The Prince of Babel-Air
1 player
Available on PC / Nintendo Switch / PlayStation 4 / PlayStation 5 / Xbox One / Xbox Series X|S / Amazon Luna
First steps with a cultural object, whether music, films, theatre, literature or games, can play a decisive role in how we perceive culture afterwards. Prince of Persia definitely shaped my attraction to video games.
Of course, I am not (yet) talking about the 2024 instalment whose title appears at the top of the page, but the one from 1989. It ran on my father’s DOS computer and he invited my brother and me to play with him from time to time. Sitting on his lap, we clumsily steered the famous prince through a maze of corridors filled with traps, wobbly platforms and warriors he had to fight with a sword. I particularly remember our bursts of laughter mixed with a hesitant pout when we missed a jump and the poor prince ended up impaled on the spikes at the bottom of a chasm, with that very particular sound. Joyful moments that would stoke my interest in pixels.
The 2024 instalment returns to the original elements, while bringing its share of modernity inherited from almost forty years of games. In particular, it keeps the difficulty. In 1989, the difficulty came mainly from the fact that you absolutely had to finish it in under an hour, or else start all over again. Today, it is in mastering the jumps, acrobatics and fights that our patience is sorely tested.
It is therefore a 2D platform game, in which you move from left to right to explore a sumptuous Persian palace. Our goal is to find the prince who has been kidnapped. Enemies regularly block our way and we have to wield swords to get rid of them. The game therefore skilfully combines dexterity and combat.
I really liked this new Prince of Persia, particularly for being hard to master but so rewarding when you triumph. Its plot is nothing to write home about, but its atmosphere is spellbinding. I find myself imagining today’s children discovering the world of video games by exploring this new Prince of Persia with their dad (or their mum, it’s 2024!).
“Children ?! But it’s PEGI 16, isn’t it ?? ”, you will rightly have exclaimed. Indeed, at the time there was no age rating, and I must say I find the PEGI 16 for this instalment a little harsh. It is justified by the “violence” symbol and the characters’ intense reactions in the (rare) cutscenes. In that case, if your children are younger, I invite you to find your own “Prince of Persia” to create good memories and accompany their entry into the world of video games. If you are the parent of teenagers, you can then recommend this Prince of Persia – The Lost Crown to them and encourage them not to be discouraged by the difficulty.
