Prince of Persia may be a visually arresting game but it still misses out on the key part: gameplay.
First off, this installment in the PoP series is a reboot. It doesn't pick up after the events of the Sands of Time trilogy or before it. Instead of playing the dignified, yet sometimes angry Prince, players assume the role of a nameless thief who while searching for his missing donkey Farrah (a nod to the fans) stumbles across a mysterious and beautiful woman who is being chased by armed guards. After a few fisticuffs and jumping around some chasms you find yourself in the middle of an ancient power being unleashed upon the land which could cause the end of the world. Just another typical day right? And to make things a bit more complicated, the guy who caused all this trouble is the father of the lady you saved. That's certainly a bit awkward. As Elika, the lady you saved, tells you her father unleashed the power of Ahriman, essentially the big all powerful evil, which has unleashed the Corruption on all the surrounding, lands, turning once lush landscapes into barren and dark locales.
You of course find yourself being an unwitting hero who is forced to save the land from the clutches of Ahriman. While that may sound a bit much for a thief you thankfully find out Elika has several powers to aid in your journey to cleanse the land from the Corruption, one of which includes saving you from perilous falls or any other occasions you find yourself falling to your death. While that certainly sounds like a cool gameplay element at first it does almost in a way take a bit out from what the Prince of Persia series has been about, intense platforming and navigational puzzles.
We all know the old Sands of Time trilogy for featuring a bevy of platforming scenarios ranging from navigating temples to avoiding various spiky death traps of doom. And of course to successfully complete those areas you had various powers such as a brief time rewind amongst others. But in the new Prince of Persia you really don't have any of that. Instead you just have Elika grabbing your hand once you botched a jump and simply placing you a few steps from where you messed up. Now on a game development level this is in a way a clever way of redesigning a Checkpoint system to make it a bit more streamlined as opposed to constantly clicking "Yes" on the "Do You Want to Continue" screen. Sadly having this element in the game does take away a lot of the challenge from the since you never have a sense of urgency whilst navigating the land. In the previous PoP games you had a limit to your Sands of Time power but in the new PoP there's no limit to how many times Elika saves you.
Aside from Elika's infinite save ability the platforming as a whole in PoP seems to be scaled back in terms of difficulty. Not only is it easier to control the Prince while platforming but the layout of things is extremely simple and is blatantly in your face. Gone are the days where you find yourself in a massive room trying to figure out how to reach the exit and avoid the various wall and floor traps. Nor are there any particular sections in PoP that will leave you with a slight frustration. While that may be somewhat of a silly criticism it's just that titles like Prince of Persia were always about trying to succeed a particularly hard platforming section and having the wave of satisfaction overflow you once you completed it. Will you get that feeling in the new PoP? No, not really. There are definitely parts where you'll be like "Oh that was a cool little section I did. Slid down the slope, wall climbed up the wall and then jumped perfectly on the pillar." But the thing is that due to the overly simplistic controls that don't require precise timing while platforming, veterans of the previous PoP games or platforming games in general may be a bit bored by the 2nd hour. Never once will you be confused in figuring out an area or find your area blocked with the exception of areas that require power-ups. And while the concept of power-ups sounds interesting they open a whole another can of worms to players.
So instead of having the Sands of Time to help aid the player along their way to stop Ahriman the player of course has the help of Elika's power as well as several power ups which allow the Prince and Elika to access plates in the world which gain them entry to areas once inaccessible. Now there are two problems with this concept: 1. they require the player to do fetch quests, 2. the power themselves really don't add anything to the game. In order for the player to get one of the four powers they must search out and collect a certain number of Light Seeds. Light Seeds are made available after you cleanse a land of Ahriman's Corruption and in terms of the story the Light Seeds give power to Elika. In the beginning you may not be that bothered with searching for the Light Seeds since they give you a chance to see more of the environments and fully appreciate their beauty but in the later stages it gets a bit tiresome of having to go back and search them out. The Light Seed concept essentially breaks the flow of the game instead of allowing the player to go straight through the story. And when it comes to how these powers affect gameplay they're simply a bit 'meh' as they again don't require any skill or timing on the behalf of the player to pull them off. And one of them, the Wings of Orzmad, will surely leave players frustrated due to the somewhat clumsy nature of the mechanic.
Along with some of the changes Ubisoft did to the new PoP one of them included revamping the combat system. In the previous PoP games the combat wasn't really a major part and to some of the veterans of the franchise it was one of the weaker elements of the series despite the progression in each iteration. With the new PoP the player only faces one foe at a time in battles that have a much more cinematic nature due to the camera effects and the non-stop QTE's (quick time event). The combat of course has its fair share of problems. While the combat is fun at first due to the combos you can pull off with the help of Elika it quickly grows to be tiresome, which seems to be a running theme with this game, since the combo system isn't that deep and since you fight the same enemies over and over again. As you progress the boss battles do become a bit more intense and require a bit more skill from the player but it's still the same old same old. Add that with repitive QTE's that don't match the scope of those found in a game like God of War and you find yourself with something that has good mechanics but really could've been fleshed out a bit more.
At this point you may be thinking "What is the good part, if any, in Prince of Persia?" The answer to that question is simple: the visuals. The visuals in PoP are simply beautiful. And while you may have seen or read the countless interviews with the developers that said it looks like the concept art in motion and they weren't kidding. Once you've cleansed a land of the Corruption the world just fills up with color which will really make you want to at least do one pass of the level so you can see all the details and various color uses. Each section in the game of course has its own color palette but everything still seems like it belongs in one world and there isn't any mis-mash of visual elements. Prince of Persia is one of the best looking games in terms of visual style and if it's used in upcoming installments it should even be more breathtaking.
When it comes to it Prince of Persia is a solid title but it falls due to the problem that happens to most Ubisoft games, it has a good concept but the actual gameplay mechanics aren't fully realized. The developers at Ubisoft Montreal are really talented when it comes to doing visuals and design but perhaps they should hire a few more people to design the actual gameplay. If you played Assassin's Creed and loved the visuals, concept and the world it was set in but quickly grew tired of the repetitive missions and overall lack of variety than you may feel the same when you play Prince of Persia. I highly suggest people play the game at some point but it's definitely not a must have in your collection and is missing the content that warrants you paying full price for it.