Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown – Mask of Darkness is a near essential DLC

thesixthaxis.com:

The new DLC for the Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Mask of Darkness, is pure evil. Sadistic even. Without doubt it has proven to be one of the most challenging, most arduous, most masochistic video game experiences of my life. Thrilling in places, deeply frustrating in others, I certainly didn’t enjoy every moment of it, but what I can say is that I survived it and was immensely satisfied in the process.

For all those who didn’t find the brilliant Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown challenging enough – what is wrong with you? That last boss almost broke me – then the Mask of Darkness DLC is undoubtedly for you. Accessible from a few hours into the main game, this DLC takes the form of an optional side quest. Sargon is tasked with hunting down the mysterious masked Immortal Radjen. Unfortunately, our hapless hero is tricked and ends up trapped in Radjen’s mind palace, an entirely separate map, cut off from the labyrinthian environment of Mount Qaf that we have all grown so familiar with.

The player is immediately stripped of the majority of Sargon’s abilities and health boosts. Essentially, you end up with the bog-standard vanilla version of the protagonist. Two exceptions remain: a dash and the teleport. It took some time to adjust to not having a double jump anymore; Sargon plunging to his death on more occasions than I care to recount due to my muscle memory kicking in. On the plus side, entirely new amulets can be found and returned with to the main game. One notable example, with which your Chakram is turned into a vampire, absorbing health from enemies to return to the player, is an unbelievably handy addition.

With Sargon thoroughly debuffed, what follows is one of the most brutal, yet finely honed, platforming challenges I’ve ever encountered. From the first stretch, where Sargon is chased by a giant evil eye that will instant kill him on contact, this DLC is clearly a very different beast from the original game. You should prepare to die. A lot. The precision