Since
the launch of the Nintendo DS developers have been working on
creative ways to make old genres new again. We've seen touch screen
gaming reinvent adventure games with
The
Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
,
action games with
Ninja
Gaiden: Dragon Sword
and even puzzle games with
Tetris
DS
. One
genre that hasn't been really affected yet, though, is the
traditional side scrolling platformer. Even Nintendo's efforts, such
as
New
Super Mario Bros.
and
Kirby
Squeak Squad
stick to traditional button platforming. Seeing an opportunity to do
something new, Ubisoft has stepped in with the release of
Prince
of Persia: The Fallen King
to try and show how touch screen platforming can be done.
The
Fallen King
falls into the world of the recent
Prince
of Persia
for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Corruption has taken over the land,
and the Prince is working to rid the
world of it. He ventures to meet
a King whom he believes can help, only to find him
overtaken by
corruption as well. Instead he finds The Magus, a secretive
character, who is half corrupted and whose intentions are unclear.
This story doesn't really work to draw the player into the game, nor
do the pictures with text overlaid. While this may only be a DS game,
fitting in voice acting would have gone a long way to help out here.
The fact that the Prince of the cutscenes and the Prince of the
gameplay look like two different characters doesn't help either.
The
game starts out quite strong, with the stylus being your guiding rod.
To move right, the stylus is held down to the Prince's right. To
jump, just touch the platform and the
Prince will automatically jump
to it. This same basic scheme applies to all of the acrobatic moves
the game provides to the player, from wall jumping to pole swinging.
For the first little while the controls work quite well, and help to
make the game move smoothly.
Not
long into the adventure, upon teaming up with The Magus, the Prince
gains an ability or two, with more being introduced as the game moves
along. There are free orbs of corruption hanging around the
environment which can be zipped to, and other orbs which can be used
as explosive. Corruption can be formed into solid walls to continue
the platforming, or to build bridges to span gaps. This is where the
development starts to falter.
To
create bridges and walls with corruption, it must be dragged across
the screen with the stylus, then solidified by rubbing on it. It
doesn't work, and is an exercise in
frustration. Corruption dragging
works fine, but won't always go to the exact point it needs to, and
will stop mid-move. If the corruption gets to where it needs to go,
actually solidifying it so you can run up a wall will work, on
occasion. This all starts cropping up later on in the game, and will
frustrate endlessly. It also mixes with the basic platforming
breaking down. As more short platforms appear and the challenge ramps
up, the game has a hard time differentiating between “do I want to
jump to the next platform” and “do I want to run off the side of
this ledge to my imminent doom”. I lost count of how many times I
died because of this, and wanted to quit in frustration.
Mixed
in with the platforming is combat. Throughout the game there are
three different enemy types the Prince will bump into. Normal,
Strong, and Flying. That's it for the whole game. They don't even
change colours from level to level. For the normal ones a
quick
stylus tap on them will attack, a tap on the Prince will block, and
that's the combat. The strong ones need to have a shield pulled away
from them first, and are then normal. This breaks combat into attack,
attack, block. There aren't any other options. More than two attacks,
and the enemy will land a hit, guaranteed. Theoretically there's a
strong attack but there's no time in combat to pull the move off.
Whilst
jumping around the levels there are different articles and chests to
collect. The items can be money or extra health. These might have
added some replay value, had the player been able to jump back to
previous levels in the game. Instead, once a world has been defeated
it can not be returned to.
To
finish off a world, a boss must be defeated. The boss fights are
completely nonsensical. They try and use the same basic combat as the
game, but it doesn't work when the best combo you can land is two
hits. Add to that basic confusion over how to defeat a boss, as it
sometimes felt more like dumb luck than true skill. Death also comes
regularly, though strangely the Prince never seemed to die, and was
just revived almost endlessly. It takes some of the challenge out of
the fight.
The
Fallen King
takes after
New
Super Mario Bros.
visually, with the gameplay in strict 2D while everything in the game
world is 3D. The look just does not fit, and everything
ends up
feeling flat and lacking detail. While possibly unpopular, sprites
may have been a better option as some detail could have been shown.
The game also has some slowdown later on, when battles occur. As far
as the music and sound go, it's all standard fare. Everything works
just fine, but really, the game should have had voice acting.
In
the end, the controls really leaves
Prince
of Persia: The Fallen King
bruised, battered, and broken. When the controls work, it can
actually be fun to swing around the levels on the DS, but
unfortunately the touch implementation fails the player too often. If
everything had run perfectly I could have imagined enjoying the
platforming, though the boss battles and combat still would have been
worthless. But in a rush to get this out for holiday 2008, and
alongside its big brother, the game's quality suffers in too large a
way to recommend.
Skip
It