Well, it’s been a few years since we’ve done this, hasn’t it? This may or may not be a good thing, if you were as disappointed as I was by the latter titles. Two Thrones as a big improvement over Warrior Within, but it still never made it to the level of the first.
Fortunately, this new prince, with his new slice of Persia, and a new lady, is closer to the first effort than the latter ones.
The core gameplay has remained the same, at least the platforming sections. Wallruns, walljumps, swinging around poles, that sort of thing. There’s some additions now which spice it up a bit, thanks the this Prince’s fancy gauntlet.
Of course, it’s still about running, jumping, climbing trees (well, not so much of that actually), sliding, avoiding traps made of bad guy corruption sauce, and occasionally swording an enemy in the face. The platforming sections are spectacularly well done still, feeling surprisingly open despite the overall linear nature. A large amount is illusion, with several branching options out of a main base branching into four interconnected areas, which themselves connect to four looped areas which are, again, connected to each other. A little effort can get players to most any piece of the world, though there won’t always be something to do there, until you manage to collect the power orbs (an annoying grind, frankly) which give access to new powers for Elika, allowing new movement methods around the world.
There is a certain feeling of awkwardness occasionally during movement, or perhaps it’s a loose sense of timing. Previously you had to be precise with the input, which kept you very focused. Now hitting a button early or late can still result in making the move. It’s almost like there’s a two second window before input is needed in some things, particularly platforms and rings used to extend acrobatic actions, as well as attacks in combat. It makes the same seem to play itself quite often. It just doesn’t flow quite right because of the very loose nature of the timing, and sections can feel like memorization exercises (mostly by unforseen traps) as much as a continuous advance. Combat too suffers, making players memorize attack strings and enemy patterns (not always a bad thing, except when you’re forced to react a certain way to certain enemy status changes to not die – well, not be resurrected shamefully).
Despite the occasionally stuttered feeling, the game manages to be quite fun most of the time, and rarely forces players to backtrack too far. Two major exceptions though, to that. One is the end boss fight. It’s…well, pretty bad. It should have been absolutely amazing, honestly, but it was just slow and repetitive, with a slight miss on the timing resulting in a significant backtrack. There’s also an annoying amount of item collection, in the form of pretty white light orbs. While it’s easy to obtain the first level’s worth, after that it feels like a grind hunting down the orbs.
Of course, I did finish the game, and enjoy doing so, no small part of that due to presentation. The game looks and sounds absolutely beautiful. All my early comments of someone spilling Final Fantasy into it? Revoked. While there’s certainly artistic inspiration, Prince of Persia takes it as its own wonderfully. The characters look great, the worlds are beautiful, and the sound just the same. Excellent voice acting, beautiful music, and great ambient. It might be a better game to watch than to play, honestly. I’ll be looking for a soundtrack on this one and I really hope to see the visual team take over more projects. It takes elements from the previous games and goes somewhere absolutely amazing with them, in the direction they should have gone after Sands of Time. The game is a wonderful relief from the industrial shit brown that became so prevalent in gaming once 3d became standard. It understands that dark setting and tone don’t always mean grey and brown. Of course there is plenty, but it’s never so plain and bland as it is in most cases.
Prince of Persia gets 4 of 5 canes. The gameplay can be lacking, but the bold move of no death penalty absolutely works, and there are moments of pure joy when you get through a new area purely by reflex. And the aesthetics are a standard everyone should be striving for.
