The Prince of Persia series, up until this point, has been a series I have stayed well clear of. Prior to my recent purchase, the only Prince of Persia game I had ever played was the NES port of the original. I only got to play While I thought it looked great and the animations were surprisingly fluid and the concept behind the game was cool, I absolutely hated the controls. I couldn’t get a feel for the momentum behind the character, which lead to continuous drops into spikes.
Since then, the series was rebooted with Prince of Persia: Sands of Time on Playstation 2, XBOX and Gamecube. That series eventually faded and Ubisoft tried to spice things up with the simply-titled Prince of Persia. To separate itself from its predecessors, this reboot made some drastic changes to its approach on graphics and gameplay. While the game was well received critically, it did not meet the sales expectations many companies were hoping for. Things apparently went so bad that the latest Prince of Persia games are going back to the Sands of Time style, which in effect reboots the reboot.
Ubisoft’s loss was my gain, as I was able to get a copy of this game in the Blockbuster bargain bin for $9.99. On top of that, I was able to get Rainbow Six Vegas for free with my purchase.
Going into it, I was expecting something along the lines of Assassin’s Creed II, considering the fact that they’re both from the same publisher and Assassin’s Creed is very much influenced by the Sands of Time series of games. While some parallels can be drawn as far as the acrobatics and combat go, this Prince of Persia does do enough to differentiate itself.
For one, the graphics are gorgeous in their own right. The cel-shaded art looks awesome in screen shots and in motion. The music fits the tone and the visuals very well. Combine all of the presentation elements together and you get a game that sort of gives you the feeling of watching a Disney movie.
The story also feels Disney-like, which for the most part, works very well within this world. The game starts with the Prince looking for his donkey, when he runs into Princess Elika, some girl with magic powers, who is being chased by some evil-doers, which quickly bubbles into a catastrophic situation. Together, you must seal the great evil force back in it’s tomb. It’s nothing special, but it does enough to keep the action moving.
Most of the game revolves around traversing treacherous environments through acrobatic platforming. This is where Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia are most alike. Both guys are pretty acrobatic, but the execution is a bit different. The paths that the Prince travels through are fairly linear, but are much more fantastical than the acrobatic lines you can string together in Assassin’s Creed. I thought the acrobatic controls worked very well here, which I couldn’t always say about Assassin’s Creed II. During more intricate sequences, Assassin’s Creed II’s controls and auto-aiming was easy to blame for the many failed jumps you will make. With this game, I felt like every failed jump was my own fault.
Even when I did fail a jump, it never mattered, because you can’t actually die in this game. Thanks to Elika and her magic powers, she’s able to save you from big falls or near-death encounters with enemies. If she has to save you from a fall, you’re warped back to the closest major surface you last touched down on, and if she has to save you during a battle, your enemy’s health will recharge. While many gamers seemed to hate this mechanic, I actually really liked it within the context of this game. Maybe I just suck, but if Elika hadn’t been there to save me, I would have suffered through too many death screens, game overs and reloading, which is more jarring than immediately warping back.
When you’re not traversing the world, you face off in a one-on-one duel. Well, a two-on-one duel. You never fight more than one enemy at a time, as Ubisoft wanted to make every fight feel epic. It’s an interesting side choice that I don’t know if I approve of just yet. The overall feel of the fighting feels similar to Assassin’s Creed II, though I liked this a little better because it felt a bit more involved. However, if you don’t like how Assassin’s Creed’s combat works, you probably won’t like this, either.
As someone completely alien to the Prince of Persia series, I’m not sure why this game didn’t live up to sales expectations or of the expectations of Prince of Persia fans. I really like how this plays, and could still see myself being happy with this purchase had I paid in full. At $9.99, this game was a steal for me. Odds are, you can get this game for cheap too, so I would suggest you at least give it a chance.
In Third Person 