A world well worth exploring, one wall-jump at a time.
The Prince in this game actually doesn't seem to be very princely. He's wandering around in the desert looking for his donkey, who is laden with a king's ransom worth of gold apparently, that he lost in a sandstorm. The Prince then stumbles upon the land of the Ahura. This group is long gone except for two, Elika and her father. They have protected the Tree of Life, a small sapling that imprisons Ahriman, that god of darkness. The Ahura worship Ormazd the god of light and for 1000 years they have kept Ahriman at bay. However Ahriman has been released from his woody confines and the Prince, being unable to find his donkey and unable to leave the land, joins with Elika to heal the land from Ahrimans grasp. To heal the land they must reach Fertile Grounds and cleanse Ahrimans Corruption from one area at a time.
Plot wise Prince of Persia doesn't get to complex but the tale it tells is pretty good. There is some clever writing, although some of the Prince's lines will require a facepalm or two, and the finale is very memorable and will definitely make you take a moment to think. The Prince and Elika will occasionally have scripted conversations but you can also engage in optional conversations at any time. I found myself constantly chatting with Elika as the unique interactions between them were charming to say the least.
Unlike the previous Prince of Persia's, this one takes an open-world design and let's you choose what levels you want to tackle in the order you want. The story will still be linear but being able to choose which areas to go to next is much appreciated.
Sands of Time was without a doubt, excellent. It set up a great atmosphere and revitalized the series from its humble 2D SNES roots. Warrior Within and The Two Thrones were much darker and lost the charm of the original trilogy installment. Sure they still had top-notch gameplay and superb level-design, but they didn't feel like a true-blue Prince of Persia game. This Prince of Persia is both a nostalgic game and a revolutionary game. The sense of magic and fantasy are fully realized here, this game is like a children's fairy tale. It's so hard to describe without using visual examples, but everything in it comes together to give you that sense of wonderment that games have lost a long time ago.
The original 2D Prince of Persia, which focused on the concept of minute movement and immaculate control was lost in the last-gen trilogy already. This new Prince of Persia, which oddly is subtitle-less, simplifies the formula even more. Controlling the prince requires very little player input and some actions are very automatic. The game doesn't 'play-by-itself' by any means but it's definitely been heavily simplified. Undemanding controls are actually for the better. Prince of Persia is more an experience, not an interactive fantasy movie, but treating it as a full-fledged 'game' game is sort of missing the point. The game is meant to be like a stream of consciousness; platforming segments are so intuitively designed, combat is so sleek and puzzles are tough to figure out but easy to execute. Controls are not only simple, but the scheme is so user-friendly as well. In fact Prince of Persia streamlines practically everything. Jumping up a cliff only requires one press of the jump button. Most platformers would have you press jump to go on the wall, then jump again to climb up it, then jump one more time to pull yourself above the ledge.
Combat, unlike most other action-adventure games, focuses on one enemy. Every fight is just you and Elika versus a single foe. You may think that the battles will be quick and banal, but that's the exact opposite. By limiting combat to one foe, each battle is like a mini-boss. This does have some complications, first of all, the momentum and sway of the battle is not as dynamic as I had hoped. Generally you'll be defending yourself for the majority of the time, and then when you get a chance to do a flamboyant lengthy combo, it's back to the defensive position right after. Two or three combos should finish off a foe and when a battle can last almost ten minutes, there's some awkward pacing in combat at times. Also throughout each area, in addition to some regular foes, there is one recurring foe that will eventually be the last boss of that area. The problem with fighting the same opponent over and over is that the fights can be a bit repetitious. They will do the same handful of QTE's and usually stick to the same attack patterns. Also the taunting nature of the Concubine becomes aggravating moments within the first fight with her, I was so happy to final defeat her for good.
But whenever you get into the groove of battle and you're deflecting attacks and dancing around your foe pulling off insanely flashy combos, it feels great. It's just cool to finally master a combo and then pull it off. In fact Prince of Persia encourages experimentation of the combo system. Since it's so easy to go between phases of the combo tree you'll be trying new attack formulas up to the last boss.
In Prince of Persia the controls are almost all regulated to the face buttons. For example, when wall-running there is a ring on the wall, in order to swing on it you press the gauntlet button and the Prince does the rest. In combat, press the gauntlet button and the Prince will launch the enemy into the air. Then when the enemies in the air you and Elika can pound on it before you hit the jump button and re-launch the enemy for another airborne beating. Or you could do an acrobatic launch chained from a grounded Elika combo then finish up with another cluster of attacks after re-launching the foe with a gauntlet toss. Combo tree's have never been so fun.
Prince of Persia is an easy game, not a cakewalk, but it's not very challenging. I'm fine with that since the game is still satisfying and it's just fun to play. Prince of Persia also will not let you die, that's right, you cannot die in Prince of Persia. That's because if you fall off a platform or are about to be finished off by a fatal blow from an enemy Elika will save you. This doesn't not detract from the game at all, in fact it makes it more immersive and less frustrating. In most platformers when you do fall when platforming you'll just be given a 'Game Over' screen and prompted to continue. Well Elika basically serves as that screen, she automatically and quickly saves you and drops you off on the last solid ground you were on. Prince of Persia cuts out the 'Game Over' screens and all the tedium of having to press 'yes of course I want to continue, I know I just missed the edge by a few inches, let me retry already goddammit.'
Puzzles unfortunately are not as prominent as I would of hoped in this Prince of Persia. There are only like four or so puzzles that are worthy of the Prince of Persia name. The lack of mind-boggling puzzles is something that I would very much like to see remedied in the next Prince of Persia installment. I play action-adventure games for the perfect balance of puzzles, combat and platforming. Don't fret though, Prince of Persia's few puzzles are really well done.
Graphically Prince of Persia is one the best games I have ever seen. It's cel-shaded, but it does the style properly. Objects don't have dominating black outlines, colors are not flat or saturated and textures are well detailed. Environments have remarkable draw distances, very few geometry hiccups and some really well done architectural layouts. The character models are especially well rendered as well as the enemies. There's always some little detail that you'll just notice about the Prince's model. I was halfway through before I even noticed the intricate diamond pleated design on the hem of his tunic cloak. Perhaps the best thing to look at in Prince of Persia though, besides Elika's physique, is the animation. Prince of Persia games have always had some of the best animation, but this game takes it to a new level. Given the sheer variety of moves the Price and Elika can carry out, its amazing how little clipping and stuttering there is. You'll see some rare glitch-y or unnatural animations here and there, but for the majority of the game everything moves flawlessly.
One thing that must be mentioned is the beauty of the world. I'd just stop and slowly pan the camera around to absorb all the gorgeous visuals. There are some truly breathtaking views and it's made all the better with practically no screen tearing and very little texture pop-in. You can even see little pollen clusters in the air whenever you run through a bush. Perhaps the reason Prince of Persia's environments are so beautiful is because they don't adhere to the modern gaming color palette. This is a colorful game with so much more than just brown, gray and black. I found myself just running around in The Vale for fun because it looked so damn amazing.
On the audio side everything is top-notch as well. The voice acting is well done, besides the Princes somewhat bland and modern accent. Sound effects are great, be it the clash of swords or the shuffling of a wall-run. The orchestral soundtrack is nothing really amazing, but I enjoyed all the music and it definitely fits the tone of the game well. Sometimes the ethnic percussion and charming baritone melody drop out and all you hear is the ambiance. The birds chirping, the water flowing, the wind rustling through the trees… and then when you're elegantly jumping between a pole and a magical plate, ah… bliss.
Wait, magical plates? After you cleanse an area by healing the Fertile Ground light seeds will appear in that area. When you collect them you'll unlock Elika's special powers one at a time and with each power she can utilize a new type of plate. Each plate endows you and Elika with a new power. They are all quite simple, serving really just as a flashy means to transport you from one spot to another. But despite the somewhat lackluster nature of them, they are still satisfactory little platforming diversions. Gathering light seeds may sound boring but not all of them are required to beat the game. Just by traveling from one area to the next you should get at least three-fourths of the seeds that are needed. So there isn't much backtracking and seed hunting to be done.
Prince of Persia is exactly what I was looking for. It is classic third-person action-adventuring with just enough minor innovations to make it feel new, yet still remain familiar. Even better it shows me the potential for the Prince on current-gen hardware. I'm really hoping for another game in the lieu of this one, with the same focus on 'experiencing' rather than 'playing' and steam-lining the formula to an even sharper razor's edge. It's been a while since I played a game like Prince of Persia; action-adventure games are on the downfall. Also, with almost every game out there competing to be the best at replicating realism, Prince of Persia's whimsical nature and magical sheen make it an enjoyable and exciting adventure.