Still in early access, Evil Empire’s The Rogue Prince of Persia is already an entertaining 2D roguelike, building a world composed of vibrant colors and dozens of monstrous soldiers that are ever-so-delightful to slice and crush over and over. For now, the game falters when it comes to delivering a compelling story, but its use of narrative breadcrumbs to lead the player through its assortment of levels helps to maintain an incentive to push forward when its challenging combat presents a roadblock that takes a handful of attempts to overcome. It’s still too early to say anything definitive about the full game, but what’s here is more than a sound bedrock–this is a great spiritual successor to Dead Cells that builds on an already engaging combat loop with smooth parkour and movement mechanics.
In The Rogue Prince of Persia, you play as the eldest of two princes, who has found himself stuck in a time loop. The Huns have invaded the prince’s home city, utilizing a strange dark magic that has overwhelmed Persia’s forces. Possessing a medallion that revives him in an oasis encampment just outside the city three days into the invasion every time he dies, the prince has to repeatedly fight his way through the Huns to reach their leader and kill him. While working his way through the various levels of the game, the prince will also run across allies and members of his family–some captured, others still fighting the Huns–whom he can aid by utilizing knowledge gleaned from multiple loops.
The prince’s investigations play out as a mind board with pictures of characters and notes that are connected with lines, hinting at what you might have to do next to proceed in the game. A note discovered in the Huns’ camp reveals that an important individual has been captured by the game’s first boss, for example, encouraging you to reach said boss to question them as to their identity. Some of these investigations require you to travel to specific areas in a certain order over the course of a single run–I once had to talk to someone in one of the two starting areas to grab a specific item, travel to another area to use said item, and then go onto a third location to see how the used item had affected the environment. Dying amid a run would reset the process, as the nature of the time loop would mean that I never spoke to the person in the first area in the first place.
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