Prince of Persa: The Lost Crown – Mask of Darkness | Review

Power Drain

Jesse 'Doncabesa' Norris September 17, 2024Last Updated: September 11, 2024

0 2 minutes read

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was an instant classic. All of my favorite Metroidvania trappings put into an IP I’d loved for decades. A new sidequest has been added to the game, and for $5 it can be yours. Lasting anywhere from 3 to 6 hours depending on your playstyle the Mask of Darkness lets you finally face the assassin Radjen whose story went unfinished in the base game. It commits a few cardinal sins but claws its way back to being fantastic by the end. Let’s review this Mask of Darkness.

Setting

To access the DLC you’ll need to be fairly deep into the base game with most of the powers unlocked. After speaking with one of your few supporters at the base camp you’ll head towards Radjen, the mask-wearing assassin who has been promising to end your life ever since you entered Mount Qaf. She’s fully coo-coo loco and with some skullduggery, she traps you inside her Mask of Darkness.

Inside is a shadow realm full of twisted memories, that mainly reuses existing assets and fights early on. You’ll enter a crazed version of the game’s opening scene before going into a similarly warped Mount Qaf area. The biggest sin this DLC commits is taking away most of your powers and extra health from the base game. You’re left with only the teleport ability and you’ll have to rebuild your health meter as you can.

Not having a double jump was devastating at first. I hadn’t played the game since reviewing it in January and this DLC is balls hard with the platforming. Once I felt reacclimated to PoP TLC’s excellent controls I was wall jumping and dashing with aplomb through the few new mechanics the DLC introduces. Outside of finally taking on Radjen, you’ll gain access to a few new, massively powerful medallions that you can bring back into the main game.

Finding everything the DLC has to offer should take most players between four to six hours, though my run was roughly three. There are a few new mechanics, like Radjen’s eye that follows you around in certain areas that I didn’t enjoy. If the eye touches you everything you just did reverts to right before the chase began. They put this into a few incredibly long sequences later on that had me doing the thing I hate the most, repeating sections and feeling like my time was not being valued.

In the end, the story parts, while lesser in production quality, were satisfying enough. Rajden herself has a tragic history that felt like a bit in the middle was missing. She went from being one way to all of a sudden changing completely and that didn’t feel earned. As a $5 mission add-on DLC though I wasn’t expecting as much content as I got so I couldn’t complain too heavily.

Wrapping Things Up

Prince of Persia The Lost Crown’s Mask of Darkness DLC adds multiple hours of mostly enjoyable new content. It’s a mission pack and not an expansion, thankfully this cutting room floor material is nearly as good as the base game and well worth checking out.