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By Eli Green
February 3, 2009 - 18:30
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Ubisoft has, once again, reinvented this classic franchise with a brand new look, feel and story. What was not so new this time, was the concept behind this new game's story. Like the Sands of Time trilogy, Prince of Persia finds the new Prince unwittingly assisting in the unleashing of an evil force, which threatens to destroy the world. It is then up to him to reverse what he has done, or, in this case, what Elika's father has done. Now he and Elika must find all of the Fertile Grounds within the city (sort of like enchanted gardens) and restore their power to bring back the light.
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| Healing the Fertile Grounds |
What was new with this game was the development team's approach to the concept. While previously, the Prince had started, and was essentially the cause of the events of the previous trilogy, the new Prince has simply landed in the middle of the events of the celestial war between Ormazd, the God of Light, and Ahriman, the God of Darkness, and you end up learning all about the events of the celestial war along with him, as you progress through the game. And the further you venture on, the more you are immersed within a wanderer's story of finding who he really is, and a Princess' battle to save her land.
Gameplay
It appears that Ubisoft is very close to having the concept of great third-person platforming down pat. While could really see the development advance within each installment of the Sands of Time trilogy, this new addition to the franchise shows that the team has managed to improve on their platforming design while simplifying the control system.
Movement and camera controls are your standard left analogue and right analogue stick mapping, the A button makes the Prince jump, the B button makes the Prince interact with gripping rings, and that's about it as far as the majority of your basic gameplay will go. The two major differences now are that there is no wall run button, so you have to be a bit more careful about where you're jumping from, and the Prince now has a partner, Elika, who can help him jump over longer distances (essentially a double jump). Speaking of simplicity in design, there is only one button for controlling Elika's actions, the Y button. With that one button, Elika can help you extend a jump, or she can attack, use a Power Pad (more on that later), guide you to a desired location or heal a Fertile Ground.
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| Elika, show me the way |
The majority of the gameplay in Prince of Persia is spent in platforming, exploring the city, trying to get from one Fertile Ground to the next and heal each of them. Most of the Fertile Grounds can only be accessed by using the different Power Pads scattered within each section of the city, with the exception of the four district gates. Once a section of the city is healed, you'll have to collect Light Seeds in that section to increase Elika's magical powers. Each new power gives Elika the ability to use one of the four Power Pad types – The Step of Ormazd, The Breath of Ormazd, The Wings of Ormazd and The Hand of Ormazd – each of which lets the Prince and Elika access areas they wouldn't be able to otherwise. For instance, The Breath of Ormazd lets the Prince do a gravity defying run up or around walls, while The Wings of Ormazd will send Elika flying on a specific course, with the Prince holding for dear life to her shoulders.
I thoroughly enjoyed the platforming in this game, with the exception of a small issue. The platforming was brilliantly modeled to allow you to get the Prince from one section of the city to another as quickly as possible, excluding teleporting of course. Every single jump, post, ring and landing was precisely placed for the Prince to just keep moving, while the placement of the Light Seeds made for a great challenge, requiring you to look around everywhere in each section of the city for any path or Power Pad that could lead you to a grouping of Seeds which were, seemingly, out of reach. And since it's an open world, you can explore and play through the story in the order you choose. I find it particularly cool that once you've healed a section of the city, it is then safe to explore, and the only traps you'll encounter are the pitfalls of a poorly timed or aimed jump. This also changes the landscape in that section, from its corrupted form to its healed form, so more areas in each section may be open to explore.
Issues began to arise though, when I tried to get the Prince to do a wall run, but he ended up jumping up that section of wall instead. The only thing below him would be a massive drop, and the only place for him to jump to was nowhere. This problem left me conflicted about the removal of the wall run button. While I enjoyed the ability to jump at the wall and have the Prince just run all by himself, especially with that short slow motion bit before the wall run starts, the margin for error was a tad worrisome. Jumping from a specific point would sometimes end in the wall run, while other times it would end in the Prince climbing up the wall end then plummeting to his doom. I did manage to figure out the best points to jump from, making this problem minimal to non-existent, but it still happen from time to time. The cool thing about falling in this game though, is that Elika saves the Prince every time, and simply takes him back to the last land area he was standing on. This means no loading points! No game over! Just pick yourself back up and move on. This goes for combat too, except that when Elika saves the Prince in combat, the enemy's health will recover.
The game's combat controls are simple as well, though they can get more complicated as you try to string attacks together into long combos. The A button performs acrobatic attacks, or dodges and rolls while holding the left analogue stick, the X button performs sword attacks, the B controls grab and throw attacks, the Y button, as mentioned above, controls Elika's attacks, and the Right Trigger or Right Bumper make the Prince block or counter attacks. While the combat controls themselves are simple, taking on an enemy in combat gets a little more complicated. While you're on the offensive, you do your best to either knock Ahriman's soldiers off of the platform you're fighting on, use the environment against them or just kill them. You may not be on the offensive for long though, as enemies can counter your attacks, which you have to either quickly block or counter with another attack. Countering is made somewhat difficult, because the game goes into slow motion in preparation for your counter attack, so even after you press the button, you might have to do it again to make sure it accepted the press, so timing attacks, especially longer combos, can be a bit difficult.
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| Blowing the Hunter away |
Things can get more challenging if you get knocked down or if you are fighting with one of Ahriman's four Corrupted (the game's four sub-bosses). If you get knocked down, the enemy you're fighting will come in for a kill strike. You only have a second to press the button that appears on the screen in order to save yourself. Otherwise, Elika will have to save you and the enemy's health will recover. While in a fight with one of the four Corrupted, they may attack you with a power attack, which only gives you the same option to counter as when you're knocked down. Instead of trying to counter or block, you have to press the button that appears on the screen, and this will save you or counter their attack. And as I've noted before , I'm not such a big fan of the duels only approach that the team took with this game. While I think it's a cool addition, I still don't think they should have taken out multi-enemy combat.
Finally, while you could go on and play the game as if there's nothing to do but run around healing corrupted lands, you could take your time and further immerse yourself within the story's background. Within the game's map section, each section of the city has its own background, which Elika will tell you, upon request. You can also take the time to chat with Elika at any point in the game, whether it's just to get advice on where to go next, or to find out more about her, her people, or even to just play a friendly game of I Spy.
Environment and Graphics
A fully immersing world, highly stylized design and precise attention to detail make the environment and graphics in Prince of Persia top notch. The astounding thing about the design of this game is that it makes you feel like you just entered a full blown world. It's huge, it's beautiful, at least the healed sections, and it sucks you in. Each of the city's four districts has its own feel and style, and you can even see from one district from the edge of another district. The only issue with all of this, slight as it may be, is that, aside from the Royal Palace, there aren't really any areas of the city that make it look like there were people living there. There are gardens and markets and areas of industry, but nothing that looked particularly house like. It appears that with all the amazing city design, the development team forgot one of the main aspects of a city – people.
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| Vines with a view |
The other amazing thing about the “level” design in the game is that with the creation of this open world came a seamless style. You can actually explore the entire world without every noticing any real loading, except for the beginning of the game, loading a saved game or when teleporting from one point to another. Otherwise, you're just exploring and fully immersed. Not only that, but there is basically no visual interface to the game. Apart from the Light Seed counter, which pops up when you collect them, and the button symbols for during combat or when you need to know what specific button to press, you'll be free to explore with an absolutely clear view of everything around you.
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| Wall crawling, ring flipping fun. Just don't look down |
The artistic design in Prince of Persia is a mix of cel-shading with full three dimensional design I've never seen before, and I love it. After seeing the original Ubidays trailer for the game I was a bit skeptical that this kind of art style was the right way to go with the franchise, but it flows so well. Now that I've seen it, I can tell that it is actually the perfect design style to create the atmosphere for this type of game. It's as if the art team took the idea of sand blowing in a storm and turned it into their artistic style. And this style translated directly to the character designs. From the models to their clothing, everything is a flowing, desert inspired design, and it's enjoyable to see.
Sound
Flawless. Yes, I said it. The sound design was flawless. Music, effects, voice; it was all perfect! The music accompanied the atmosphere of this game to a tea. Keeping with the traditions of the Sands of Time trilogy, the music for Prince of Persia had an Arabic-orchestral mix, except they went back to a more classic style, took out the rock elements that were introduced in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within , and returned the music to its core points. What threw me though, in a pleasant way, was the light, almost Lord of the Rings shire style music for the healed sections of the city. I wasn't expecting it, but when I heard it, I loved it.
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| Battling the Warrior King |
What can I say about the sound effects that you probably haven't heard before? Probably not all that much. I liked them. That's all you really need to know. The voice acting is much more ear catching anyway. There was so much voice acting in this game, thanks in part to all of the conversations, that I am grateful the voice actors were as good as they were. There weren't any annoying or out of place voices, just characters with attitude, personality and, at times, tear jerking emotion.
Conclusion
Prince of Persia is one of those games that reminds me why I love platforming games. While it's not perfect, it has enjoyable gameplay, an involving storyline, an immersive world, a symphony for the ears and an impressive style all its own. You could speed your way through or delve in as deep as you please. Whichever you prefer, Prince of Persia is a game you've got to pick up and play.
Gameplay: 9
Environment and Graphics: 9.5
Sound: 10
Story: 10
Fun: 9.5
Verdict: Buy It
