Prince of Persia

I have to confess, I never really played any of the Prince of Persia games before diving into the 2008 reboot. I wasn't particularly interested in the franchise, but after catching enticing trailers and noticing the game go on sale, I decided to give it a chance. Boy, am I glad I did! This title is hands down one of the best Ubisoft games I've ever played, which feels kind of bizarre to say because it has surprisingly little combat. Yet, it completely captured my attention, and to this day, I'm still holding out hope for a direct sequel.

The game kicks off with a thrilling encounter-our protagonist is caught in a fierce sandstorm when he comes across a princess on the brink of capture by two soldiers. After some quick banter, he decides to join her quest. It turns out she has incredible time-manipulating powers, and your mission revolves around freeing areas plagued by corruption to aid her in her quest.

At its core, this game is a traversal experience. You navigate through beautifully designed environments, scaling and leaping like a true acrobat. The level design is impressive; it's somewhat linear at times, but there's still plenty of room to explore and hunt for extra loot. A unique aspect is that you can't actually die in the game due to the princess's time powers, which might sound like a downside, but it actually adds to the challenge. I often found myself completely immersed, so focused on the captivating world and gripping story that I completely forgot about the combat-or the lack thereof. The few sword fights were serviceable, if a bit uniquely designed, focusing on enemy movements rather than just button-mashing.

What truly stands out here is the relationship between the two main characters. It might sound cliché, but their bond genuinely deepens, and I found myself emotionally invested in their journey. You can engage in conversations with the princess at almost any point during the game, and it's not just filler chat-there's always something new to discover. These interactions enrich the gameplay and solidify their connection, making every moment you spend traversing that much more meaningful.

Graphically, the game holds up impressively well due to that stunning hand-drawn aesthetic. The art style, along with great music and sound effects, makes for an immersive experience, so no complaints on that front!

The story lasts around 13 hours, but it feels much longer because there's almost no bloat, something Ubisoft is often criticized for in their titles. I enjoyed it so much that I immediately downloaded the extra story DLC after completing the main game. While I won't delve into spoilers, I did notice some areas felt slightly more irritating in the DLC, as if they were designed to stretch out gameplay time.

It's such a shame this game didn't become a massive hit. In my opinion, it's Ubisoft's best title to date, and it seems like the Prince of Persia franchise has faded away into obscurity. I simply don't understand why folks complain about Ubisoft moving away from single-player experiences when a gem like this goes largely unnoticed.

This game deserves more love and recognition. It's a solid 10/10 in my book. Seriously, GO buy it right now. You won't regret it!

Quicktime events ruin the combat.

The sword combat could feel brilliant and flow with beauty. However, Prince of Persia never lets this happen, as it's interrupted with quicktime events. This was that era. The absolute worst thing of the Seventh Generation: QTE. Quite disappointing. Seriously some of the best swordplay I've experienced in a video game, but the QTE ruins it. Just awful. Sad.

The last level isn't fun.

The variation of perspective and lack of colour for the parkour-ing makes it difficult in an un-fun and un-challenging way. Just annoying. I feel personally insulted when game devs don't respect my time, and don't play-test games enough. Yes, it looks beautiful. Initially. But any game can look dull and uninspiring when you've seen the same stage for the tenth time in the same fifteen minutes.

The levels are too linear.

You can choose where to go, but you really can't take alternate routes to get there. Makes traveling the same areas feel pointless after you collect the spirit things that unlock powers, so it's essential you can teleport to fast-travel. As the paths are so linear the parkour would have benefited from more parts where the route is better defined, which allows for efficient sleekness of uninterrupted gameplay.

...That's really the heart of PoP's problem: in an effort to tell its story, Prince of Persia constantly interrupts itself needlessly. Makes me appreciate something revolutionary that much more, like when The Last of Us showed gamers that story could be told during travel, during breaks in action, without stopping the natural flow of the game. I understand needing to tell the story, but we now know better ways to do this without stopping the player's meaningful interaction completely dead.

Games like Prince of Persia make me angry. It's not just some average game. It's not some forgettable experience. Prince of Persia is a beautiful game with timeless (gameplay) animation and some genuinely enjoyable parkour-style platforming. It's a memorable game. I wouldn't be angered by something notoriously awful like Superman 64. Universally hated, I can watch 10 seconds of gameplay and know that game was a steaming turd. But PoP had so much potential to be a great game. All that held it back were poor decisions. Technological limitations and know-how do not limit Prince of Persia at all. It was simply bad choices. It's incredibly disappointing. I would LOVE a remake that dispenses with the QTE and constant breaks in parkour travel. Fix those things, and you have a great game. Allow the combat to feel continuous. The story should be told in dialogue like it is, but allow it to unfold naturally without interrupting travel.

That's it. Fix these things and you instead have a game that is perfectly-paced and flows with the player, not against her.

I really wanted to love this game. I damn-near did. But I will not be replaying PoP, sadly.

Prince of Persia is remarkable in its animation and some of its gameplay mechanics, but the constant interruption of potential flow ultimately sours the experience.

Well not entirely true, the "Two Thrones" game for some reason was released on the Wii, and technically that prince is not in this game. However, the series has reached the newest consoles and I applaud their first effort that is rather good, though part three in the series is still the best one I have played. The story has a new guy lost in the desert searching for his donkey who has all the gold he got from a previous adventure. This character is by no means a prince, rather he is an adventurer who is about to get tangled up in a very difficult ordeal involving a princess. Well he meets a princess being pursued by men and he steps in. Which could be considered a mistake, however this leads him on a quest with the princess to revive lands in a kingdom tainted by a dark god. Once all the lands in this kingdom are healed the dark god who is threatening to escape will be imprisoned securely once more. There is more to it than that, including why the bonds holding this dark god are breaking in the first place, but if you play the game you shall learn yourself. Most of the game is the acrobatics one is used to from the last three games in this series. You do a number of climbs, jumps, and figure puzzles during this quest. The fights, while not many in number though are the highlight as they are very cinematic in nature and really fun when you hit a good combo. Do not worry about dying as I did not die the entire game. The princess sees to it your character stays alive and this may seem to make the game less challenging the thought of doing some of those lands without her make me cringe. You would be seeing a lot of game over screens that is for sure. The characters are good too as the prince is rather funny and has a better personality than the last one. You get to have some rather humorous exchanges between he and the princess. The problems in the game are just enough to make this game score an eight. One, it gets a tad repetitive when you have to go through the same area a couple of times to collect orbs. The ending is obviously setting up a sequel and is kind of irritating as you went through a whole lot to have the prince do what he does. It also just does not feel epic enough in areas as the end credits are a bit disappointing compared to part 1 and 3 from the previous games. There could have been a bit more enemies to fight as well as you kind of have to fight the same ones over and over. Still a good first effort so I hope this one does well enough so I can see how this story continues.

This game has a great visual style, good styled world, well-built locations, nice graphics, parkour system is simple but interesting to watch. That's where the pros end.

In general, the game gives the impression that it lacks something. The gameplay is monotonous. The essence of the game is that in one large location you need to activate 20 places to revive this world, the whole process of moving from one place to another is the same everywhere.

There are 4 power that open as the game progresses and allow you to use a new way of moving, something like a strong jump or flight, but it doesn't change the gameplay too much.

There are only 2 or 3 puzzles in all game, and this is only in the last location. The plot is nothing, it is presented in the form of 2-3 words between the characters, the cut-scenes are poor, there is no disclosure of the characters, who they are, where they come from, and they are not interesting at all.

Very terrible combat system, apparently the developers wanted to bring something new, but it's didn't work, it all comes down to the fact that you just need to press a certain combination of buttons in time (only like 4 combinations), just the same as with parkour.

The whole game you just need to press the right buttons in time, the player can only choose which way to go and which of the 3 combinations of buttons to press in battle.

I don't think this attempt of reimagining the series worked.

Whoa! That's all I can say about this game right now. This was better than the sands of time in some ways for example, graphics, enemies, more running on walls etc.

You play as the man with no name but he's called Prince. He is walking in the desert, lost his donkey, when he sees a woman being chased by baddies. He goes and rescues her but then realizes he has stumbled into something dangerous. Ahriman, corrupted leader, has broke free of the spells and his terrifying power unleashes. He has no choice but to help,along with Elika, and save the land of his evil clutches.

This game was a letdown to the series. Not! The only things that are wrong with the game are, the repetitive fights, the rating PG which people though was funny, and you can never die in this game since Elika always saves you.

The frustrating this about POP4 was the orb collecting which made crazy and sometimes i would quit the game because the orbs are so hard to get especially the tricky ones.

Music: 8.5 Game play: 9.0 Story: 8.0 Overall: 9.5(Incredible)