The Prince of Persia series gets a face lift, a new prince, a new princess, and watered-down gameplay.
- The instant players boot put Prince of Persia; they'll notice one of the better and the most obvious change in the series. Influenced by games such as Okami and Viewtiful Joe, Ubisoft Montreal painted this new installment with beautiful cell shaded, water color visuals, accompanied by gorgeous particle effects over the Assassin's Creed engine making it one of the most visually impressive games to date. The attention to detail is stunning; Ekila's blouse flutters in the wind, every engraved mark can be seen on the Princes gauntlet, corrupted enemies are displayed in a grotesquely attractive fashion, and plant-life blooms with spiraling light as Elika purifies fertile grounds. These are just four small examples of what player will be exposed to. Set the controller down for a while, and the camera will switch to showing off the architecture of Prince of Persia.
- Another addition is your loyal companion Elika. The debut of Elika makes her one of the most useful ally AI characters out there. Forget about brain dead allies who get in the way, can't hold their own, and fail to help you, Elika holds none of these characteristics. Concerns were questioning how the new Prince was going to replace the Sands of Time which saved you, or gave you a second chance after falling or dying. Elika does both. The princess's magical abilities allow her to pull you back to safety if you miss a jump and she also prevents you from perishing in battle. Simply put, Because of Elika's presence, you can't die. However there is a penalty for failing in battle. Before an enemy is about to strike you down, a quick-time button will appear. If it's not pressed time, Elika will force the enemy back, preventing them from killing you. However, a great amount of health is restored to them. But she also plays an offensive roll in battle. With the Y button, Elika will jump in, striking the enemy with her penetrating magic. She can be implemented into a number of stringed combos, making her a very useful asset in combat. She also is used as a double jump with, again, a simple tap of the Y button. Reach a jump that is impossible for the Prince to make on his own and the screen will fade white as an indication. Hit the Y button, and Elika will swoop in and throw you to where you need to go. Just think of Elika as an extension of the Prince, but with a personality.
- Along with saving your ass in battle, Elika has the ability to activate plates which allow the pair to reach locations that can't be found by acrobatics alone. There are 4 different types which are the key to the Prince's and Elika's quest. Collect enough light seeds, you'll be required to return to the temple and gain the ability to use one of these plates. Each provides the two different ways of progressing through the levels, whether it's by flight, or even running up and down walls. This isn't a complaint, but a mere comment: why is it that they have to fly up, down and around when they can just fly straight to get to the same exact destination?
- Throughout your adventure, an Elika logo will pop up one the lower left hand corner in the screen, indicating to you to talk to Elika. Most games that allow you to talk to you allied characters usually insert some form of valuable information such as hints on what your next objective is, and hints on how to make progress through the game. However it is rarely seen in conversations with Elika. The dialogue holds nothing more that background stories about the Princess, corrupted villains, and her kingdom. The voice acting is good, and there are some charming exchanges from time to time, but ultimately you'll feel like you're wasting time. You never have to actually spark a conversation with Elika.
- Prince of Persia however does a great job in bringing the chemistry between Elika and the Prince to life. Without even talking to her, occasionally the two will comment on one another, whether it's a flirting complement, or telling each other how fat of clumsy they are. There's even a physical attraction here. Just by playing the game, you'll see how the two interact with one another in real time. On fissures, the Prince will swing Elika on his back, or to the side; and on beams when they're crossing one another, they perform a cute little spin which switching positions. There's even a chuckle or a comment from time to time when they do that. Even if you skip the dialogue through the game, none will miss out on the charming exchanges made between the two.
- The overall objective that the game presents player with is to reach fertile grounds and heal them, collect light seeds, and move on. There are 20 fertile grounds throughout the game. Players can bring up the map with the select button to get a view of all the locations. From this screen, one can teleport between grounds, set destinations in which can be tracked down by Elika's compass, and keep track of your light seed count. After healing the fertile grounds, a scene will play with Elika creating a blossoming environment which is reminiscent of Okami (only not as good.) Once the grounds are healed, light-seeds appear throughout the environment. Collect enough light seeds, and you'll be informed to return to the temple to acquire a new ability, wash, rinse, repeat. This is the overall structure of the game, leaving players with little to do here. Enemies are also few and far between. There are roughly 3 corrupted enemies in each section. Make it to their black spiral spawning point in time, and you won't have to face them at all; so all you're left with is trekking through different areas collecting light seeds. The game is also missing key elements that helped make the previous titles. Hazards such as spinning blades, spinning pillars and spiked rooms challenged players to think before leaping. These hazardous encounters were puzzles within themselves which forced critical thinking. The "hazards" in this title deserve nothing more than a brief glance, some of which are actually harmless. There is the standard corruption that covers certain areas blocking off the Prince. There's the moving corruption the shifts up and down walls which can be easily avoided by a timed jump, and grabbing corruption that slings tentacles outside the walls attempting to snatch the Prince from the walls. The other two aren't even worth mentioning. Flying corruption and corrupted air can't actually harm the Prince, it seems that their only purpose there is bland intimidation while chasing him in mid climb (if they actually do harm, let me know because they were never a problem for me). Puzzles here are a joke compared to what was once used. There is only a handful, and they provide little challenge to the player. Ultimately the game feels empty; once the ground is healed, the majority of the time spent is dedicated to collect light seeds.
- Signature platforming hasn't changed much from the previous games, but maneuvering around gets a bit tedious if it doesn't respond accordingly. Platforming is generally a fluid experience in both gameplay and a spectacle once players string together an uninterrupted series of acrobatics. However, there are times when it becomes unresponsive which can be frustrating once you lose your hold, having Elika bring you all the way back to safe ground. A perfect example occurs during the once famous wall jump. In the previous Prince of Persias, all it took was a well timed repetition of button presses to scale between two walls. This time, you jump will be interrupted by fissures in the walls and the game doesn't seem to always recognize where your pushing the joystick. So if you want to throw yourself up from the fissure, the game might respond in having the Prince shift from side to side. This doesn't just happen during wall jumps, you may hit the Y button to trigger one of Elika's abilities and plates (especially the plates), or the B to grab rings on the walls and ceilings. This is ever more frustrating when you're forced all the way back to the starting point. This is a rare occurrence (other than the plates), but it's certainly noticeable once your momentum is broken by something so miniscule and annoying.
- Combat wasn't anything revolutionary last generation, but that was intended to change for the better in this title. This new installment throws away the old button mashing hack-and-slash combat of the previous Prince of Persias and implements a simplified one-on-one fighting game. This suffers for reasons some may not expect. While the idea of only facing one enemy may not sound that bad on paper, it doesn't make up for the missing amount of enemies in its depth. Montreal bragged about the rhythmic based fighting mechanic, but I'm afraid there's not much to offer here. You have the choice of using sword attacks, gauntlet, acrobatics, and using Elika. Anyone of these can be stringed together to unleash a combo. While these attacks are quite stylish, the problem is that this is the complete package for the entire game. The prince himself doesn't get any new combat abilities, and the four methods of attack is all you need to defeat about 70% of the enemies in the game in including the boss fights. There are 4 bosses in the game in which you will face them before approaching all the fertile grounds. They are a little more challenging, but nothing more. In the end, the only variety that added is that players will occasionally run in to quick time moments, and times when enemies are only vulnerable to a specific method of attack, but that's all the Prince's combat system has to offer. Once you've fought your first battle, you've experienced it all. The only thing that's left is experimenting with what you already have.
- Most of the problems with the game are just poor design choices, but there was one big technical flaw in the game. This may have just happened with me, but after defeating the Hunter and escaping his lair, the game remained at a standstill. All I was able to do was run around the area; there was no scene which played after every boss fight. I couldn't even teleport to another location. I was forced to restart the game, and continue from there.
- With all the complaints I have about Prince of Persia, don't assume I think it's a bad game. The mechanics work for the most part, and it has amazing presentation. But the game doesn't throw much at the player to interact with. Sure there's the new inclusion of plates, and the use of Elika, but much of what was in the previous titles were scaled down. Enemies are rare, puzzles are hardly difficult, and there isn't enough to challenge the player. The game did get increasingly more enjoyable towards the end as there were more frequent boss fights, especially the final boss which was spectacular. But in the end, all this wasn't enough to numb the bitter after taste that accumulated throughout the game. It's obvious that this is the generation of the casual gamer as companies are beginning to make their games more accessible. But developers and publishers need to know that there's a difference between a casualized game and a boring game.