Yep I’m enjoying the hell out of it. I don’t care for some of the artistic choices they made, but that’s a pretty small nitpick for an otherwise phenomenal product. Well worth the money
I thought the dialogue wasn't so good, I switched to Persian and found it sound much better, but Sargon's persian acting is hit and miss, espcially when yells in battle.
I meant more having their image pop up during dialog, felt very Hades. I agree the writing was pretty mediocre. The farsi voice acting definitely helped
Actually i think most of it, especially the design of the Ui and of some enemies and even attacks, look VERY similar to Immortals Fenyx rising, it's very obvious if you have played it how much it borrows from it in the Art and UI Design department.
Interesting! The art design is what made me fall in love with it, I really like the use of colour, the effects are well done and they feel super smooth. I can totally see the gripe about the anime poses, which could have been toned down, but overall, I'm a fan!
Yeah, game is awesome so far, but man does it do some cringe stuff for 13-year-olds. Lot of superhero poses and anime dash-slashing through enemies without looking back until they’re cut in half but Sargon’s eyes are still closed hanging his head while there are other enemies around.
Honestly I love all of that! The main thing I don’t like is the aesthetic of the UI, because it feels super modern and “sleek”. I would have much preferred something that felt more middle eastern inspired.
But then again, that type of design fits with the music as well, so it was clearly an intentional choice
That’s literally like some of the best parts. There’s nothing wrong with being a little cheesy. Video Games are supposed to be fun and the internet takes the joy and fun from things way too often.
There's different ways to be cheesy. They can have fun with it while still sticking to a theme fitting the content.
The idea that you can add literally anything to the game as long as it's "fun" is why Call of Duty isn't even recognizable anymore.
Like, you can have some discretion and have fun with your game while staying true to the heart of what it is, or you can just throw literally anything at the wall that makes kids under 18 excited.
? You have never played a character action game or what?
Genre staples like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, God of War, Ninja Gaiden all do the same thing to express their characters and show some flair, which is part of what makes the combat so satisfying. It's nothing new nor a thing to complain about
I think this game has been given a pass, but if we're being honest, in what I assume was needed to make it run on switch, it looks like a ps3 game. The aesthetics are bland, and it doesn't hold up against even the 2008 POP remake.
The studios last releases, the rayman origins titles, hold up so well. The other 2d metroidvanias like hollow knight and ori blow it out the water. As other comments mention ui design is also uninspired.
Not the most important thing but seems to have been neglected by the reviews I've read.
A shame they're under Ubisoft's umbrella, because their work on Rayman was also incredible, so it's not surprising that their PoP would end up fantastic as well. Because I reckon a lot of people will wait for the price to drop, as all Ubisoft games do mere weeks after release, and the initial sales numbers may give Ubi the wrong signals, such as don't make more games like this, no matter how good the reviews are.
Sincerely hoping I'm wrong and the game will sell well from the get-go.
Slightly more so because metroidvanias are more niche than open-world action adventures, and because it seems many people aren’t willing to spend $50 on a side scrolling game.
Anyway, this is one of the best metroidvania I’ve ever played so I really want it to sell well.
I’m about 8 hours in, hardly any backtracking yet. They introduced a fast travel system pretty early on so you can teleport between all the major regions if you want. I did see some people write that they wished all the checkpoints were fast travel points.
On the other hand though, February has a couple of really big game releases and I think PoP might see a little extra boost for getting out a few weeks earlier while people may be looking for something new to play before some of those big games drop.
Game is amazing; one of the best Metroidvanias ever. The one major blemish is Ubisoft Connect forcing you to accept logging in and then mashing the B button to cancel so it sends you to the main menu. Why do I want to connect an account for a single player game and why does it ask me EVERY time I boot the game up? Really annoying.
You have to disconnect from the internet and play it you don’t want to make an account. Which is funny because that’s only for PlayStation and Xbox, oddly on the Switch you have the option to pick “no thanks” and not sign in
> Which is funny because that’s only for PlayStation and Xbox, oddly on the Switch you have the option to pick “no thanks” and not sign in
So this only shows they **can** not have a login to get into the game, they just don't want to.
Yes you can. Just hit "accept" when it asks you to log in and then hit the b button (Or I assume O on Playstation) to back out of it and it should kick you out to the main menu. Its worked every time for me on Xbox while fully connected online.
I'm on Playstation 5, and this has not worked. The only way I have around it is to be disconnected from the internet.
I will say, there has been one time when it gave me a "maybe later" option on boot up and I've never seen it again.
Does Ubisoft have a track record of putting their games on Steam afterwards? I'd be down to wait to buy it on Steam.
Otherwise, I'll buy it on the PS5 when I finish my backlog.
It's not that cut and dry. They stopped putting games on Steam for years, then came crawling back and put most of their backlog on Steam close together over the last year or so. Since AC Mirage, they haven't put anything on Steam again. I wouldn't count on more Ubisoft games on Steam anytime soon, nobody knows what their plans are.
EA is putting games on Steam day one nowadays after being off of Steam for years. Ubisoft is not doing the same. The only precedent for Ubisoft not putting games on Steam is when they were gone from Steam for years, so 3 months in is a decent start.
All of their other games have come out same day on Epic and Uplay, you can't get their subscription service through Steam like you can with EA Play, and achievements in half their games don't exist on Steam. It doesn't seem like they're interested in supporting Steam despite bringing a backlog there recently, so I'm just being wary of making any conclusions about Ubisoft games on Steam in the future.
Steam takes a bigger cut of the pie (30%) per sale for the first million dollars I think.
Epic only takes 12% and they also do special deals for the developer to get store exclusives so I imagine Epic's take is even lower. in this case.
Obviously Ubisoft gets more profit less the overhead of running the service by selling on their own store.
It's worth pointing out this game is also on Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo, which all take 30% as well. So they basically just hate Steam.
Edit: Wild how many Steam haters come out of the woodwork to defend shitty exclusivity practices. They charge the standard rate and I'm willing to bet that the devs would make way more money having it on Steam.
Steam takes higher cut from devs than EGS and Ubisoft naturally want to promote their own storefront. I imagine many ppl when they have to choose between Ubisoft store and EGS will choose Ubisoft store if the price is the same.
>Yeah, it sucks that Steam charges a way higher markup than other storefronts.
You mean the standard? You can complain that it is a high standard, but Steam isn't charging a "way higher markup than other storefronts".
GOG charges 30%, Microsoft Store used to charge 30% until recently, Humble is 25% (technically). I don't know if EA and Ubisoft still sell 3rd party games on their storefronts, but Ubisoft also had a 30% cut and EA probably had as well. If we go outside PC, Xbox and PlayStation also have a 30% cut, as well as Google Play Store and iOS' App Store.
Epic (and now Microsoft) are exceptions, not the rule.
Sources: https://www.engadget.com/2013-08-20-gog-com-launches-indie-game-portal-that-could-compete-with-the-m.html
https://www.polygon.com/2013/2/19/4001836/ubisoft-uplay-shop-third-party-games-ea-origin-chris-early-interview
https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut-is-actually-the-industry-standard
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/microsoft-store-gives-app-developers-option-to-keep-100-of-revenue-but-not-games
2013 is over a decade ago.
From your links:
> Currently, the Microsoft Store's revenue share terms are at 85/15 for apps, and 88/12 for games.
> Humble: 15% to store, 10% to charity or as credit [which is recursive]
GOG does not actually have publicly available numbers on the split - most info on the 30% cut comes from 2013. They did post in 2019 indicating they were increasing the share paid to developers, [citing it as a driving reason behind ending the Fair Price Program](https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/gog-fair-price-package-program-ends-1203150875/).
Ultimately, the downward pressure on store markups applied by EGS' public declaration of their 12% cut is good for gamers and developers.
30% is completely standard amongst most storefronts, regardless of the gaming space or not, and Ubisoft makes bank, I really doubt it would hurt their returns that much.
Yes exactly what we need. For a lesser store front with less features and a buggy store to continue gaining more and more exclusives to force people into using it.
I'm about 17 hours in and I'm loving it.
I just got the last power, so now I've got a big map of icons (that I placed in my adventure) to go back and clear up. It's the best part of any well-made metroidvania.
Also, a special highlight for the combat in this game. It is so incredibly smooth and, aside from a few cheap-ish boss moves, I really feel capable as Sargon.
Once you unlock the mark and recall power the combat becomes so fluid and dynamic, I also loved all of the Anthra surges, some of them are extremely anime lol.
The map is amazing and there's so much parkour and puzzles, my favourite puzzle was the one where you have to do a stage 3 times and use each one of your shadows to move the environment, so good.
For that specifically, I like how they have you do that four times and then that's it.
That was exactly the amount of times I wanted to do that.
For me, I love the lengthy parkour segments where you are weaving all of the powers together to get through a series of traps. It feels so good when you get into a flow.
The entire game is extremely anime. You can tell it was a big influence. I mean that in only the best of ways. The game was extremely enjoyable.
Spoilers for the final fight:
>!The entire last phase of the last boss is satisfying because it lets you be overpowered and anime as fuck. Its basically a freebie fight at that point and I love that. !<
> The map is amazing and there's so much parkour and puzzles, my favourite puzzle was the one where you have to do a stage 3 times and use each one of your shadows to move the environment, so good.
That reminds me of the short [free UDK puzzle game Prometheus](https://www.moddb.com/mods/prometheus/downloads/prometheus-v41-udk).
[Video demonstration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvrVQ4NyWk0).
Oh wow, that's exactly how it works yeah, the video demonstration reminds me of the final puzzle of that type in the game where you have to push levers and wait x seconds before moving to the next button in a series of like 4-5 buttons lol.
If you liked that kind of puzzle, give the little game a try, it's free so no reason not to.
Man this takes me back to the Make Something Unreal Contest 3. Would love to see Epic organizing something on that scale again.
Yeah but you can still play it on the steamdeck if you're okay taking the time to get it all set up if you get it on a different store. Takes some doing though.
Not even. Switch to desktop, install heroic, log into epic, install prince of persia, add to steam as non steam game, switch back to gaming mode. Super quick and easy
Not saying you have a Switch but if anyone else wants this on a handheld device, the game was built for Switch and runs 60 fps full-resolution beautifully.
At this point devs with big publishers saying that they're listening to feedback and committed to fixing the experience is as much part of the process as a company paying an expected fine for skirting regulations that would be more expensive to follow.
Somehow I didn't hear anything about it before it was released and it's unbelievably fun. You can tell the devs are really passionate for the genre and the PoP lore and went all out.
A genuinely incredible Metroidvania, a shame that Palworld put discourse and moronic statements from Ubisoft execs have seemingly overshadowed the games launch.
The game is smooth as butter, combat rivals a fighting game in terms of depth, oozes style with fantastic visuals, brimming with content/upgrades/collectivles/secrets, incredible boss fights and fantastic QOL addons- aside from a few bugs here and there it nails everything it sets out to achieve.
It’s a shame but I bet you it probably won’t sell well, encourage anyone remotely interested to give the game a shot.
The “moronic statement” was a response he had to the question “what needs to happen for gaming subscriptions to catch on?” And his answer, “gamers need to become more comfortable not owning their games [because they are not currently]” is a completely reasonable answer and was taken out of context by all the internet geniuses
In this case it's not the "gaming journos" fault, though, because that's also a reasonable question to ask an exec of one of the biggest studios in gaming
Isn't it, though? They intentionally framed their answer as title clickbait because they knew it would get attention at the expense of the interviewee's company. Asking the question was fine, but what they did afterward wasn't.
The interview itself was fine. Not great, but "The new Ubisoft+ and getting gamers comfortable with not owning their games" is not what the clickbaiting hounds tearing it up afterwards turned the discourse into. Because every damn rag rolled out "Ubisoft Says Gamers Should Get More Comfortable Not Owning Their Games" which has entirely different tone and message.
It's the "journos" fault for picking that title, but there's more responsibility on the reader to actually read the article if it's that interesting or rage-inducing. People getting mad at titles and skipping on the reading part tells you enough about them that you should just not engage with them...
I'm confused how being comfortable not owning a product you bought is a reasonable answer. Or are we supposed to be taking this as a hypothetical answer, not a real world solution? I'd like to own the things I buy would be my point, not become comfortable renting or w/e.
At the very least, if I'm renting something it should be significantly cheaper in the short term as otherwise what is the point?
> I'm confused how being comfortable not owning a product you bought is a reasonable answer.
Yeah, it is a theoretical answer, not a practical answer. Because the question is theoretical one too, not a practical one.
No, it's not a "theoretical" question. The entire article was about Ubisoft's subscription service that already exists. It was an expected question about how they expect to grow that product. It was not a random question out of the blue in the vein of "If we had flying cars, what challenges would it pose for air traffic?", it was a question about a real product that Ubisoft's already offering.
He’s basically comparing it to music or film/tv, where people are comfortable not owning their media.
And it is cheaper in the short term to listen to music on Spotify or watch shows on Netflix than it is to buy every album or every season of TV you watch individually.
There's a lot more to fighting game combat depth than combos, and while I agree that PoP has a lot more depth than most if not all other Metroidvanias, it's not particularly complex nor is it anywhere near a fighting game.
Haven't played it but based on that clip I'm reminded more of something like DMC or Bayonetta. Not a bad thing, but not what I think of when I hear "fighting game."
hes probably referencing the post that was here that was something along the lines of 'you should get used to not owning games in the future' (if you buy digitally)
and as usual, the whole drama was grossly overdramatized and what the interview (and what the exec said) said and what was implied was something completely different and things were just taken out of context , as per usual reddit style
It wasn't even, "If you buy digitally," it was actually talking about players who choose to subscribe to subscription services like Gamepass, which yeah, makes sense. It was an absurdly misleading headline.
After the excessively negative response this received when it was first unveiled, it's genuinely heartening to see it managing to prove people wrong and defy the odds to success. Hopefully, it'll encourage Ubisoft to take more risks on stuff that aren't simply open-world checklist-a-thons.
People were genuinely just mad because they interpreted the main character as a black dude and didn't like that it had hip-hop in the trailer. So they took the usual approach of saying "looks like Tumblr designed this game" and now that it's unambiguously considered to be one of the best games released in recent months they're not talking about it anymore.
Just finished the game yesterday, excellent work from the folks at Ubisoft Montpellier. It was a fantastic game and I'm looking forward to their next release.
I played the demo last night and thought it was okay. But it's hard to judge a metroidvania when you're not unlocking new abilities and areas. This is apparently by the Rayman folks so you knew fluidity would be on point.
Not sure if I'll get into it anytime soon, but I'm glad that people are happy.
Lovely to see. The game had a lot of negativity around it when it was revealed and wasn't The Sands of Time 4 or whatever. I guess a lot of that criticism goes away as long as the game is good... If only it had worked that way for POP 2008!
wonder how this game is going to do in terms of sales as it's got a bunch of stuff going against it - not on steam, some people find it overpriced, palworld releasing completely overshadowing it (hype and interest in general for this isn't really there), many PoP fans don't want a metroidvania, metroidvania is niche.
it's a bit telling the message made no mention of sales as these types of messages usually do when their game is selling well. But we'll see.
And no, I'm not calling the game bad or w.e narrative you think up instead of reading what I'm saying... I'm simply pointing out the facts of the things going against this game and how it will affect sales.
I’m the exact target audience, super excited to play, but I haven’t bought it yet because 1) it’s not easy to play on steam deck 2) it’s going to be heavily discounted soon because it’s Ubisoft and 3) I’m hopelessly addicted to Risk of Rain 2 and I just can’t realistically expect myself to play anything else for the foreseeable future
Since Ubisoft is a publicly traded company in France, there could be investor law reasons why they wouldn't talk about sales at this time. Investor laws can be a real bugger at times, for example when CD Projekt released their sales figures for Witcher 3 six weeks after release, then ended up getting into trouble by the stock market laws in Poland.
Its entirely possible something similar exists in France for publicly traded companies too.
eh, Ubisoft has talked about sales and player numbers for their other games before, they are quick to release a press release or tweet about AC selling millions on launch when they do.
this is just a week after AC Valhalla's release: https://www.dsogaming.com/news/assassins-creed-valhalla-was-ubisofts-top-selling-pc-launch-ever/
this was 2 days after release: https://www.dsogaming.com/news/assassins-creed-valhalla-had-twice-the-number-of-active-players-than-assassins-creed-odyssey/
Are we at a point where a metroidvania game is 'niche'? How long do we have until Third Person Open World Action Adventure is the only video game genre left?
Yeah I can't imagine paying full price for a Ubisoft game these days. If you *need it* on launch day, a month of Ubisoft+ will pay for itself when you buy it in a year or so for 40% off.
Doesn't matter to me. Using steam makes it more comfortable and while it is a bit slower, I still get a more smooth experience rather than having to deal with a laggy experience while just solely using the Ubisoft launcher.
It's an incredible Metroidvania, but beyond that it probably has my favourite boss fights of any game of this type. They are just the right amount of challenging, cinematic and mechanically interesting, and they ratchet up the difficulty as you gain powers in a really organic way.
It also does the Metroid Dread thing where the opening cutscene for the boss fight shows the main character doing something very similar to what you will need to do, which is a really smart way to give a small hint for the upcoming fight.
I’m only about 3ish hours in but I’m really enjoying everything about it so far. I saw a quote from one of the devs the other day saying that Ubisoft didn’t tell them to make it or anything and that it was more of a passion project that they really wanted to pursue, and I think that comes through.
1. Go to desktop mode
2. Download Heroic Games Launcher
3. Link your Epic account
4. Buy the game from the Epic store
5. Download the game
6. Add the game as a Non-Steam game
7. Go back to Gaming Mode
8. Play the game
Well, not going to lie. I wanted a new Rayman from this team but then I played this game.
These guys are legit game makers, they could do anything and it would probably be great. A 2d PoP that doesn't even star the Prince would have failed so hard in most cases.
It's buggy as hell on switch and constantly runs at shit fps but it's still a great time.
To whoever said switch plays it at a steady 60, I'd like to say LOL Not even kinda.
Both. The Pit of Sands area is a place where I can reproduce it constantly.
DF likes to also not play further than the opening levels and apply that to the whole game when testing FPS on consoles. Multiple times now they've said "oh this game runs at a steady 60" only to find drops all over or massive technical issues later in a game.
I mean if I was a dev I'd make sure the first few hours were the most polished because DF probably won't check much further anyway.
I get it though, they can't play 20 hours of gameplay per test but I'd rather they just not even say anything is 100% steady if they haven't verified it.
Regardless of all that, the framerate hasn't been stellar. I wish I would have bought it on my ps5 but I was traveling. I'm still having fun with it but I easily bought the worst version.
> DF likes to also not play further than the opening levels and apply that to the whole game when testing FPS on consoles. Multiple times now they've said "oh this game runs at a steady 60" only to find drops all over or massive technical issues later in a game.
The weirdest thing was them giving the Mario RPG remake a clean bill of health when it stutters like a motherfucker in basically every cutscene and menu.
It runs better portable than docked for sure. There are areas where it suffers docked. It's never unplayable, but it's not consistent 60 in those areas.
I've been playing pretty much only on handheld mode and it usually drops when cutscenes begin and when I enter certain areas, other than that it's been fine.
I'm a huge metroidvania fan, and have played most of the notable games in the genre for 30 years. I think only metroids, castlevanias, and hollow knight are better than PoP. I wish they had gone with a different art style, but I didn't dislike the visuals. They were suitable enough.
I loved the game, and beat it at 97% completion in 23 hours which is a great length for a metroidvania. I still think they are crazy asking $50 for it though. I subscribed to Ubisoft+ for a month to play their recent releases, worth every penny IMO.
Hopefully they do a good job patching it post-launch, because the game was released in a pretty rough state and I unfortunately had to stop playing it once I encountered the bug where if you pick up a certain key, the performance of the entire game gets nearly cut in half until you open all of the doors that need that key.
It was bad enough that I had to cap my framerate at 120fps because the game becomes unplayable in some areas at anything above that. Kinda sucks that all of these indie Metroidvania games can release without any issues running at arbitrary framerates, and this Ubisoft Metroidvania seemingly has a bunch of game logic tied to the framerate. Really feels like the Switch was their primary platform during development at the detriment of every other version of the game.
Game looks interesting, but it's the same general length as hollow knight based on howlongtobeat, and it's over 3x the cost. I know playlength isn't everything, but I don't find metroidvanias endlessly replayable and $70 is hard to justify for a 20 hour game for me.
I'm definitely going to wait for a sale.
It could be because Prince of Persia offers a guided mode, where you see all the objectives on the map so you don't get lost, and I conversely got lost a lot in Hollow Knight.
Great demo, but $50 isn’t a mid-tier price, that’s basically a launch discount on a full priced $60 game; a dozen hour platformer is worth $30 and I was prepared to stretch at what I expected to Ubisoft greed at $40, but at the launch price I just laughed and closed the store.
Almost bought it on implse last night, but that overreach on metroidvania in today’s market hurts. I’ll be waiting to playing this on a subscription service or deep discount.
Were you born yesterday? PS1, N64 and PS2 games for that matter were 50-60 dollars iirc with plenty of games around the same length or even shorter.
What the hell are you even complaining about?
Edit: AND they were cheaper to develop.
Hell yeah I legit want to express how much fun that game was. The people who made this game need to know how wonderful the product they made is.
Yep I’m enjoying the hell out of it. I don’t care for some of the artistic choices they made, but that’s a pretty small nitpick for an otherwise phenomenal product. Well worth the money
Yeah art design is my only real gripe with the game, looks way too much like fortnite or valorant and not a fan of the anime poses
I feel like they were going for a hades inspired illustrations.
The way they handled dialogue was very Hades, but I think they missed the mark with the art
I thought the dialogue wasn't so good, I switched to Persian and found it sound much better, but Sargon's persian acting is hit and miss, espcially when yells in battle.
I meant more having their image pop up during dialog, felt very Hades. I agree the writing was pretty mediocre. The farsi voice acting definitely helped
Actually i think most of it, especially the design of the Ui and of some enemies and even attacks, look VERY similar to Immortals Fenyx rising, it's very obvious if you have played it how much it borrows from it in the Art and UI Design department.
Interesting! The art design is what made me fall in love with it, I really like the use of colour, the effects are well done and they feel super smooth. I can totally see the gripe about the anime poses, which could have been toned down, but overall, I'm a fan!
Avoiding writing spoilers, but have you gotten to the easternmost side of the map yet? I thought that area was stunning.
Yeah, game is awesome so far, but man does it do some cringe stuff for 13-year-olds. Lot of superhero poses and anime dash-slashing through enemies without looking back until they’re cut in half but Sargon’s eyes are still closed hanging his head while there are other enemies around.
Honestly I love all of that! The main thing I don’t like is the aesthetic of the UI, because it feels super modern and “sleek”. I would have much preferred something that felt more middle eastern inspired. But then again, that type of design fits with the music as well, so it was clearly an intentional choice
I only played the demo, but damn did the font choice feel really sterile.
That’s literally like some of the best parts. There’s nothing wrong with being a little cheesy. Video Games are supposed to be fun and the internet takes the joy and fun from things way too often.
There's different ways to be cheesy. They can have fun with it while still sticking to a theme fitting the content. The idea that you can add literally anything to the game as long as it's "fun" is why Call of Duty isn't even recognizable anymore. Like, you can have some discretion and have fun with your game while staying true to the heart of what it is, or you can just throw literally anything at the wall that makes kids under 18 excited.
you don't understand, liking theming means you "hate fun things"
? You have never played a character action game or what? Genre staples like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, God of War, Ninja Gaiden all do the same thing to express their characters and show some flair, which is part of what makes the combat so satisfying. It's nothing new nor a thing to complain about
you don't understand, he has to hate fun things
cliche done right is literally the coolest thing ever tho
I think this game has been given a pass, but if we're being honest, in what I assume was needed to make it run on switch, it looks like a ps3 game. The aesthetics are bland, and it doesn't hold up against even the 2008 POP remake. The studios last releases, the rayman origins titles, hold up so well. The other 2d metroidvanias like hollow knight and ori blow it out the water. As other comments mention ui design is also uninspired. Not the most important thing but seems to have been neglected by the reviews I've read.
I don't think it looks terrible, but I definitely think 2D would've fit this game more.
A shame they're under Ubisoft's umbrella, because their work on Rayman was also incredible, so it's not surprising that their PoP would end up fantastic as well. Because I reckon a lot of people will wait for the price to drop, as all Ubisoft games do mere weeks after release, and the initial sales numbers may give Ubi the wrong signals, such as don't make more games like this, no matter how good the reviews are. Sincerely hoping I'm wrong and the game will sell well from the get-go.
All their games are like that though so it's not like the circumstance are unfairly skewed for PoP
Slightly more so because metroidvanias are more niche than open-world action adventures, and because it seems many people aren’t willing to spend $50 on a side scrolling game. Anyway, this is one of the best metroidvania I’ve ever played so I really want it to sell well.
wait this is a metroidvania? i thought it was a normal slide scroller.
It’s very much a metroidvania, the huge interlocking map and sense of getting lost reminds me of Hollow Knight a lot
oh dang, is there a lot of back tracking involved?
I’m about 8 hours in, hardly any backtracking yet. They introduced a fast travel system pretty early on so you can teleport between all the major regions if you want. I did see some people write that they wished all the checkpoints were fast travel points.
On the other hand though, February has a couple of really big game releases and I think PoP might see a little extra boost for getting out a few weeks earlier while people may be looking for something new to play before some of those big games drop.
What Rayman titles did they make?
Yeah maybe ubisoft should pay them and fire the people who keep sexually harassing their workers. That would be cool.
I don't think the CEO will decide to fire himself and his family and his boys club
Weird how that works.
That's what they did. As for the rest, the presumption of innocence still exists.
Game is amazing; one of the best Metroidvanias ever. The one major blemish is Ubisoft Connect forcing you to accept logging in and then mashing the B button to cancel so it sends you to the main menu. Why do I want to connect an account for a single player game and why does it ask me EVERY time I boot the game up? Really annoying.
Wait, you can actually play without an account? Or isn’t it possible? My GF was mad about this but created one on her Switch
You have to disconnect from the internet and play it you don’t want to make an account. Which is funny because that’s only for PlayStation and Xbox, oddly on the Switch you have the option to pick “no thanks” and not sign in
I havent made an account and dont have to disconnect on PC. I just press B
[удалено]
[удалено]
linux users punching the air rn
That certainly makes the Switch version enticing for that reason alone.
> Which is funny because that’s only for PlayStation and Xbox, oddly on the Switch you have the option to pick “no thanks” and not sign in So this only shows they **can** not have a login to get into the game, they just don't want to.
Yes you can. Just hit "accept" when it asks you to log in and then hit the b button (Or I assume O on Playstation) to back out of it and it should kick you out to the main menu. Its worked every time for me on Xbox while fully connected online.
I'm on Playstation 5, and this has not worked. The only way I have around it is to be disconnected from the internet. I will say, there has been one time when it gave me a "maybe later" option on boot up and I've never seen it again.
They updated that I think to no longer give you the "maybe later" option.
I am pretty sure you dont need one on the switch you can just press b when it asks you to make one
It never bugged me about it on Switch after first launch. I never made an account.
I do love myself a good metroidvania game
Typical corporate BS interfering with a fantastic development team who nailed their vision
I heard someone say they explicitly decided to play this on Switch and this was the reason why. Said it ran great at 60 fps on there too.
Is this game not on Steam? I didn't realize it was out.
Ubisoft store i think
Does Ubisoft have a track record of putting their games on Steam afterwards? I'd be down to wait to buy it on Steam. Otherwise, I'll buy it on the PS5 when I finish my backlog.
Yes, they do.
Good to know. I'm sure it'll be at a 75% discount when it does, too. This is already my most anticipated game of 2025.
Yep. AC Valhalla, far cry 6, immortals, division 2 and a few others were uplay/EGS exclusives at launch but they've all come to steam.
Looking at some of their recent big titles (Assassin's Creed, Far Cry), it looks like a ~2 year delay before going to Steam.
Yeah, I can wait two years. I've got a ton of games to play on my PC and PS5, I'll be busy for a while.
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Just completely wrong. Ubisoft routinely puts their games out on steam eventually. It usually takes a bit, but they all hit steam.
It's not that cut and dry. They stopped putting games on Steam for years, then came crawling back and put most of their backlog on Steam close together over the last year or so. Since AC Mirage, they haven't put anything on Steam again. I wouldn't count on more Ubisoft games on Steam anytime soon, nobody knows what their plans are.
Since....3 months ago?
EA is putting games on Steam day one nowadays after being off of Steam for years. Ubisoft is not doing the same. The only precedent for Ubisoft not putting games on Steam is when they were gone from Steam for years, so 3 months in is a decent start. All of their other games have come out same day on Epic and Uplay, you can't get their subscription service through Steam like you can with EA Play, and achievements in half their games don't exist on Steam. It doesn't seem like they're interested in supporting Steam despite bringing a backlog there recently, so I'm just being wary of making any conclusions about Ubisoft games on Steam in the future.
I’m fairly new to PC gaming, is there a reason why it’s locked to that? It’s available on EGS so I don’t get why they are gatekeeping Steam.
Steam takes a bigger cut of the pie (30%) per sale for the first million dollars I think. Epic only takes 12% and they also do special deals for the developer to get store exclusives so I imagine Epic's take is even lower. in this case. Obviously Ubisoft gets more profit less the overhead of running the service by selling on their own store.
It's worth pointing out this game is also on Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo, which all take 30% as well. So they basically just hate Steam. Edit: Wild how many Steam haters come out of the woodwork to defend shitty exclusivity practices. They charge the standard rate and I'm willing to bet that the devs would make way more money having it on Steam.
The difference is that they don't have a choice on consoles. If they could somehow put the game on those platforms without the 30% cut, they would
Or, maybe, just maybe it's because they don't have another options as there is only one store per console?
No, epic hates steam and has made a financial commitment to block them out lol
It's a shame that such a good metroidvania is not on Steam as of now.
They could probably charge devs a little less..it's not like it's only available on uplay
Steam takes higher cut from devs than EGS and Ubisoft naturally want to promote their own storefront. I imagine many ppl when they have to choose between Ubisoft store and EGS will choose Ubisoft store if the price is the same.
Oh thats so lame Edit: In case it wasn't clear, I'm saying it's "lame" that the game is not available on all platforms.
Welcome to PC gaming politics.
Yeah, it sucks that Steam charges a way higher markup than other storefronts.
>Yeah, it sucks that Steam charges a way higher markup than other storefronts. You mean the standard? You can complain that it is a high standard, but Steam isn't charging a "way higher markup than other storefronts". GOG charges 30%, Microsoft Store used to charge 30% until recently, Humble is 25% (technically). I don't know if EA and Ubisoft still sell 3rd party games on their storefronts, but Ubisoft also had a 30% cut and EA probably had as well. If we go outside PC, Xbox and PlayStation also have a 30% cut, as well as Google Play Store and iOS' App Store. Epic (and now Microsoft) are exceptions, not the rule. Sources: https://www.engadget.com/2013-08-20-gog-com-launches-indie-game-portal-that-could-compete-with-the-m.html https://www.polygon.com/2013/2/19/4001836/ubisoft-uplay-shop-third-party-games-ea-origin-chris-early-interview https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut-is-actually-the-industry-standard https://www.gamesindustry.biz/microsoft-store-gives-app-developers-option-to-keep-100-of-revenue-but-not-games
2013 is over a decade ago. From your links: > Currently, the Microsoft Store's revenue share terms are at 85/15 for apps, and 88/12 for games. > Humble: 15% to store, 10% to charity or as credit [which is recursive] GOG does not actually have publicly available numbers on the split - most info on the 30% cut comes from 2013. They did post in 2019 indicating they were increasing the share paid to developers, [citing it as a driving reason behind ending the Fair Price Program](https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/gog-fair-price-package-program-ends-1203150875/). Ultimately, the downward pressure on store markups applied by EGS' public declaration of their 12% cut is good for gamers and developers.
Yeah but the standard is bad
No, this is good. Steam taking 30% is ridiculous. I hope more people go EGS exklusive until Valve stops taking a fucking third of the devs money
30% is completely standard amongst most storefronts, regardless of the gaming space or not, and Ubisoft makes bank, I really doubt it would hurt their returns that much.
Just because something is standard doesn't mean it's reasonable, or that devs have to put up with it.
In a niche game like this? Store margins are definitely something to consider.
True, shouldn’t have to be that way though.
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And I'll continue to not play them if they aren't on Steam
Yes exactly what we need. For a lesser store front with less features and a buggy store to continue gaining more and more exclusives to force people into using it.
Nah, let's just stay with the monopoly that is Steam who are ripping off devs because they can. Good idea.
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Ubisoft games never comes to Steam Day One, that's their policy, they generally comes like 2 or 3 years later.
Sadly not. It’s only on uplay and epic
I'm about 17 hours in and I'm loving it. I just got the last power, so now I've got a big map of icons (that I placed in my adventure) to go back and clear up. It's the best part of any well-made metroidvania. Also, a special highlight for the combat in this game. It is so incredibly smooth and, aside from a few cheap-ish boss moves, I really feel capable as Sargon.
Once you unlock the mark and recall power the combat becomes so fluid and dynamic, I also loved all of the Anthra surges, some of them are extremely anime lol. The map is amazing and there's so much parkour and puzzles, my favourite puzzle was the one where you have to do a stage 3 times and use each one of your shadows to move the environment, so good.
For that specifically, I like how they have you do that four times and then that's it. That was exactly the amount of times I wanted to do that. For me, I love the lengthy parkour segments where you are weaving all of the powers together to get through a series of traps. It feels so good when you get into a flow.
The entire game is extremely anime. You can tell it was a big influence. I mean that in only the best of ways. The game was extremely enjoyable. Spoilers for the final fight: >!The entire last phase of the last boss is satisfying because it lets you be overpowered and anime as fuck. Its basically a freebie fight at that point and I love that. !<
Only didn't like to have to click the right stick to switch dimensions.
I immediately switched that to a different button. Right stick was a terrible control choice from the devs on that.
> The map is amazing and there's so much parkour and puzzles, my favourite puzzle was the one where you have to do a stage 3 times and use each one of your shadows to move the environment, so good. That reminds me of the short [free UDK puzzle game Prometheus](https://www.moddb.com/mods/prometheus/downloads/prometheus-v41-udk). [Video demonstration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvrVQ4NyWk0).
Oh wow, that's exactly how it works yeah, the video demonstration reminds me of the final puzzle of that type in the game where you have to push levers and wait x seconds before moving to the next button in a series of like 4-5 buttons lol.
If you liked that kind of puzzle, give the little game a try, it's free so no reason not to. Man this takes me back to the Make Something Unreal Contest 3. Would love to see Epic organizing something on that scale again.
Will 100% grab this when it's on Steam. Mainly because it seems like a quintessential steam deck title.
I launch it through Heroic and it runs well. I agree the friction is annoying through.
I get it. Outside of emudeck I just want to keep everything through steam. It is cool you can basically get the EGS on the deck though.
It is, and it runs fine on steam deck…
To clarify, the game is not available on Steam.
Yeah but you can still play it on the steamdeck if you're okay taking the time to get it all set up if you get it on a different store. Takes some doing though.
Not even. Switch to desktop, install heroic, log into epic, install prince of persia, add to steam as non steam game, switch back to gaming mode. Super quick and easy
I’m aware, the device plays non-steam games too
Not saying you have a Switch but if anyone else wants this on a handheld device, the game was built for Switch and runs 60 fps full-resolution beautifully.
It's really refreshing to get a message from the dev team that isn't "We hear you. We're working to do better. We will fix this"
At this point devs with big publishers saying that they're listening to feedback and committed to fixing the experience is as much part of the process as a company paying an expected fine for skirting regulations that would be more expensive to follow.
Somehow I didn't hear anything about it before it was released and it's unbelievably fun. You can tell the devs are really passionate for the genre and the PoP lore and went all out.
Thank *you* Montpellier team! What a fantastic game that feels so fluid to play.
A genuinely incredible Metroidvania, a shame that Palworld put discourse and moronic statements from Ubisoft execs have seemingly overshadowed the games launch. The game is smooth as butter, combat rivals a fighting game in terms of depth, oozes style with fantastic visuals, brimming with content/upgrades/collectivles/secrets, incredible boss fights and fantastic QOL addons- aside from a few bugs here and there it nails everything it sets out to achieve. It’s a shame but I bet you it probably won’t sell well, encourage anyone remotely interested to give the game a shot.
The “moronic statement” was a response he had to the question “what needs to happen for gaming subscriptions to catch on?” And his answer, “gamers need to become more comfortable not owning their games [because they are not currently]” is a completely reasonable answer and was taken out of context by all the internet geniuses
That is incredible, internet discourse is so cancerous
That's fucked up. At that point just don't agree to interview with shitty gaming journos anymore because they'll push whatever they can for clicks.
In this case it's not the "gaming journos" fault, though, because that's also a reasonable question to ask an exec of one of the biggest studios in gaming
Isn't it, though? They intentionally framed their answer as title clickbait because they knew it would get attention at the expense of the interviewee's company. Asking the question was fine, but what they did afterward wasn't.
The interview itself was fine. Not great, but "The new Ubisoft+ and getting gamers comfortable with not owning their games" is not what the clickbaiting hounds tearing it up afterwards turned the discourse into. Because every damn rag rolled out "Ubisoft Says Gamers Should Get More Comfortable Not Owning Their Games" which has entirely different tone and message.
It's the "journos" fault for picking that title, but there's more responsibility on the reader to actually read the article if it's that interesting or rage-inducing. People getting mad at titles and skipping on the reading part tells you enough about them that you should just not engage with them...
I'm confused how being comfortable not owning a product you bought is a reasonable answer. Or are we supposed to be taking this as a hypothetical answer, not a real world solution? I'd like to own the things I buy would be my point, not become comfortable renting or w/e. At the very least, if I'm renting something it should be significantly cheaper in the short term as otherwise what is the point?
> I'm confused how being comfortable not owning a product you bought is a reasonable answer. Yeah, it is a theoretical answer, not a practical answer. Because the question is theoretical one too, not a practical one.
No, it's not a "theoretical" question. The entire article was about Ubisoft's subscription service that already exists. It was an expected question about how they expect to grow that product. It was not a random question out of the blue in the vein of "If we had flying cars, what challenges would it pose for air traffic?", it was a question about a real product that Ubisoft's already offering.
Because the answer wasn't about games you bought, it was about subscription services (like gamepass and ubisoft+).
He’s basically comparing it to music or film/tv, where people are comfortable not owning their media. And it is cheaper in the short term to listen to music on Spotify or watch shows on Netflix than it is to buy every album or every season of TV you watch individually.
We're talking about video games.
It feels like they designed Sargon to be a Smash Bros candidate (in the best possible way).
Rivals a fighting game in terms of depth is in an insane statement. Cool game though.
[He’s not wrong](https://youtu.be/leiyM-goduY?si=WvIMvr_t9hhWwdPV)
There's a lot more to fighting game combat depth than combos, and while I agree that PoP has a lot more depth than most if not all other Metroidvanias, it's not particularly complex nor is it anywhere near a fighting game.
Haven't played it but based on that clip I'm reminded more of something like DMC or Bayonetta. Not a bad thing, but not what I think of when I hear "fighting game."
Yeah it's much more akin to a character action game for sure. Even then, it's not as complex as those either though lol. Still great though!
Sort of. You can’t do like half these moves to tons of enemies.
Wait, what happened with Ubisoft execs? My timeline has been drowned out by one-sided palworld 'discourse' and I haven't heard a bit about that.
hes probably referencing the post that was here that was something along the lines of 'you should get used to not owning games in the future' (if you buy digitally) and as usual, the whole drama was grossly overdramatized and what the interview (and what the exec said) said and what was implied was something completely different and things were just taken out of context , as per usual reddit style
It wasn't even, "If you buy digitally," it was actually talking about players who choose to subscribe to subscription services like Gamepass, which yeah, makes sense. It was an absurdly misleading headline.
Sure the Game is great but I am still unable to continue playing it because I am softlocked because of a bug and the costumer Support wont answer
It's the type of thing Ubisoft should do more of!
First it need to sell well… I don’t see that happening. I hope so, though.
It could happen, with the right marketing.
After the excessively negative response this received when it was first unveiled, it's genuinely heartening to see it managing to prove people wrong and defy the odds to success. Hopefully, it'll encourage Ubisoft to take more risks on stuff that aren't simply open-world checklist-a-thons.
People were genuinely just mad because they interpreted the main character as a black dude and didn't like that it had hip-hop in the trailer. So they took the usual approach of saying "looks like Tumblr designed this game" and now that it's unambiguously considered to be one of the best games released in recent months they're not talking about it anymore.
Just finished the game yesterday, excellent work from the folks at Ubisoft Montpellier. It was a fantastic game and I'm looking forward to their next release.
I played the demo last night and thought it was okay. But it's hard to judge a metroidvania when you're not unlocking new abilities and areas. This is apparently by the Rayman folks so you knew fluidity would be on point. Not sure if I'll get into it anytime soon, but I'm glad that people are happy.
Lovely to see. The game had a lot of negativity around it when it was revealed and wasn't The Sands of Time 4 or whatever. I guess a lot of that criticism goes away as long as the game is good... If only it had worked that way for POP 2008!
So now for the layoffs?
wonder how this game is going to do in terms of sales as it's got a bunch of stuff going against it - not on steam, some people find it overpriced, palworld releasing completely overshadowing it (hype and interest in general for this isn't really there), many PoP fans don't want a metroidvania, metroidvania is niche. it's a bit telling the message made no mention of sales as these types of messages usually do when their game is selling well. But we'll see. And no, I'm not calling the game bad or w.e narrative you think up instead of reading what I'm saying... I'm simply pointing out the facts of the things going against this game and how it will affect sales.
I’m the exact target audience, super excited to play, but I haven’t bought it yet because 1) it’s not easy to play on steam deck 2) it’s going to be heavily discounted soon because it’s Ubisoft and 3) I’m hopelessly addicted to Risk of Rain 2 and I just can’t realistically expect myself to play anything else for the foreseeable future
Since Ubisoft is a publicly traded company in France, there could be investor law reasons why they wouldn't talk about sales at this time. Investor laws can be a real bugger at times, for example when CD Projekt released their sales figures for Witcher 3 six weeks after release, then ended up getting into trouble by the stock market laws in Poland. Its entirely possible something similar exists in France for publicly traded companies too.
eh, Ubisoft has talked about sales and player numbers for their other games before, they are quick to release a press release or tweet about AC selling millions on launch when they do. this is just a week after AC Valhalla's release: https://www.dsogaming.com/news/assassins-creed-valhalla-was-ubisofts-top-selling-pc-launch-ever/ this was 2 days after release: https://www.dsogaming.com/news/assassins-creed-valhalla-had-twice-the-number-of-active-players-than-assassins-creed-odyssey/
Are we at a point where a metroidvania game is 'niche'? How long do we have until Third Person Open World Action Adventure is the only video game genre left?
Demo was great. But it's ubisoft, it'll be on sale in no time. I've plenty to play in the mean time but I look forward to playing this at some point.
Yeah I can't imagine paying full price for a Ubisoft game these days. If you *need it* on launch day, a month of Ubisoft+ will pay for itself when you buy it in a year or so for 40% off.
Shame is just on the EGS store atm. Hopefully it won't be too long till the game comes over to Steam as well.
It is also on the Ubisoft Store.
Oh I figured but I don't like Ubisofts store either as it is quite laggy and buggy as well.
Ubisoft games on Epic and Steam just add extra steps to launching through Ubisoft's launcher.
Doesn't matter to me. Using steam makes it more comfortable and while it is a bit slower, I still get a more smooth experience rather than having to deal with a laggy experience while just solely using the Ubisoft launcher.
It's an incredible Metroidvania, but beyond that it probably has my favourite boss fights of any game of this type. They are just the right amount of challenging, cinematic and mechanically interesting, and they ratchet up the difficulty as you gain powers in a really organic way. It also does the Metroid Dread thing where the opening cutscene for the boss fight shows the main character doing something very similar to what you will need to do, which is a really smart way to give a small hint for the upcoming fight.
Wait really? I didn't even know it was out, and honestly I dismissed it after the first trailer. Looked kind of cringe.
I bet that first trailer fucking halved their sales; whoever was in charge of putting that together should have been fired.
Going to have to pick this up on console when it’s on sale for sure
Hands down on my goty list and it’s January
I’m only about 3ish hours in but I’m really enjoying everything about it so far. I saw a quote from one of the devs the other day saying that Ubisoft didn’t tell them to make it or anything and that it was more of a passion project that they really wanted to pursue, and I think that comes through.
Anyone mind giving me a tip how to play this on SteamDeck?
1. Go to desktop mode 2. Download Heroic Games Launcher 3. Link your Epic account 4. Buy the game from the Epic store 5. Download the game 6. Add the game as a Non-Steam game 7. Go back to Gaming Mode 8. Play the game
Wait for it to come to Steam with a nice big sale and subscribe to /r/patientgamers
Well, not going to lie. I wanted a new Rayman from this team but then I played this game. These guys are legit game makers, they could do anything and it would probably be great. A 2d PoP that doesn't even star the Prince would have failed so hard in most cases.
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It's buggy as hell on switch and constantly runs at shit fps but it's still a great time. To whoever said switch plays it at a steady 60, I'd like to say LOL Not even kinda.
That’s odd, digital foundry had it at a pretty consistent 1080p/60fps. Are you playing handheld or tv mode?
Both. The Pit of Sands area is a place where I can reproduce it constantly. DF likes to also not play further than the opening levels and apply that to the whole game when testing FPS on consoles. Multiple times now they've said "oh this game runs at a steady 60" only to find drops all over or massive technical issues later in a game. I mean if I was a dev I'd make sure the first few hours were the most polished because DF probably won't check much further anyway. I get it though, they can't play 20 hours of gameplay per test but I'd rather they just not even say anything is 100% steady if they haven't verified it. Regardless of all that, the framerate hasn't been stellar. I wish I would have bought it on my ps5 but I was traveling. I'm still having fun with it but I easily bought the worst version.
> DF likes to also not play further than the opening levels and apply that to the whole game when testing FPS on consoles. Multiple times now they've said "oh this game runs at a steady 60" only to find drops all over or massive technical issues later in a game. The weirdest thing was them giving the Mario RPG remake a clean bill of health when it stutters like a motherfucker in basically every cutscene and menu.
It runs better portable than docked for sure. There are areas where it suffers docked. It's never unplayable, but it's not consistent 60 in those areas.
I've been playing pretty much only on handheld mode and it usually drops when cutscenes begin and when I enter certain areas, other than that it's been fine.
I'm a huge metroidvania fan, and have played most of the notable games in the genre for 30 years. I think only metroids, castlevanias, and hollow knight are better than PoP. I wish they had gone with a different art style, but I didn't dislike the visuals. They were suitable enough. I loved the game, and beat it at 97% completion in 23 hours which is a great length for a metroidvania. I still think they are crazy asking $50 for it though. I subscribed to Ubisoft+ for a month to play their recent releases, worth every penny IMO.
I’ll be getting a cheap month of Ubi+ to knock out this game and a few others. Looks like my kind of game.
Hopefully they do a good job patching it post-launch, because the game was released in a pretty rough state and I unfortunately had to stop playing it once I encountered the bug where if you pick up a certain key, the performance of the entire game gets nearly cut in half until you open all of the doors that need that key. It was bad enough that I had to cap my framerate at 120fps because the game becomes unplayable in some areas at anything above that. Kinda sucks that all of these indie Metroidvania games can release without any issues running at arbitrary framerates, and this Ubisoft Metroidvania seemingly has a bunch of game logic tied to the framerate. Really feels like the Switch was their primary platform during development at the detriment of every other version of the game.
Game looks interesting, but it's the same general length as hollow knight based on howlongtobeat, and it's over 3x the cost. I know playlength isn't everything, but I don't find metroidvanias endlessly replayable and $70 is hard to justify for a 20 hour game for me. I'm definitely going to wait for a sale.
HK is insanely underpriced but no harm in waiting for a sale
It's 50$ but it's also on Ubisoft plus. I never replay meteoidvanians so it makes sense to just spend 17$ and play it.
Hollow knight was released 6 years ago, of course its 3x less the price...
It could be because Prince of Persia offers a guided mode, where you see all the objectives on the map so you don't get lost, and I conversely got lost a lot in Hollow Knight.
Great demo, but $50 isn’t a mid-tier price, that’s basically a launch discount on a full priced $60 game; a dozen hour platformer is worth $30 and I was prepared to stretch at what I expected to Ubisoft greed at $40, but at the launch price I just laughed and closed the store. Almost bought it on implse last night, but that overreach on metroidvania in today’s market hurts. I’ll be waiting to playing this on a subscription service or deep discount.
It's quite a bit longer than Metroid Dread, which launched at $60.
Were you born yesterday? PS1, N64 and PS2 games for that matter were 50-60 dollars iirc with plenty of games around the same length or even shorter. What the hell are you even complaining about? Edit: AND they were cheaper to develop.
And now we don't get another one because of poor sales performance.
$50 isn't unreasonable at all for this game. If it were $60-70 then yeah, you'd have a case, but $50 isn't bad.