Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is easily one of my favourite games of the year, so I’ve been looking forward to its story DLC. Mask of Darkness is finally here and it brings with it a chunk of new content that feels notably different from the main game in certain ways. Interestingly, the price of entry is fairly cheap compared to the overpriced season passes that we’re used to, so it’s easy to recommend this to anyone wanting to spend more time with the game, even if it won’t last all that long.
One of the big lingering questions from The Lost Crown is what happened to Radjen – one of the Immortals that heads to Mount Qaf alongside the others to rescue the prince from Anahita at the start of the main game. Mask of Darkness starts with Neith telling Sargon she’s spotted Radjen, so you head to the marked spot on the map, only to find yourself pulled into Radjen’s “mind palace.” The DLC can be started as long as you have the air dash and the power that lets you revert Sargon to his saved position. However, I don’t recommend doing it at this point, as some of the content here is considerably tougher than in the base game.
As most players will have already beaten the main game, it goes without saying that having lots of health and a robust array of amulets and upgrades could certainly lead to the DLC being a pushover. The game gets around this by setting Sargon back to just three health chunks, no healing potions, and zero amulets (you can keep his supers, though.) I thought this was a good choice, although you do get upgrades as you explore the mind palace, so the order in which you do its two initial areas will have an impact on how difficult the other one is.
At first, you’re dropped into a location blocked by a giant version of Radjen’s mask. You can go either left or right. Despite the Metroid-esque nature of the main game, you don’t get any new abilities in Mask of Darkness. You can either go to the left or to the right, which will open the way to the third area and then a boss fight. I’m not entirely sure if it’s because I did the left area first, but I found it significantly more difficult than the right one. Granted, you get a life chunk increase for completing an area, plus you can find a healing potion in each of the three, so that was possibly enough to make up the difference. But I still felt the left path was far, far more difficult than the right one, so the difficulty seems unbalanced to me.
Much of the platforming challenges in Mask of Darkness centre around a few brand new additions. There are poles that Sargon can climb on and reverse course. They have purple sections on them that can be activated to cause the poles to move. You’ll also find many large lasers to dodge alongside these. There are even these orange barriers that require you to chase down and break some objects to open the way forward. Finally, there are sections where you’ll get chased by a giant eye that will reset you to an earlier checkpoint if it touches you. This shows up at the start of the DLC and in the third area. It was probably my least favourite addition here, as it can be tedious to avoid it, especially while fighting enemies.
Speaking of which, all of the enemies here are new. There are four new types, a couple of which are honestly pretty tough. One of these is more of a mini boss that you only have to fight a few times (one of these is after a gruelling climb up through a large section.) These enemies all fit well and they’re decently challenging. There’s a new boss fight at the end which seems quite difficult at first, but it’s very parry-heavy. That being said, it telegraphs its attacks very clearly so this isn’t too bad. Still, it’s a very cool fight that I enjoyed.
As for what you can take into the main game, there are two amulets to find that grant unique abilities. One lets you place an explosive trap on the ground, the other lets you detonate your chakram. I didn’t find either particularly useful, but they might come in handy on higher difficulties. All-in-all, Mask of Darkness took me somewhere between two or three hours. It’s far from long, but that length isn’t bad at all for the $4.99/£4.29 price tag. This is a worthy expansion as long as you don’t mind the higher level of difficulty. More Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is only a good thing.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown – Mask of Darkness: Mask of Darkness is a good time, offering more of the exhilarating platforming and tight combat that Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown has in spades. – Andrew Farrell
Check out our Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown review –
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown PC review – A surprise coronation |
