Pros: Fluid gameplay, excellent character development, beautiful graphics
Cons: Gratuitous collection quest, terrible puzzles, and those stupid yellow plates...
The Bottom Line: Ubisoft's experiment in modern game design is a resounding success, offering dizzying thrills and genuine heart. A must-play for any fan of this medium.
onionhead2001's Full Review: PRINCE OF PERSIA HUGE 35 X 25 MOSAIC POSTER for Xb...
Despite many years of relative dormancy, the Prince of Persia series was reborn several years back with the instant-classic Sands of Time, and has since maintained prominence with some generally well regarded sequels. Is the series due for another makeover? The folks at Ubisoft seem to think so, because Prince of Persia (as evidenced by the conspicuous lack of a subtitle) is a major reboot of the venerable franchise. In the very first scene, when the prince calls out for Farah (the heroine of the Sands of Time chronology), we quickly learn that he is merely searching for his donkey. This is most definitely a new Prince.
The changes range from subtle to sweeping. And for the most part, they pay off in spades. This is one of the best games released for any console in quite some time, and may finally give The World Ends With You a solid runner-up for Game of the Year(sorry... nothing beats TWEWY in 2008). Prince of Persia takes the parkour-inspired acrobatics of Sands of Time, and attempts to weave them through one massive, organic world. Instead of dicing the world up into individual puzzles, this new vision of Persia is a holistic playground full of navigable scenery arranged to encourage perpetual motion, and build a strong sense of forward momentum. The programmers had a unique "feel" in mind, and realized that traditional gameplay mechanics might need some tweaking to get the desired result. Long-time gamers might be upset at some of the choices made, but open-minded players should appreciate what has been accomplished here as an artistic whole.
Old School:
The basic control scheme will feel more-or-less familiar to students of the Prince's earlier advantures. He effortlessly runs along walls and leaps off vertical surfaces, swings from overhead bars, balances on beams, and scales walls just like you remember. It's just more fluid than before.
Combat still involves a good deal of swordplay, with striking and parrying both required for success. Battles are suitably difficult, and reward finesse rather than mindless mashing, which keeps with the series pedigree.
And that's pretty much where the similarities end.
New School: Oops, I Did it Again: The treacherous terrain and unforgiving enemies will lead the Prince to his doom with alarming frequency. Sands of Time gave the player limited ability to "rewind" those goofs to try again (effectively streamlining the age-old conceit of having "extra lives"). The new PoP goes one step further... no matter how badly you screw up, you cannot die.
See, this time, the Prince is traveling with Elika -- a female companion of the mystical variety. She is powerful, and will not let you fail in your mission. If your opponent is about to deliver a fatal strike, she will intervene (but your foe will regain strength in the meantime). If you lose your footing over a chasm, she will snatch you from mid-air before you splatter at the bottom.
And as the hard-core gaming community lets loose a collective roll of the eyes, let me be the first to say that all these changes are for the best. This new mechanic is not a cop-out. It is simply a plot device that explains what video games have been doing for years -- bumping you to the most recent checkpoint after you die.
Granted, the checkpoints are now very frequent. Pretty much every time you land on solid ground, that's your checkpoint. But this mechanic allows the game to flow without constant interruption, and still requires you to conquer each challenge as it comes. And here's some perspective for you... one of the game's achievements is to finish the game with Elika having to save you less than 100 times. In how many games do you die 100 times before finishing? I think I died less than ten times after 50 hours with Fallout 3, and I must have died at least 300 after eight hours with PoP. In matters of technique, this game is actually very hard, and would be inordinately frustrating in any other form.
Escort Service:
Despite their frequency in video games, I typically regard "escort" style missions with a groan. There is nothing worse than leading a defenseless sheep through hordes of enemies. I still have bad memories of defending Farah on the elevator in Sands of Time, and Elika was initially met with skepticism.
But Elika is a companion of a different color. She is confident and powerful, and will save you more often than you save her. In fact, by the end of the game, you wonder what she ever needed you for to begin with.
Her magical powers are the reason you can "double jump," neatly explaining a weird convention that has gone unexplained in countless video games before. She serves as your compass when you try to find the next area. She can contribute to your combo attacks in battle. And she can allow you to make use of specially colored "plates" that appear in the environment, adding a supernatural flair to the Prince's already-impressive acrobatics.
Elika is integrated seamlessly into the game, and serves multiple roles without ever being a hindrance. Not only is she a physical manifestation of magical power, but she provides a convenient means of advancing the story through dialogue, and serves as an emotional touchstone for the entire game.
A Whole New World:
Persia is now one interconnected whole, with smooth transitions between the four main environments, and no loading time once the game begins (unless you chose to avail yourself of the teleport function now and then). Skilled players can basically race from one end to the world to the other in one fluid string of moves, rarely stopping to catch a breath. This sort of exhilaration is absolutely dependent on the unique, rhythmic control scheme which has you timing button presses based on the particular environmental features that you encounter. There is something nearly musical about the Prince's movement, and this is where the "no fear of death" gambit pays off.
In a weird sort of way, this may be the game that Sonic the Hedgehog fans have been waiting for. It recalls that old sense of finding the best line through a level and keeping up your movement until you reach your destination. It's not quite as fast, but the spirit is unquestionably intact.
Throwing Down:
Combat has been overhauled, which is refreshing in an era of "me too" God of War clones. Instead of taking on hordes of enemies, battle is always one-on-one, which means epic duels all around. The pacing of battle matches the rhythmic nature of the gameplay, requiring you to time your button presses with the on-screen events. In some ways, it feels like a big Quick Time event, except you have the choice of what buttons to press. Some combos will open the path to others, in an elaborate branching tree which requires some degree of memorization to fully utilize (the details are available on the pause menu). Various battle events might produce additional restrictions, requiring you to start the next combo with a throw, or back the opponent into a wall.
This system may be frustrating to beginners, or even to seasoned players that are just not used to these conventions. Once an attack is initiated, you are required to follow one of the established combos in order to press the attack. If you deviate, the combo will end, and your opponent may get to counter-attack. Although Elika will prevent you from dying, her rescues will allow the enemy to recover health, so you cannot simply button mash your way to victory using her as a crutch. You may not be able to lose, but the battle won't end until you get it right.
And it bears mentioning -- the final boss encounter will absolutely rock you. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a boss fight so deeply. It plays to the game's established strengths, but manages to surprise nonetheless.
A World Worth Saving:
All the acrobatics and swordplay are meaningless if not driven by a compelling scenario, and PoP crafts one of the most evocative worlds in recent gaming memory.
The graphics are immediately striking -- even the menus impress. Haters will bemoan the cel shading because that's what they're programmed to do ("It's so kiddie, I haaaaate it! And where's the blood?"), but not every game needs bump-mapping and fourteen reflective surfaces to dazzle your eyes. Ubisoft had an artistic vision which fits the series well, and it is wonderfully realized here. From the gloom of a corrupted temple to the splendor of a burgeoning meadow, this newly birthed Persia is a treat to witness.
Prince of Persia also has a substantial emotional core, largely due to the chemistry between the two leads. Even the bosses are engaging, gradually revealing their personalities, motives, and neuroses over the course of several successive battles.
Perhaps it is odd to speak this way about video game characters, but after the animatronic bleakness of Fallout 3, this is an unmitigated joy. The characters are beautifully animated with emotive faces and top-shelf voice acting that immediately endear them to you, and Elika's fundamental role in the gameplay (as opposed to being a passive tag-along) creates a legitimate bond with the player, and by extension the Prince. Their relationship follows a natural arc that moves with the story, and sets the stage for an emotionally charged ending that left me touched and angered all in one moment. The game's final spoken word was the cherry on top. Beautifully done.
Splitting Hairs:
It's hard to trek through the desert and not get some sand in your shorts. Prince of Persia has a few annoying bits worth pointing out, and hopefully correcting in the hinted-at sequel.
The game's few puzzles are lazy and frustrating, all at once. They are all of the same "tinker with rotating levers" mold, but are designed in the most frustrating manner possible, with levers overlapping in function so that fixing one part of the puzzle messes with another. Meanwhile, the simple act of grabbing the levers is fiddly for some reason, and the game curiously has you press up and down on the stick rather than left and right to designate clockwise and counter-clockwise. Ugh... I will forever hate the term "sluice gate," and you will, too.
The battles were enjoyable, but even by the end of the game, I just couldn't seem to get the hang of blocking correctly. The timing just wasn't intuitive to me, and the button prompts didn't do anything to explain what I was doing wrong.
Part of the game has you hunting for an ungodly number of "light seeds," akin to collecting coins from a Mario level. Collecting them was mostly fun, and happened in the natural course of traversing the environment, but I feel like developers should always think twice before introducing collection quests of any sort. It just seems lazy for such an otherwise accomplished game.
And whoever designed the flight sequences (triggered by Elika's yellow "plates") is an evil person. Apart from the twitchy controls, why is the entire screen covered in ugly special effects that completely obscure the action? There wasn't really any difference between the red and blue ones, and the green "wall walking" plates were actually a good bit of fun. But man, the yellow ones...
Bonus complaint:
There is a Limited Edition of PoP available right now, at no extra cost. But it pretty much stinks, so don't go crazy trying to track down a copy. The box promises the "original soundtrack," but doesn't mention that it's just a special feature on the DVD rather than an audio CD. I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but the horse should at least be careful what he says.
The Verdict:
Prince of Persia is a fantastic game, and a brave experiment by Ubisoft. It takes the tried-and-true play style of Sands of Time, and works it into an experience that eschews standard gaming conventions in favor of a different vision. I'm not sure I'd like to see all games head in this direction, but there is certainly room in the pool for some clever new ideas. Prince chooses a new path in order to deliver viscerally satisfying gameplay married to an emotionally satisfying narrative, and I'm happy to have gone along for the ride.
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