Game review: City Of Brass is a first person Prince Of Persia

[Wilhelm]

A first person Arabian Nights style adventure is a welcome break from sci-fi and modern day action but it does have its drawbacks…

City Of Brass may look like a first person Prince Of Persia, but the similarities only go so far. There’s no real platforming in the game, and instead a focus almost purely on combat. Aussie team Uppercut Games used to work on the BioShock franchise and there’s a lot of similarities in terms of the rhythm and heft of the action, even if there’s not a gun or plasmid in sight.Assassin’s Creed was always a strange move for Ubisoft, given how the first game was so similar in style and setting to Prince Of Persia; so much so that some originally mistook it for a spin-off. The risk paid off though and Assassin’s Creed’s continued success has meant that there’s never been much impetuous to try and revive Prince Of Persia. But that’s a shame. Not only because it’s a great series but because the Arabian Nights setting gets so little mileage in gaming. Which is just one way City Of Brass manages to overcome flaws that might have ruined other games.

Instead you fight primarily with a sword, which is always a difficult thing to get right in a first person view – because it’s so difficult to judge distance accurately. City Of Brass doesn’t handle the problem quite as well as Warhammer: Vermintide II but thanks to a few unique ideas of its own it never feels as frustrating as it might.

Rather than a prince you play City Of Brass as a thief, one who enters the cursed city in order to purloin the fabled treasure lurking at its heart. That’s as complicated as the storytelling gets though, as despite what you might be imagining City Of Brass is essentially a dungeon crawler; a roguelike where the city’s architecture is randomly generated every time you play it. But although no playthrough is ever quite the same the structure is, as you work your way through 12 different levels on your way to the final boss.

We’ve mused often enough about indie developers’ obsession with procedurally-generated content, but no matter how flawed the concept seems to us it’s only becoming more and more prevalent. The problem in City Of Brass is essentially the same as always: because no human hand has designed the levels they lack character and proper flow and pacing. There’s an art to designing a good video game level and just as you wouldn’t trust an algorithm to paint a masterpiece it’s a terrible risk to give it so much influence over a game.

Matters aren’t helped by the fact that there are only four locations to spread across the 12 main levels, which makes everything look even more samey. The game tries to compensate by making some of the tougher enemies so distinctive that the encounters almost seem scripted. But unfortunately boss battles were never BioShock’s forte and they’re not the highlight they could’ve been.

Thankfully the combat against ordinary minions is more engaging, as you learn to use your sword in tandem with a whip to stun enemies, trip them up, or knock them into traps. It’s hard to add much nuance to sword combat when viewed from a first person view, but City Of Brass compensates for this by littering each stage with explosive bottles, fire pits, poisoned artefacts, and spike traps.

As a result, and given how many enemies the game throws at you at once, combat is all about crowd control; that and planning one step ahead to get the maximum use out of every item. Using enemy behaviour against them helps compensate for the rudimentary artificial intelligence, by making their predictability a key part of your strategy. The combat isn’t without its problems though, as hit detection often proves frustratingly imprecise; which isn’t helped by an occasionally juddering frame rate.

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There are a lot of good ideas in City Of Brass, including a highly customisable difficulty setting that lets you fine tune the severity of the challenge before you start. This combines with an in-game upgrade system where you can unlock stronger weapons or more health. Or do things like turn the traps off or call in a computer-controlled ally. When combined with restart points after you die this makes the game unusually accessible for a roguelike, even if we still wouldn’t call it easy.

Randomly-generated levels or not, one run through of the game takes no more than two hours. And considerably less once you become more practised. You can of course up the difficultly, but by that point you will have seen more or less all the game has to offer.

City Of Brass is a very flawed experience, not least because it’s so easy to imagine how much better a similar game could be with a larger scope and budget. What’s here is entertaining enough, but we hope Ubisoft has the brass to steal its best ideas and give Prince Of Persia the revamp it’s long deserved.

City Of Brass

In Short: A novel setting and concept can’t hide the game’s technical limitations, but this is still an entertaining first person roguelike that does try to do things differently.

Pros: A first person roguelike is an unusual novelty, and the combat is a lot of fun with some unusual tactics and abilities. Highly customisable difficultly and lots of in-game unlockables.

Cons: The procedurally-generated levels and lack of locations make everything look the same, especially given the lack of enemy variety. Poor hit detection and some frame rate problems.

Score: 6/10

Formats: PlayStation 4 (reviewed), Xbox One, and PC
Price: £15.99
Publisher: Uppercut Games
Developer: Uppercut Games
Release Date: 4th May 2018
Age Rating: 12