Being the Prince
Prince of Persia begins with an action packed chase sequence in which you, the ‘Prince,’ must chase down Elika, a princess who is trying to escape her kingdom. Within a few minutes and after the initial danger is over, the unnamed Prince and Elika arrive at the entrance to a large temple. By this time, and as you navigate through the relatively small temple and reveal a major shift in the story, you’ll have become somewhat familiar with the controls and mechanics of Prince of Persia.
Before I get more into the story and other aspects of Prince of Persia, I would like to explain the controls and some of the more important mechanics of the game. Basically, your time in Prince of Persia is split between combat and platforming/puzzle-solving. I would estimate that the balance is roughly 75%-25%, perhaps 70%-30%, with the focus (higher number) being on platforming and solving platforming related puzzles. This type of balance shouldn’t be surprising to those familiar with the Sands of Time trilogy, and moreover I think it’ll please more gamers than not that Ubisoft didn’t focus more on battle.
Combat
That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of fighting to do and a fairly deep combat system to do it with, though. Battles tend to be one on two affairs in which you and Elika are fighting a common enemy. Sometimes Elika isn’t available either because she’s trapped or held up in some other way, but generally you will have her magical abilities at your side during fights. When fighting, pressing A performs acrobatic attacks and manuvers, Y is used to call upon Elika to do an attack, X is your basic sword attack, B attacks with your gauntlet, and lastly the right trigger is for blocking. You can view combos in the Pause Menu or come up with your own, but using Elika is essential for doing the more powerful combos. To me, the combat in Prince of Persia seems kind of slow in that you cannot run around while fighting; instead your character is locked onto the enemy and movement seems a bit too stiff. Once you’re in close enough to fight, the speed of things picks up and the action is more fluid, but not God of War-like fluid.
Various mini-games will occur during battle too, depending on the circumstances. You can deflect and parry enemy attacks if you time your block right, for example. Other times you will find yourself face to face with the enemy in which you must tap X rapidly to win a power struggle. Furthermore, if you take a couple of hits within seconds of each other, you might find yourself on the ground in a one-shot button matching mini-game, in which the speed of the battle slows down and a single button appears on screen that you must press to prevent yourself from dying.
Speaking of dying, that’s a very hard thing to do in Prince of Persia; okay, impossible really, which is a big point of controversy for a lot of folks who ultimately don’t like this game. Personally, I think the health/can’t-die system in Prince of Persia works strongly to its favor given the type of game it is. More on that shortly, but as far as dying in combat, when that happens, a quick cutscene plays showing Elika saving you; meanwhile, the enemy that you’re fighting also regains some health, so it’s a fairly balanced trade off.
Platforming & Puzzle-Solving
Most of your deaths and ‘trouble’ in Prince of Persia isn’t likely to come from the battles though. Rather, the dangerous platforming you must do will get you the majority of the time. The great thing about failing to do a platforming sequence correctly in Prince of Persia is that there really is no penalty for messing up. Most games take jump puzzles and other platforming challenges and turn them into frustrating sequences in which when players fail they either die, lose health, have to fight respawns; all that jazz. With Persia, a quick two second cutscene of Elika saving your occurs and then you’re placed on the last stable platform you were on before you fell to your death. This system invites exploration and fosters a very potent sense of continuous play; in other words, the forgiving nature of Prince of Persia makes it a real treat to continue playing hour after hour because you’re stuck paying the penalty for navigating this dangerous environment. It’s not a system I think most games should employee, but it fits Prince of Persia perfectly.
Speaking of navigating the environment, you’ll quickly become familiar with the various aspects of the world that the Prince can use to get around. There are walls to run on (both horizontally and vertically), fissures to follow, poles to climb up and down on, metal rings to pull yourself past, vines to climb on — you get the idea. Besides the agile leaping and scurrying abilities of the Prince, you can also use your gauntlet to slide down walls. Elika can also extend your jumping range in mid-jump if you press Y while in air; doing so is required in a lot of areas to get you over larger gaps, but it can also be used in emergencies when you’ve botched a wall run for example to possibly keep you from falling (although, it’s not like there is a big penalty should you fall). Some of the coolest parts of the game are when you’re required to chain several of these abilities together in quick succession; the combination looks great and it’s very satisfying to pull off.
As far as controlling the platforming, the biggest thing I learned during my first hour of play is that it’s all about timing and not pressing too many buttons. One problem I had early on and still inadvertently do from time to time is press A, the jump button, too soon or too often during a wall run. You just have to get used to how the Prince behaves on wall runs and other aspects of platforming, which isn’t really a tall order, it just takes some time. Overall, the controls for platforming are excellent and work very well.
Besides normal platforming, there are plates on some walls that are activated when you unlock powers at the temple (more on this soon). These plates, depending on their color, provide the Prince and Elika with alternate abilities, like the ability to launch from one plate to another or to fly for an uncontrollable amount of time. These plates are used several times in the course of fairly simple puzzles in which you must use the plates to get around.
Reclaiming the Land
When Ahriman’s dark spirit was released during one of the early cutscenes of the game by Elika’s father, the surrounding land turned dark and corruption spread. Most of the gameplay is about reclaiming this land so that Ahriman loses power and is eventually sealed away again. Reclaiming land is done by first selecting a destination in the world map and then heading towards that destination. There are several bosses you will encounter as you work to purge the land of corruption including the Hunter, Concubine, and the Alchemist. It takes a lot longer to get to the Fertile Ground where the battle takes place than it does to actually fight them, which is where the approximate 75%-25% balance of platforming to combat comes in. Once you’ve navigated the area and reached the Fertile Ground, you’ll fight the boss and then after that, Elika is able to use her magic to remove the corruption and return the land to it’s normal, beautiful state.
When this happens, another element of the game comes into play; Light Seeds. Light Seeds are used to unlock new areas and powers. At first you will need collect 70 Light Seeds, then 200, then 340, and so on. Each reclaimed area has approximately 45 Light Seeds in it. You collect the Seeds simply by touching them and like most games, this type of collection element works well and you’ll soon find yourself chasing after every last one of the Seeds. Doing so of course has advantages in game as well as giving you Achievements points. Collecting Light Seeds and requiring x number of them forces the player to explore the area to find them all, which is an interesting way for the developers to have basically ensured that an area gets navigated at least twice (once to get through to fight the boss, and again to collect Seeds).
Coolness
Prince of Persia has several other features about it that I liked. For one, I love the ability to save anywhere, anytime. I can’t think of another console game off hand that is like this, and that’s a shame. I would have thought by now that more games, if not all games, would have implemented a save system like this, but that Prince of Persia does is just another good thing about it. I also like how the story telling is done; while there are cutscenes that occur during key points of the game, how much you learn about the world and the characters is largely up to you. You can stop and talk to Elika at any time by simply pressing the left trigger or left bumper. Most times, there will be an interesting, flowing conversation, although sometimes you will say something and she won’t have anything to say in response. In addition to getting a few Achievements from talking to her, there is a lot of entertaining and informative conversation that you’ll want to check out by talking to Elika at every new location and just randomly, too. The only complaint I would have about this system is just in how I don’t know if there is a way to know if I’ve done every conversation or not; in the interest of completeness, it would have been cool to have some way to know if I missed any conversations.
Prince of Persia deserves recognition for its gorgeous visuals and sounds, too. The vibrant cel-shaded graphics fit the atmosphere of Prince of Persia perfectly. The visuals also coincide with the soundtrack in how free-flowing and almost care-free they are. The wind swept sand and fluid, flowing clothing of the characters matches the nice instrumental soundtrack that seems to come and go as it pleases. The character voices are superb, too; the nomadic, confident, tomb raiding, adventure-seeking nature of the Prince is conveyed really well in his voice and animations. Speaking of animations, I loved the animations that occurred whenever you switched positions with Elika on a beam or other tight spot; you don’t just clip right through her, you hold her hands and you both swing around; it looks great and makes sense.
Other Thoughts
Prince of Persia has a fine story, is very well told, features great controls, looks and sound great, is a ton of fun, and has several other things going for it. So what’s bad? Well, not a whole heck of a lot anyway. For starters, I thought the combat was too rigid; I would have preferred a more open and flowing battle system like a Heavenly Sword or God of War as opposed to the mostly one-on-one, no running allowed, battle system. As far as the platforming, it can get repetitive at times doing the same types of platforming techniques. The developers do an admirable job of mixing things up though by making wall runs, for example, a little more challenging and interesting by requiring you to pay attention to the environment to time your move properly. The routine of clearing a Fertile Ground and collecting the Seeds and returning to the Temple may wear thin on some gamers as well, but for me the overall fun factor outweighed what could theoretically be seen as a redundancy issue with the game.
It’s worth noting too that you need not have played any of the previous Prince of Persia games to be able to completely understand and enjoy this new adventure, and I’m proof of that having not played any previous Prince game before (although I’ve watched some of the Sands trilogy be played).
Bottomline, Prince of Persia is a really fun and captivating game. There’s an awful lot to love about it, and very little not to like about it.