Prince Of Persia Retrospective: The Forgotten Sands

So, people didn't really like the Prince Of Persia reboot, so Ubisoft decided to go back to the Sands of Time Prince, and make a story bridging the gap between the first two games. I was excited for a return to one of my favourite characters. However the result kind of sucked.

The Prince has been sent to his brother Malik's kingdom to learn how best to rule... or something... he arrives to find the kingdom at war with an invading army. The Prince journeys through the kingdom and finds Malik, and the two head towards Solomon's treasure vault, where Malik uses a mystical artefact to unleash the army of Solomon, which promises a soldier for every grain of the desert sand. The army, of course, turns out to be evil and not put there to help the city under peril, but to stop them from destroying the world. The artefact gets split in two, The Prince getting one half and Malik the other. They are separated and The Prince finds his way to a portal, which takes him to a place reminiscent of the weird life upgrade areas from the first game; there he meets Razia, the last of the Djinn who tells him that unleashing solomon's army has released and unspeakable evil in the form of Ratash, a powerful Ifrit and that the only way to stop him is to reunite the two halves of the artefact. She also gives him the power to rewind time to assist him on his quest. He sets out to find Malik who is absorbing the power of the sand creatures of Solomon's army and as a result is becoming paranoid and doesn't believe The Prince, he runs away not giving The Prince his half. The Prince returns to Razia, who gives him the power to freeze water to help his journey, he once again tries to find Malik, who again won't help him and has absorbed even more power. This time Razia gives him a flight type power. The Prince finds his way to Ratash, who he fights and eventually Malik kills, however his energy goes into Malik, destroying the artefact and turning Malik into Ratash. The Prince returns to Razia who tells him he will have to kill Malik to save the world and tells him to journey to the city of the Djinn for a magical sword, he goes and finds the place in ruins so Razia gives him the power to rebuild areas that had previously fallen away from the result of time. The Prince finds the sword and sets out to find Malik, who he eventually fights and has to kill. This saves the world, but also makes him lose his connection to the Djinn and seemingly kills Razia.

There is a big reason this game was such a disappointment. The film. Ubisoft clearly rushed out the game to tie in with the film and as a result it is too short and just feels half arsed. The other big reason is the gameplay changes.

The fluid combat is gone replaced by a blocky uncomfortable style that just doesn't feel right, given the previous games in this series. They changed the way you recover health, now its pickups whereas before it was drinking from fountains. The rewind time and wall run buttons were different, which was just confusing. But worst of all was the addition of RPG elements. These added nothing, and felt unwelcome, Prince of Persia is not an RPG and as such adding in a level up system just feels completely wrong.

However, the graphics are absolutely gorgeous, especially with the huge amounts of enemies you get in areas, though they lack in variation, and the usual sweeping vistas that are such a staple of the series. And the new powers for platforming, except for the dumb flying one, are actually quite good, making for some fast paced exciting sections.

The story is... okay... its too short and isn't hugely involving, but the relationship between The Prince and Malik is actually quite good.

To sum up, this is a sad way to end my favourite series in all of gaming, The Prince of Persia deserved better.

Prince Of Persia Retrospective: Prince Of Persia

At the conclusion of the sands of time trilogy, Ubisoft had a brave idea: to reboot the series again, keeping the parkour elements of the previous games, but changing just about everything else. The result is Prince Of Persia, a game that is given far too much of a bad reputation.

You play as a character called The Prince, though it is unknown if he actually is a prince or just someone else, as he never refers to himself as such during the game. The Prince is out in the desert looking for his donkey, amusingly named Farah, when he is run into by a woman named Elika who is running from soldiers. The Prince decides to help her get to a nearby temple. Along the way she discovers that she has some limited magic powers, such as recovering The Prince from falls. Arriving at the temple they are too late to stop Elika's father from cutting down the magical tree inside, which begins the process of unleashing Ahriman, and ancient evil god. The Prince and Elika set off to heal the lands from corruption by making it to several 'fertile grounds' and using Elika's magic to remove the land of Ahriman's evil. Along the way they must fight four of Ahriman's most loyal soldiers, these being The Concubine, a trickster who relies on illusions; The Hunter, who uses vicious blades and traps; The Alchemist, who controls large amounts of corruption and The Warrior who is too powerful to fight head on. Along the way Elika gains several new powers and learns that she died and her father released Ahriman to bring her back to life. Upon healing all the lands they journey back to the temple, where they must fight Elika's father, who is now overcome by corruption and through Elika's magic they manage to seal Ahriman away once more. However victory comes at the price of Elika's life. The Prince carries her out of the temple and then, almost without thinking cuts down the magical trees and releases Ahriman once more so that Elika could live.

The story was very strong, with the new characters having good emotional development over the course of their adventure. And even Elika's father was a very understandable villain and was made quite sympathetic.

The gameplay is interesting, there was an open world set up where you could choose your own path of the story, and while this gave a certain freedom to the player, it caused the biggest problem, there was no difficulty curve so it was all too easy. The combat was also less than great, with the previous fluid style of the old games pushed aside for a blocky uninteresting style. That said the real joy of this game came from exploring the world after you'd healed the lands and there were no enemies to fight and the parkour was just as fluid as ever and the cell shaded look of the world is absolutely gorgeous.

To sum up, this is a good game, with clear flaws that Ubisoft should have stuck with and tried to improve with sequels. It is truly a horse of a different colour and should be treated as such, and just enjoyed for what it is, not criticised for its lack of similarities to the previous series.

Prince Of Persia Retrospective: The Two Thrones

Following the canonical ending of Warrior Within, where the Prince kills the Dahaka and leaves the island of time with Kaileena and the two become lovers on the return voyage to Babylon. However, their arrival is greeted by attack and Kaileena is captured. The Prince rushes to action to save her, journeying through the emptied streets of Babylon and wondering how such a thing could have happened. When he finds Kaileena, he also finds The Vizier from the first game, who is alive; since The Prince stopped the sands from ever being created, he never released the sands, which means he never reversed time to before he released the sands, and therefore never killed The Vizier. The Vizier has overrun Babylon after also having conquered The Maharaja's kingdom. He ritually sacrifices Kaileena with the dagger of time, releasing the sands; in the process The Prince is infected through a wound by the sands, but manages to grab the dagger of time and as such is protected from being completely turned into a sand monster. He must now set out to kill The Vizier, starting his most personal adventure yet, because this time it is his people and his kingdom that are in danger. Whilst journeying, The Prince learns that the infection is turning him into sand monster, called The Dark Prince, at times of stress and that the Dark Prince is talking to him in his mind, The Dark Prince is more vicious than The Prince and is pushing him to his murderous goal. Along the way The Prince is reunited with Farah, who has been captured by The Vizier when he conquered the Maharaja's kingdom. Farah of course does not remember The Prince as their adventure in Ahzad never happened, but The Prince remembers it all, giving him deep conflicted feelings for Farah. The two journey and defeat The Vizier who has become a sand monster with godlike powers, winning the hearts and minds of the people of Babylon along the way. But then the Prince must overcome the Darkness within himself and stop The Dark Prince from conquering his mind. He then takes charge of his kingdom and tells Farah the story of their first adventure. Ending his story for good.

This game felt like a solid conclusion to a great series. The story had a fair bit of the dark edge of the previous game toned back, but still had some similar elements to that, for example The Dark Prince felt similar in many ways to The Sand Wraith in terms of tone.

The characters had good arcs, with The Prince feeling extreme guilt as his actions caused the attack on his home, albeit indirectly, and if he had simply allowed the Dahaka to take him then many more lives would have been spared. However his guilt is not enough to stop him from setting it right.

The gameplay is as strong as ever, with platforming containing new elements and combat being incredibly fluid. Though now a focus was put onto stealth, which felt fairly organic to The Prince's athleticism. The only slightly bad bits were a couple of Chariot race sequences which didn't quite feel like a Prince of Persia game, but by no means ruined anything.

To sum up, this was a good game to end the series on, probably second best out of the original trilogy and I would highly recommend playing it.

Prince of Persia Retrospective: Warrior Within

Seven years after the events of Sands of Time The Prince finds himself being chased by a demonic entity known as The Dahaka, the guardian of the timeline, which is out to kill The Prince for unleashing the sands of time, even though he set it right. The Prince journeys to the island of time so he can travel back through time and convince the empress of time to not make the sands. On the way there his ship is attacked by a mysterious woman in black and an army of sand creatures. Shipwrecked and stranded on the island of time he follows the woman, Shahdee, through a portal in time; he finds her trying to kill another woman, Kaileena, so he decides that the enemy of his enemy is his friend, so he fights Shahdee to save her. Kaileena reveals that the empress is locked in her throne room and the only way to open the door is two incredibly difficult to get to and activate levers. The Prince achieves this task by going through both the present and the past to open the throne room door, at many points being chased by The Dahaka, which has followed The Prince to the island. Upon entering the throne room Kaileena reveals that she is, in fact, The Empress; The Prince fights and kills her, preventing her from creating the sands, which means The Dahaka should have no quarrel with him. Upon returning to the present The Prince discovers that The Dahaka is still chasing him, and realises that killing Kaileena is what created the sands, dejected he slumps down in a dungeon of the island, where he discovers an inscription telling about The Mask of the Wraith, which allows the wearer to go further back in time than before to have another chance. The Prince journeys to the mask, which turns him into a monster called the Sand Wraith so he can bring Kaileena to the present and kill her there so that he could never have released the sands. Then depending on whether or not you got all the life upgrades during the game you fight either Kaileena or The Dahaka. Then return home your task complete.

This game is often criticised for being too dark and angsty, trying to fit in with the emo generation. I personally love the darker elements and think the story is a wonderfully twisting and clever time travelling epic. The Prince has reason to be angst ridden what with the horrors he is facing and it seems to fit the story.

The platforming is as strong as ever, with several new elements added to make it more fun and flowing, leading to some truly spectacular sequences. Especially when The Dahaka gives chase and the tension is just dripping off the screen every time you slightly miscalculate a jump.

The combat went through a massive change here, becoming far more flowing and suited to the fast and furious parkour movements of the prince. A Big step up from the previous games clunky repetitive nature. Also added was the ability to pick up weapons from the enemies and use them in combat.

To sum up, this is my favourite game of the series, and absolute masterpiece that is a strong contender for my favourite game ever.

Prince of Persia Retrospective: The Sands of Time

Before I start this retrospective, I should mention that I am not including the original two games or Prince of Persia 3D as I've never played them...

Nearly ten years ago now, way back in 2003, my family's PS2 broke, as such we ordered another one, and that came with a copy of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. A game I was not familiar with and didn't know what to expect when I thought I'd give it a go. I soon fell in love with it and it became the start of my favourite series of games to date.

Sands of Time is a reboot of the classic Prince of Persia series, and as such is a platform based game with numerous vicious death traps and puzzles. Since the nature of the game caused several instances of unavoidable death to try and figure out how to traverse areas, Ubisoft Montreal came up with the idea of giving the Prince the power to rewind time, therefore giving you several chances to try each area before dying for real.

The story is as follows. You are the Prince of Persia, the arrogant, hard headed son of Sharaman. Sharaman's army attack the palace of a Maharajah with the help of a treacherous Vizier. The Prince finds his way into the treasure vault and takes the mysterious dagger of time as his prize, this is what grants him the power to rewind time. Upon arriving in Ahzad, Sharaman presents the Sultan with the hourglass of time, also taken from the vaults; The Vizier then tells the Prince that he can unlock the Hourglass' full potential with the dagger. The Prince does what the Vizier says, but this unleashes the sands of time, which engulf the palace, turning all but The Prince, The Vizier and Princess Farah, daughter of the Maharajah to sand monsters. From here The Prince and Farah must navigate their way through the death traps of the palace and return to the Hourglass so they can set right what he did wrong. On the way they must solve puzzles, kill the Prince's father and climb through various difficult puzzles. However once they arrive, The Prince hesitates and they fall to a mysterious chamber where they possibly have sex, however it may well be a dream. The Prince wakes to find Farah has taken his sword and dagger, he manages to make his way back up to the hourglass, but is too late to save Farah, who falls to her death. The Prince, in his distress over the death of Farah, leaps to the hourglass and rewinds to before it all started, he then tells Farah his story, which acts as a framing device for the whole game. He then kills the Vizier and leaves, with Farah not knowing if his story is true or not.

The story is very well played out with both main characters going through a lot of development, which admittedly is erased for Farah by the end of the game, but still is is very good and holds up to multiple playings.

The gameplay is the best feature of this game, with the most unique and fun platforming abilities in any game series ever. Wall running, pole swinging, column climbing and a host of others make just getting through every room a great joy to figure out. However the combat at this stage was a little blocky and repetitive, and needed clear improvement.

In short, a fantastic game and a start to a brilliant series. A must play.