Although repetitive, great story and gameplay make this a must own
This story takes place in a desert in the Persian area. While looking for his lost donkey, the Prince runs into Elika, who you later learn is some sort of sorceress (or something along those lines) who is trying to restore her city of legend to its former glory. Standing in the way is Ahriman, who is basically the God of Darkness. They need to stop him from escaping in order to save the city.
While the story alone seems kind of dull, and I guess it kind of is, the characters are awesome. When GameSpot said that the Prince was a bad lead character, someone forgot to pay attention to the dialogue. You gain so much from having conversations with Elika throughout the game, with some of their banter (including a fun game they make up) and some very intelligent conversation. The characters have a lot more depth than being a "cool thief" and a "mature princess".
Now, onto the gameplay. The platforming is very fun by itself, with the exception of the beginning of the game, where you feel like the game is being played for you due to the simple movements. Once you get into the game and things get more complex though, it gets more difficult. The combat is a one-on-one variety, where you can kill an enemy by pushing them into environmental objects (usually pillars), pushing them off of the edge (if possible), or simply running their health bar down. You have to use combos to kill enemies, and some combos are very flashy, which is very cool. Also, certain combos are better in certain situations, so there's more to using combos simply because they look cool.
Now onto the issue of dying. In simple terms, you can't die. If you're about to be killed by an enemy or you are about to fall into a pit of death, then you are saved by Elika. HOWEVER, being saved does carry a price. In platforming sections, you get sent back to your last area of stable ground, which is basically anything you can stand still on that isn't a rail. In combat, the enemy's health bar gets somewhat refilled. So although you can't "lose the game", per say, it's not as easy as people perceive it to be because they think that if you can't die, it's not hard.
Time for some of my complaints. For one thing, it can get frustrating at certain times when using yellow or green plates to constantly die in a certain section, usually because you either can't see an obstacle or don't know which way to go to avoid it. For the plates themselves, they aren't very original. Red and blue plates are essentially the same thing, and yellow is a variation off of them. Finally, this game is very repetitive. It's basically for each area you platform through it, beat the boss, heal the grounds, and repeat. For each whole sections, it's beat all the sections, kill the boss at the end, repeat. This cycle is not broken until the final area of the game.
Before I give my ending comments, I have to comment on the art style in this game. It is absolutely beautiful. It looks very artsy itself, and it just seems to work with the cell-shaded characters. It's very similar to Okami, which was another beautiful game.
Anyway, this game is a must-buy, simple enough. The platforming is great, the combat is great, the art is great. If you can get past the repetitiveness of it, you will love this game, and will probably play it twice.