A great game and excellent finale to the series with unfortunate flaws that may put off gamers.
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is the last in a trilogy of games based in spirit and name upon the popular Prince of Persia game and its sequel. That being said, the formula for the games has been recast completely since the original games – rather than the run and jump approach the original games excelled at and perhaps even revolutionized, the new Prince of Persia series has taken a sort of stereotypical ninja or Matrix-esque approach to the platform genre and acrobatic moves are brought to the forefront in this game. The trilogy has also relied a great deal upon the concept of time, allowing the player to essentially rewind or slow down time for increased control, something which becomes absolutely necessary with complex maneuvers being required with both the platform and combat aspects of the game. Only the second game, Warrior Within (reviled for its sudden recasting of the Prince; popular webcomic Penny Arcade perhaps put it best when they drew the Prince with the line “I smolder with generic rage.”) dabbled in the inevitably mind-twisting concept of time travel. With that, we will now segue into discussing the
STORY
The Two Thrones picks up from the alternate ending of Warrior Within (achieved by collecting every life upgrade and defeating the Dahaka with the Water Sword) rather than the regular ending, and thus some gamers may be lost at the beginning of the game. The story is extremely simple in concept, again as opposed to that of Warrior Within which involved time travel, twists, turns, and sudden revelations. However, it is extremely well executed. The premise is that though the Prince had saved Kaileena and they had returned to Babylon, the city is no longer as the Prince once knew. Kaileena is captured upon return and killed with the Prince looking on, and thus the Sands of Time are released for the third or fourth time in the series. A rogue cloud of dust beelines for the Prince’s arm, embedding itself in his body and psyche, perhaps splitting his mind into a good and an evil part, perhaps creating an evil part, or perhaps reviving that part of his mind that had been evil at some point. A case is made that this split persona pre-existed the Sand in his arm when a reference was made to “how well” the Prince did “back on the Island of Time,” the setting for Warrior Within. Exchanges occur between the Prince and the Dark Prince, which are extremely well written and acted, and serve to give you some food for thought as you traverse the game’s wide expanses. Exchanges also occur between Farrah and the Prince, which are also well done and interesting because the Prince and Farrah had developed a strong relationship over the course of the Sands of Time, the first game of the trilogy, which was erased when the Prince rewound time to before the hourglass containing them was opened, essentially solving his key folly of the game. The epic struggle between the Dark Prince and the Prince often revolves not around Babylon, but over Farrah and the merits of spending time assisting or listening to her. The Dark Prince is not limited to the story, however, he also figures a great deal into the
GAMEPLAY
The Two Thrones is the culmination of the series, and also of the developers’ learning about the series and the games they have made. Elements of the previous games which were enjoyed are brought to the forefront, and widely disliked elements are minimized. That being said, though, the folks at Ubisoft Montreal certainly did not limit themselves to simply rehashing the formulas of the previous games. Speed kills, a prominent figure in the game, are an entirely new concept to the game. A great fusing of stealth, acrobatics, and stylish moves, the speed kill system relies on several things. In reverse chronological order, the primary input is during the actual kill, where the Prince will wreak havoc upon his prey, and at given intervals, the game will freeze, your dagger will flash, and you will have a split second to respond with a click to continue with the kill. Most enemies take 3 strokes, while some take 5. The mechanic features prominently in boss fights as well, with a majority of the bosses in the game having some speed kill segment during play if not the only segment involved in the destruction of the boss. Something must also be said for the boss battles in the game. There are relatively few bosses in the game, and they are split very evenly between incessantly annoying and very epic and well-executed. One example of a poorly planned boss is one where you fight two people at once; the game lacks any sort of solid targeting system and the combo system likes to kick in more than it should so it is nearly impossible to break off attacking one boss and attack the other, both of whom are often within inches of each other or on opposite sides of you, before you are knocked on the ground and before you get a chance to recover, hacked to bits. Another significant flaw with this scenario was in the level design, not of the local surroundings, but in the lack of foresight in planning the overall level order of the game. Specifically, the level immediately before is one of the two chariot riding portions in the game that deliberately control poorly (after all, since when did horse-drawn chariots turn on a dime, right?) and require a decent chunk of your sand reserves to correct the inevitable mistakes jumping over chasms and avoiding barricades. There is no chance to refill your sand tanks during or after this sequence, and so by the time you finally get to the twin bosses, you are running low on the critical sand. This kind of specific flaw that only relates to one segment of the game is the kind of flaw that The Two Thrones tends to exhibit. There are other cases which are similar, and while frustrating, actually not all that common.
The rest of the game, however, plays out very nicely. Elements already in the platforming segments of previous games are continued grandly, and are augmented by several new elements. The first is a type of plate that are embedded in walls that you can plunge your dagger into and thus stay suspended in the middle of a wall. From here you can wallrun, jump away from the wall, or jump higher on the wall. Some people seem to loathe these devices for various reasons and while I do agree that it is marginally annoying that it takes a second or two for the Prince to center himself on each plate and the controls feel a little jumpy at first, after the first two or three plates you encounter, the mechanics feel completely solid. The other new element of the game are springboards built into walls – you can wallrun onto them then jump to spring off of them at a predetermined angle and direction. These are marginally annoying in that you have to hit them almost square in the center otherwise you may completely miss your target, but it’s nothing a quick rewind with sand won’t solve.
The Dark Prince also adds another dimension to gameplay. At certain points throughout the game your arm will take over and the Prince will become a sand creature. As in previous games, in this state, your health will slowly drop but collecting sand will instantly replenish it. The only other significantly different thing about the Prince is that you have the use of a whip which not only makes combat a breeze, it can be used as a rope swing of sorts to swing across gaps or extend your wallruns by swinging off wall lamps. The Dark Prince is no gimmick. Though the actual changes to the Prince seem minimal, it is the level design that really makes the Dark Prince concept shine through. While you are the Dark Prince, levels are suddenly much less puzzle or combat based, though elements of combat appear. Instead, levels reflect a very adrenaline based experience featuring fast action, showy acrobatic segments where you spend as much as half a minute off of solid ground and in constant motion, using ninja move after ninja move which feel completely intuitive and flow from one to another in a rush of the moment, and short, violent battles – all qualities which reflect the psychological nature of the Dark Prince. Segments where you play as the Dark Prince often play out like races to get through a certain segment of acrobatics within time, though most of the time there is not much challenge – for the most part, segments cut it close with your ever-diminishing health but even with mistakes it is easy to find the next cache of jars or chairs which contain Sand to replenish the Prince’s health.
Something must also be said for the camera control. The camera rotates at an excruciatingly slow rate, even with mouse sensitivity set as high as it goes. It takes as many as four or five swipes of the mouse to pan the camera 360 degrees. Also, the moment you start moving, the camera snaps back to a game-defined following camera, even if you are still in the process of moving your mouse. When the two actions coincide, the camera jitters frantically.
Overall, the gameplay in this new Prince of Persia game is extremely solid, and compounded with extremely solid and natural feeling level design, create a visceral gaming experience that flows right along and completely overpowers the few glaringly flawed segments. The only flaws occur in isolated places and with the exception of the camera flaw, not with the game engine itself.
SOUND
Very solid. The music is repetitive at times but mostly not in an irritating way at all. As the official GameSpot review noted, the music is more something you’d expect from a Middle Eastern-themed game and eschews the rock found in Warrior Within. The battle theme cue is immensely helpful in preparing for battle with foes even before you see them, or in a few cases, if they are impossible to see.
GRAPHICS
Same engine, it seems. Light bloom is still featured prominently. Where the game really excels is the art direction. The cities and castles feel like they could really be used as cities or castles rather than just jungles for your monkey Prince to swing around in – the game feels dark where it should, and bright when it should. The graphics aren’t revolutionary, but are extraordinarily solid.
VALUE
Rent it multiple times, or wait for the price to drop. If you are fanatical about the gameplay, buy it, but otherwise, the game, while fantastic, isn’t worth multiple playthroughs in succession. There is no multiplayer to speak of. There is a “Sand Credits” incentive to play through the game multiple times to rack up enough credits to view all the bonus content shipped with the game, but one playthrough is often times enough to collect all the 1500 credits required.