One step away from being perfect!
The Flaws: Enemies lack varieties, Not enough combat, and Game's too easy.
The new Prince of Persia is no Sands of Time, but it lives up to the POP title.
This game takes a completely new approach unlike the previous titles.
The POP world is vast, and one will find yourself exploring the same area at least twice, once to heal the land and a second time to collect light seeds. However, after healing the land, new parts of the area become available to explore so the player won't be doing the exact same thing twice. Exploration is about the same as the previous titles as one will multiple wall runs, swing from pole to pole, etc. Few new features in the game are the grip fall where the player is able to smash the Prince's gauntlet in to a wall a fall down slowly, the roof run where the Prince can run on walls upside down, the slide where the prince slides down from ledge to ledge, and the the power plates which allows four super-human feats.
The battle system follows some of the tactics as the last trilogy, but the player fights only one enemy at a time. All the acrobatic moves are retained in this game, while new combos are added. The player is able to perform joint attacks with Prince's companion Elika and chain them into other combos. The battles are very dramatic and multiple scenes occur during battle where one has to press random buttons to stay alive. Staying alive, however, is not a hard part of the game. Prince never dies during the game play as he is always saved by Elika. A save by Elika will revert the Prince to the last check-point during exploration, while during combat the battle goes on, but the enemy recovers some health.
The game also comes with an all new visual. It's almost as if the player is staring in to a painting. The colors and lively and vivid and Prince's interaction with the environment is well portrayed. The world of POP is vast and the level design is very well done. The audio is also nicely done. The voice-overs portrays the characters perfectly and the interaction between the Prince and Elika is done through many witty conversations.
Overall, Prince of Persia is a great game to pick up as it's mind blowing graphics and amazing game play will put the player in a fantasy world. With a little more combat, and difficulty, this game would make it in the 9.0 range. Although, I haven't really figured out why it's called "Prince of Persia" as there is no mention of Persia in the whole game, nor is the Prince really a prince. Well may be the sequel will point that out.