Prince of Persia – Quick Review

In 2003, a game was released by Ubisoft Montreal that brought the life to a dying series. That game was the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. With this release, Ubisoft was able to recreate the feeling of playing the nostalgic platformer with the new 3D elements of the time. Adding time effects and actual combat mechanics with a mix of wall leaping action and a fantastic story made it a must own, and even spawned two sequels. Sadly these two sequels just couldn’t capture the pure enjoyment that the first game did, and even started bringing the story to a darker place then it should have. (I’m talking to you Warrior Within!) Fast forward to present day. New systems bring a new Prince for the better.

Simply titled Prince of Persia, the new generation game brings a more warm hearted and enjoyable Prince (whose name is never told and reminds me of Drake from Uncharted..love that game) and a new female character, Elika, who the story revolves around. The plot is simple enough, the Prince is wandering the desert looking for his lost mule, when he is jumped by the lovely Elika; who continues to run away from guards chasing her. A tutorial begins in which you learn the movements of the Prince such as climbing up walls, running along walls, doing more things with walls, oh and fighting. You defeat Elika’s pursuers and with each one discover how to use the Prince’s sword, acrobatics, gauntlet and how to guard. Each element of fighting serves it’s own purpose, as certain enemies later in the game can only be defeated in certain ways, leading to quick time event battles (or button mashing frenzies..) Elika requests the Prince to follow her to the Temple in the center of the kingdom that acts as a prison for the dark god Ahriman (the obvious main boss of the game.) Once inside the temple the Prince faces off with Elika’s father who sent the pursuer's after her. After losing the battle Elika’s father destroys the tree of life, and in doing so, frees the dark god. Then begins the platforming joy of Prince of Persia.

Prince of Persia is broken up into 4 sections with 4 bosses in each section that you must face numerous times. Each boss possesses a different fighting technique and each requires the duo to alternate their techniques to defeat them. The four bosses, known as The Corrupted, are given the names the Hunter, the Alchemist, the Concubine, and the Warrior, and each have a back story that is unique to them. Each section of the four sections that The Corrupted reside in are given there own life and puzzles that make getting to each new section so enjoyable. After defeating the boss in a section, the fertile ground becomes open to the Prince and Elika. Healing these fertile ground from The Corrupted brings the duo one step closer to sealing Ahriman. But to get to each section the Prince must collect light seeds, which are scattered around a healed fertile ground. After collecting enough light seeds, the Prince and Elika can unlock a new power that is given by the god Ormazd (don’t worry..you’ll hear a lot about him from Elika..x.x). The new powers give the Prince the ability to run up walls, launch from seal to seal, or even swing around as if he was Spiderman.

This game is just beautiful in both gameplay and visuals. With a nice coat of cel shading, and an expansive world that has the Prince defying gravity at every moment. Elika adds in as support for those moments when the Prince just can’t reach the next step and with her the Prince can never really die. A bit like Bioshock, just when you make that mistake of misjudging the next jump the screen begins to turn white with the Prince’s hand reaching out..only to be grabbed by Elika, who positions the Prince on the last piece of ground he touched. While this means you can never die it can also be annoying to have to restart a long set of jumps. This is the same with battles. Just when it looks like the Prince is about to die..here comes Elika to use her magic powers to save him (of course this means the enemy gains back all his health.) All around it’s a nice simplistic puzzle/action platform with a decent story, fun gameplay, and great visuals.

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Rating: 4/5

Pros: Great looking, amazingly fun platforming, enjoyable story, just what the Prince needed!

Cons: No real challenge, easy boss battles, lack luster ‘collect the orbs’ missions, weak combat.

Real Improvement: A good turnaround for the Prince of Persia series, can’t wait for the downloadable content.