Mask of Darkness will be, apparently, the only DLC released for my favorite game of 2024, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Ubisoft has disbanded the development team to work on other projects, and what a shame that is. This game is incredibly fun and challenging, and I was grateful that the DLC gave me a few more hours in that world.
At the beginning of the DLC, most of Sargon’s hard-won Simurgh powers and amulets are stripped away. With limited health and abilities, you must escape a new area called Radjen’s Mind Palace, which features new enemies and platforming challenges. I get that brutal platforming is not everyone’s cup of tea, but for me the satisfaction of successfully navigating these sections is worth the pain. I’ll admit, though, that I did expect to earn back some of my powers — or perhaps some new ones — during the course of the DLC, but that did not happen. You get a couple not-very-useful amulets, and some health potions, but that’s about it.
This DLC is mostly about platforming, but the final boss fight with Radjen was very challenging for me. I’m a panicky fighter in games like this, so it took me a while to learn the patterns, figuring out when to parry and when to press my attack. I died so, so many times over the course of a week or so. I would pick the game up, learn a few things while getting my ass kicked for half an hour, then set it back down until the next day. That’s called the wisdom of age. On my winning attempt, everything finally came together. I was in the zone. I parried Radjen’s double whip attack — something I had never managed to do successfully — not once, but twice. Each time, my countermove did a huge amount of damage. After a week of frustration, she was finally on the ropes, and victory was at hand. I ended it with a trusty Athra surge — Vayu’s Wave, the same one I had relied on over 50+ hours of gameplay. The cutscene played, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
This game, and this DLC, was brutal at times, but I really loved it. Now that it’s done, I’ll need to find some more 2D platformers to scratch that itch.