The Rogue Prince of Persia: Chasing Dead Cells' Ghost, But Finding Its Own Grind
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
The Rogue Prince of Persia, developed by Evil Empire, masterfully blends Prince of Persia's acrobatics with Dead Cells' roguelite formula, but an 'invisible grind' and stagnant runs mean it never quite reaches its inspiration's lofty heights, leaving a sense of 'almost there' magic.
Right, so picture this: You’re messing around with some arcane code, trying to conjure up a legendary creature, and instead, you get... a really good, but slightly less sparkly, version of said creature. That’s kinda the vibe I’ve been getting from *The Rogue Prince of Persia*, which just vaulted onto the scene after a stint in early access.
Fair warning: this news sounds deceptively simple at first glance, but stick with me because it’s got layers. The elevator pitch, the one that makes everyone’s eyes light up, is just seven words: *Prince of Persia but it’s Dead Cells*. And honestly, mate, that’s almost all you need to know. It’s a 2D action roguelite, very much in the vein of the seminal *Dead Cells*, but with that classic *Prince of Persia* acrobatic flair woven in. You’ve got the wall-running, the fluid movement, the whole shebang. Plus, some absolute bangers on the soundtrack, which, let’s be honest, is half the battle won right there.
Now, if you’re wondering why this feels so *Dead Cells*, well, that’s where things get interesting. *The Rogue Prince of Persia* is developed by Evil Empire. Ring a bell? It should. They’re the folks who picked up the development torch for *Dead Cells* back in 2019, post-Motion Twin. So, they’ve been intimately acquainted with every pixel and every punishing swing of that game’s success. It’s like having the master alchemist teach their apprentice, then seeing the apprentice try to brew the same potent potion. You’d expect it to be damn good, wouldn’t you?
And it *is* good. From moment to moment, the hack-and-slash combat is snappy, the biomes are delightfully labyrinthine, and there’s that familiar roguelite loop of trying to string together the perfect build with weapons, secondary tools, and those all-important passive perks (medallions here). You collect Soul Cinders, you pump them into meta-progression to unlock more goodies for your item pool. It’s a tried, tested, and true formula. No complaints there on the basic mechanics.
The Evil Empire crew *did* try to sprinkle in some of their own magic, obviously. The biggest addition is that enhanced platforming. The Prince can literally run up walls, latch onto footholds mid-air, and generally turn the environment into his personal playground. It’s a smart nod to the series’ roots, keeping movement as fluid as combat. Though, I’ll admit, sometimes I found myself sticking to a wall like a lost sock to a carpet, or magnetising to a ledge when I really meant to dodge an incoming enemy attack. It’s a minor quirk, a tiny miscast spell, but it’s there.
They also tossed in a bit more story, which is a neat idea for a roguelite. There’s a ‘Mind Map’ where lore bits you uncover are splayed out, slowly revealing the narrative and character connections. While the story often becomes a bit of background noise between frantic combat bouts – because, let’s face it, in a roguelite, the action is the main character – it *does* give it a little more identity than just another *Dead Cells* clone. Pair that with the lovely illustrative art style, and you’d reckon they had a recipe for an absolute banger.
But here’s where my inner wizard started to feel something… off. It’s like when you’re calibrating your mana flow and it’s *almost* right, but there’s this tiny, persistent hum that tells you something’s amiss. For me, the runs in *The Rogue Prince of Persia* felt a bit too stagnant. The biomes *do* change, sure, but after a few hours, my attempts started blending into one another. Same old bosses, same predictable attack patterns. Same platforming gauntlets just to unlock new blueprints. Even after unlocking branching paths to new biomes, that feeling of 'been there, done that' crept in quicker than I’d have liked.
Combat, too, suffered from this curious case of sameness. I remember swapping out poison daggers for a pair of fists and genuinely thinking I’d accidentally re-equipped the daggers – they felt *that* similar in execution. It wasn’t until about five hours in, when I finally unlocked medallions with more creative utilities beyond just bumping my attack numbers, that I felt a true shift in playstyle. Suddenly, I could build around stunning enemies or exploiting specific vulnerabilities. The *potential* for build variety was absolutely there, but bloody hell, you had to grind for it. And I mean *really* grind.
And this, mate, is the delicate tightrope walk of the roguelite genre. You want to give players a reason to keep coming back, that tantalising promise of a better run. But you *don’t* want the early attempts to feel like a complete waste of time, or worse, just a chore to unlock the *actual* fun. *The Rogue Prince of Persia* stumbles a bit on this. It felt like my early runs were less about skill and discovery, and more about just amassing enough skill points to get more healing potions, just so I could survive long enough to unlock those more interesting medallions. The invisible grind was a bit too visible, if you catch my drift.
Now, you could level similar criticisms against beloved titans like *Hades* or even *Dead Cells* itself, which also have slow-burn progression. But those games manage to disguise the grind with a broader scope or, crucially, with combat that feels radically different from run to run. *Hades*, for instance, nails that sense of starting fresh with every boon choice. *The Rogue Prince of Persia*, on the other hand, takes a good few hours just to get to that point of understated variety, putting the progression systems front and centre rather than letting the moment-to-moment gameplay sing.
Does this mean it’s a bad game? Not at all! Those quirks, while noticeable, aren’t enough to spoil the whole experience. The core acrobatic twist is genuinely satisfying to master; there’s a real joy in fluidly wall-running and dashing through a biome without breaking stride. It leaves its mark there. But it’s a powerful reminder that even with a near-perfect blueprint and the master builders at the helm, sometimes the magic just doesn’t quite coalesce into something truly transcendent. It’s chasing a legacy, for sure, but sometimes the ghost of greatness is a tough one to catch.
Tags: Roguelite, Platformer, Action-Adventure, Indie Game, Game Design
Original article: Polygon