prince of Persia franchise, it was originally created by Jordan Mechner with various incarnations of the Prince and set in different games in ancient or medieval Persia.

Straightforward enough, right? He was largely inspired by movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Adventures of Robin Hood.

The first two games were actually published by Broderbund, you know, the company that brought us Myst and Carmen Sandiego and was deep in the edutainment side of gaming.

There were a couple other games after those two as well, but then Ubisoft bought the rights to the franchise in 2001 and rebooted the canon with the Sands of time in 2003, followed by Warrior within and a few others. And then yes, that 2008 reboot I mentioned earlier.

As far as the Lost Crown specifically goes, Prince of the Lost Crown was released in 2024, developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and published by Ubisoft for Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PS5, both Xboxes and Windows. It was mostly well reviewed by critics and received a lot of praise from gamers overall and especially from fans of the Metroidvania genre. The setup of Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown’s story, is that you play as Sargon, who is part of a clan of warriors called the Immortals as they go on their way to a cursed city called Mount Qaf to rescue the kidnapped Prince Ghassan. Now, to my knowledge, Ghassan is the actual Prince of Persia here and we, the player character, are not, which is a bit of a twist. I think you mentioned that you had seen that too, right. So it’s kind of like a Legend of Zelda situation going on here. We’re not the namesake, but that’s quite all right. I will leave the story intro at that so nobody gets spoiled here.

The gameplay is in the 2,5 graphical style and features side scrolling action, adventure, exploration and combat. Sargon is supposedly quite nimble and can jump, slide and air dash. While exploring the world and fighting in combat, you can parry attacks which in addition to being a great defensive move, also charges up a meter that when it’s full, allows you to perform a special move of some sort. I will have to just see what that looks like.

[00:25:33] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:25:33] Speaker A: While in the Lost Crown, we aren’t actually playing as that titular Prince. We do have access to some time manipulation abilities that I’m sure many are familiar with from Sands of Time and I presume we’ll be using them to their full advantage since.

Yeah, you know, I hope we get to use it regularly and it’s not on a really long cooldown.

[00:25:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I hope. Yes.

[00:26:00] Speaker A: Since this is a Metroidvania, the game world is interconnected and you can slowly unveil a map of the world as you progress that you can refer back to, deduce where you need to go next, and how to get back to a place that you couldn’t access before, but can now after you acquire a new ability. There are plenty of shortcuts, hidden rooms and puzzles to solve and you can gain some form of a currency to unlock upgrades with what I have read is a much loved quality of life improvement within the genre. You can in game take a screenshot of something you know you can’t access yet, but want to return to later and pin it to your map so you can refer back to it rather than running all the way back and realizing the power up you just got isn’t the right one for that spot. I love it already.

[00:26:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s a really cool feature. Yeah, I really like that.

[00:26:47] Speaker A: It’s. And you know, considering you haven’t touched a whole bunch of Metroidvanias, it’s. I Think this is like first time implementation of it for most any game in the genre and it’s probably one that will be utilized more and more as time goes on. Because it sounds very useful, obviously.

[00:27:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it does.

[00:27:07] Speaker A: Now, we can’t stop here because even after all the critical acclaim and player love for this particular entry in the Prince of Persia series, Ubisoft still determined it wasn’t a massive enough commercial success on par with Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry or their other rinse and repeat cookie cutter series.

So they shut down the dev team completely, which blew everyone’s minds, and set up a conversation about the state of the video game industry and especially these monstrosities of corporations that don’t care what the player wants, they just want money. Yes, that is capitalism, blah blah, blah. But that same approach is so defeating when what us core gamers enjoy the most is the artistry of video games and we see the devs who make what we want get shut down even though people were asking for a sequel and cherry on the cake, then they go and lay off a ton more people more recently and along with that, shut down the Prince of Sands of Time remake that so many fans of the series were super excited for.

[00:28:03] Speaker B: That’s right. Yes, I did hear that.

[00:28:07] Speaker A: No fun. No fun for anyone.

[00:28:08] Speaker B: No. Nope, not at all.

[00:28:10] Speaker A: Eric and Tom, you released your episode of the Inverted Castle covering Prince of the lost crown in 2024. I imagine somewhat soon after release. So it be the absolute freshest game in your memory. But would love without story spoilers, please to hear what you guys think about the game overall, its place in the all time Metroidvania landscape and also in the pantheon of modern ones.

[00:28:33] Speaker C: Funnily enough, I think it was right before the DLC dropped. So we never played the dlc, but I liked it. I have no memory of where I put it and should just consult my list.

Um, I mean it’s currently number 14 out of my 50, almost 60 game list at this point for the podcast.

[00:28:56] Speaker D: We’re at 59, baby.

[00:28:57] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:28:58] Speaker B: Nice.

[00:29:00] Speaker C: So I don’t know, I liked it quite a bit. I’m definitely on the side that more precision platforming, more interesting combat, more better.

[00:29:10] Speaker A: There are definitely some people who are

[00:29:12] Speaker C: kind of like, man, why? Why are these other things coming into my exploration games?

[00:29:19] Speaker D: No, absolutely. I think I rated it higher and mine’s still in the top 10. This game is like not to oversell it and I want to set you up to enjoy it, but I think you’re going to have a good time it is a very good adaptation of the kind of parkour segments of Sands of Time trilogy.

I think like the setting still has the Persian influence, but I think it’s a different era. I vaguely looked into this. I’m not an expert so take that with a grain of salt, but it was like pretty interesting as far as settings go.

Depending on how much you know about Persian mythology, you might get more or less out of the lore. Story wise it is fine as it is as long as you meet it where it is. You know, mediate your expectations that way. From what you said, that’s how it often ends up with you for Metroidvanias.

[00:30:10] Speaker C: Sure.

[00:30:10] Speaker A: Yep.

Yeah. Okay.

Had you, it sounds like maybe the Sands of Time trilogy. Had you played any other Prince of Persia games over the years prior to this releasing?

[00:30:22] Speaker D: I guess I’ll answer first. Only the Sands of Time trilogy and only the first and third one. I never went back to the original side scrolling, which is more or less a maze game.

There was a Prince of Persia 3d which was a very, very bad Tomb Raider knockoff kind of. Yeah, it’s the Bubsy 3D of the series and then never touched the 2008 basically revamp of it.

[00:30:52] Speaker C: Yeah. I weirdly also did the same thing with Sans and the third in that trilogy and skipping the second one. I don’t know why we’re both going

[00:31:01] Speaker D: through an anti emo phase. Maybe it is aggressively of its time.

[00:31:06] Speaker C: Yeah. And like only played the original enough to be like, well this feels like it’s old. I should revisit it because I’ve suffered through games of the same era I guess, or even older now.

So maybe I have refined my palette

[00:31:22] Speaker A: for it, but only time will tell. You got to give it another shot.

[00:31:31] Speaker D: Indeed.

[00:31:32] Speaker A: Do you have any tips or tricks to share that you could remember being essential for success in this game or more generally for squeezing the most enjoyment out of any game in the genre?

[00:31:43] Speaker D: Oh geez. Okay. So again, it’s been a while. I already went through if you’re a Perry Sicko, you will be well served. I often find in like games more broadly, but this one in particular has a very large toy box by the end of the game and you’ll be tempted to kind of pick a path and stick to it. I know that me and Tom often just kind of stubbornly refuse to change our ways and then complain about bosses. So if you can have the presence of mind to switch up your, you know, your approach to things, use like aspects, power ups, equipment that maybe, maybe didn’t immediately seem to serve any purpose. Just keep an open mind.

[00:32:25] Speaker B: Okay, that’s good to know.

[00:32:28] Speaker A: Okay. Try new things. Sounds like the takeaway here.

[00:32:32] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean so one of the things that this game did that I think is the first game in the genre to do it is the like, hey, just screenshot the area where you think there might be a secret that you can get later. It is unfortunately limited, which I think is not a great design. But like it’s a great feature. Use it.

[00:32:54] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:32:54] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. When you’re making a marker on your

[00:32:57] Speaker D: map, you can just say like, okay. Well you can check at a glance what’s on that screen. So it’ll save you backtracking if you are so inclined.

[00:33:07] Speaker A: Hmm.

[00:33:10] Speaker B: Okay. That’s a useful feature. Yeah.

[00:33:15] Speaker A: Outside of that, Alex, what do you know about the Lost Crown specifically going into it and what do you expect out of it?

[00:33:21] Speaker B: What do I know? I don’t know too much. I watched a couple very small like review non spoiler reviews on YouTube.

But to me, as I said, Metroidvania hasn’t been like the type of games that I played. But I am excited actually. It plays. It looks really. It looks really good. Like the art style, everything, it looks beautiful. And the platforming and the jumping through it sort of reminded me I played Celeste years ago and loved Celeste. It was hard, but it was. I love Celeste and I love the story of Celeste. And I just seeing like some of like having to jump through some traps like timing wise it just sort of reminded me of that and I was like okay. I was like I’ll get frustrated for a bit but I’ll get through it. I always. I’ve made my way through Celeste. I figured it out.

But then obviously you have just fighting off enemies. It seemed like you have a bunch of other. Yeah like Eric and Tom posting like abilities that you get that you can use on the way and all that. So I’m. I don’t know much about it I think is the character’s name. Is it Sagron?

[00:34:23] Speaker D: Sargon.

[00:34:24] Speaker B: Sargon. Okay. I was close.

[00:34:25] Speaker D: I think Sargon. It’s just a name.

[00:34:27] Speaker B: Immortal.

[00:34:29] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:34:30] Speaker B: So it looks. I’ve. I will admit this too. I have never played a Prince of Persia game. I’ve played any of them. None. None either from the past. So this will be my first one. So I’m. But I’m looking forward to it and I’m hoping that with this like playing this and I’m sure I will enjoy it that it’ll also push me more into the Metroidvania world and playing games. As I said, I’ve started Hollow Knight. Like, I started it last year at some time. I need to get back to it. I was enjoying up to the point I got to.

[00:34:58] Speaker A: It wasn’t very far.

[00:34:59] Speaker B: I did try Tunic. I got about a quarter of the way through, and then I got a little pissed off at that and I stopped.

So, again, that might be another one I try and go back to. But I have tried. I’ve never played. The biggest one I have always wanted to play because everyone talks about is Symphony of Night. So I’m hoping that maybe with this, it’ll push me into really enjoying genre and I’ll. I’ll go back and try that. So.

[00:35:21] Speaker D: But yeah, well, we’d love to have you.

[00:35:23] Speaker B: Thank you. I’m definitely going to be. I’m going to be. And I’m sure you guys podcast and be listening along with some other episodes.

Episodes. And I’m sure it’ll also help me get into the genre more. So I’m. No, I’m excited. And we did this and we wanted, like, this type of game.

I wanted to do this as well because it pushes me into something that it’s not my most comfortable genre, but I want to try it. Like, this was also the point of our podcast was to try different genres that one of us or both of us had never tried as much before and then get us into it. Yeah.

[00:35:54] Speaker D: Looking forward to absolutely a broader palette.

[00:36:00] Speaker A: And I think I had mentioned before we hopped on, I listened to about five minutes of your episode about Prince of the Lost Crown and then had to turn it off because that was when your spoiler warning came up.

[00:36:12] Speaker D: When we have a spoiler warning. Sorry.

[00:36:15] Speaker A: So. No, appreciate that you did, but I’m excited to get back to it once we’re done with the season.

[00:36:20] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:36:22] Speaker A: And yeah, I mean, I’m pretty excited for the dual curved swords, which are look fun and not a weapon. You see all that often in games. So between that and all the parkour, I’m excited for all the animations.

[00:36:32] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. There’s a lot of player expression in the combat as well, so I think you’ll. You’re gonna have a good time.

[00:36:38] Speaker A: Lovely. This has also received significant praise. And honestly, even though it won’t change the past, I do want to support those devs who had their team shut down.

No thanks to the greedy corporate suits who know nothing about this craft.

What?

[00:36:51] Speaker D: Ubisoft? No.

What.

[00:36:55] Speaker A: Where are the Sands of Time when you need them? Huh?

[00:36:58] Speaker D: We could have prevented this.

[00:37:00] Speaker A: If only we knew. If only we knew. Ubisoft.

[00:37:04] Speaker B: I know.

[00:37:06] Speaker A: Well, Tom and Eric, thank you so much for joining us and giving us all a bit of a primer on your favorite genre of video game.

Actually, I don’t know if that’s actually true. I’m assuming that’s your favorite genre because you have a podcast on it, but if not, we’ll just assume it is. Maybe they’d be weird if it weren’t.

[00:37:21] Speaker B: I was gonna say, well, maybe they just love Madden and sports games and

[00:37:24] Speaker D: this is just the same. I’m a fraud.

[00:37:27] Speaker C: I play FIFA.

I think we did joke about JRPGs would be too hard to make a podcast on.

[00:37:35] Speaker D: That would be my second pick. If I’m being real, it’s a lot

[00:37:38] Speaker A: more of a time commitment.

[00:37:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.

[00:37:40] Speaker D: That’s the thing. It’s by virtue of Metroidvanias being to do that rises my esteem. But I’m still out here putting in the hours and Persona, so hey, keep it up.

[00:37:53] Speaker A: Thanks, guys. Where can people find the inverted Castle to listen and subscribe?

[00:37:59] Speaker D: Oh, I guess that usually falls to me. We are the Inverted Castle. You can find us on most, if not all, podcast platforms. We are also on YouTube at Inverted Castle Podcast.

Email us@verticastlepodcastmail.com on Twitter Verticastle P. Never forget the P as well as various other social media platforms. Am I missing anything, Tom?

[00:38:22] Speaker C: No, I don’t know. That’s the full spiel, but that works.

[00:38:28] Speaker D: It’s what, Like I just started going on autopilot. I’m sorry.

[00:38:32] Speaker A: No, your eyes roll back.

[00:38:34] Speaker C: It just comes out and you’re like, oh, I’m back.

[00:38:37] Speaker D: I’m not used to self promotion.

[00:38:38] Speaker B: No, promote. We’re happy to have you guys on here.

[00:38:43] Speaker D: It’s been a pleasure.

[00:38:45] Speaker A: These guys have tons of great episodes on the Metroidvanias that I have played and listened to all the way through. So please go give them a follow.

Hopefully we can chat again soon about how this season ends up.

[00:38:56] Speaker D: Indeed.

[00:38:57] Speaker A: Maybe another season in the future.

[00:38:59] Speaker D: Yeah. Listen to the Final Fantasy 6 one you did already and I may be tempted to go back and do the dlc. We never did for this, so we’ll see.

[00:39:08] Speaker A: Hey, hang on a few weeks and maybe you can join us for it.

[00:39:11] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, that’d be lovely.

[00:39:15] Speaker A: So, to my knowledge and based on my experiences so far, most Metroidvanias do not have any type of chaptering system or clear divisions in their stories, and it appears this doesn’t either. So we will be breaking up this season into approximately equal length chunks based on some spoiler free turning points or bosses.

So for next time, play until you return to the haven from the forest and speak to Artaban and the mage. Whatever all that means.

[00:39:41] Speaker B: I’ll find out together.

[00:39:42] Speaker A: It’s a lot of in game jargon that I haven’t heard of. Yeah, so we’ll find out if that doesn’t ring a bell at any point. I guess just keep going. But anyway, speak to Artaban and the mage after the haven and then save and quit and hang on for the following episode.

And please join us to find out if Prince of the Lost Crown is still worth playing in 2026. And before you get started, let us know on Discord what your expectations are before you start. We’re curious to hear your thoughts.

[00:40:09] Speaker B: Yeah, we are. We’re excited to to get going on this and to get playing Prince of Persia. As I said, for me it’s like one of my first this will be my like a first playthrough of a full Metroidvania for me. So I’m excited to I’m first Prince of Persia game, so I’m excited to get going and play this.

Yeah, I’m excited to have all you guys along with us.

So thank you very much for listening. We’ll talk to you in the next one.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of native games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club Podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram under the same name. Thanks.