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A new look, new gameplay…but is he as legendary as previous Princes?
Ubisoft’s Prince Of Persia franchise is recognized as one of the most technically sound platforming franchises in the video game industry. Last generation, Ubisoft gave the Prince a fully 3D makeover that lead to a memorable trilogy filled some of the best platforming around last generation. Certainly, there were a few bumps along the way and the Prince briefly went through an awkward dark period, but for the most part, the franchise was a resounding success.
After the popularity of the PS2 generation’s Prince, there was some surprise that Ubisoft had opted for another makeover of the Prince of Persia franchise. A brand new look (complete with intimidating metal claw), new story, new combat focus, a cel-shaded graphics engine, a new world structure and more populated the world of the new Prince Of Persia. There was a little skepticism about how the new Prince with his new makeover would be received by PoP fans, especially considering the fact that new Ubisoft franchise Assassin’s Creed already shared certain elements with the PoP series. Did Ubisoft successfully re-invent the franchise, or was this a case of good intentions with not-so-good follow-through?
A New World, A New Evil
The new Prince of Persia begins far less eventfully than the Sands of Time, with our new thief Prince chasing after a woman named Elika. Elika’s being chased by guards as she runs off in hot pursuit of her father. The Prince fights off the guards and follows Elika to the temple, to discover that Elika’s father is seeking to unleash the dark lord Ahriman, who has been imprisoned for countless years. Elika’s father is supposed to be a servant of the god of light, Ormazd, but is grief-stricken over the loss of his wife and has turned to Ahriman. Ahriman is unleashed and plunges the world into darkness (known as “corruption”).
Elika informs the Prince that the two of them together can stop the darkness and corruption, potentially containing Ahriman in the process. Elika’s suddenly been granted powers by Ormazd to help contain Ahriman’s power. However, they must travel throughout the corrupted lands of the world to reach the fertile lands, where Elika will use Ormazd’s power to heal the corruption, one area at a time. The Prince agrees to come along and the tale of the new Prince Of Persia begins.
The Prince does so much automatically, controlling him takes a little getting used to.
Not Just A Cel-Shaded Face
The first thing you’ll notice about Prince of Persia — other than its stunning cel-shaded engine — is that the new Prince handles much differently than his predecessor. As a matter of fact, he handles so much differently that controlling him initially seems counter-intuitive. Whereas the previous PoP trilogy emphasized button presses, the new Prince seems to do much automatically, with minimal timed button presses (by comparison) required to navigate him along his paths. A certain button press engages the Prince in action. Then, you have to let the Prince “finish” what he’s doing before you set forth with the next button press, because he might actually do what you want him to without having to press an additional button.
To someone like me who’s been playing platformers his entire life, this is initially very frustrating. How are you supposed to know what the Prince is going to do? How are you supposed to know when to press jump when it doesn’t look like the Prince is going to make it? But then, all of a sudden, it just clicks. You look at the environmental cues and know when you’re going to need to wall run or jump up or extend a run via the wall-mounted rings. It nearly feels on-rails, but as you play and the worlds increase in difficulty, you’ll realize that the Prince is far from automatically controlled. It’s just that the PoP team at Ubisoft had a different vision of how the new Prince should function — a brand new type of platforming mechanic. It works well and I’d like to give the team at Ubisoft credit for trying something very experimental and different.
The Prince also has a new combat system, which isn’t bad, but it doesn’t really quite flow. Whereas the previous Prince could do all sorts of acrobatic moves to take on his enemies, this Prince is very limited and has access to three or four moves maximum that don’t string together well. He spends alot of time blocking and countering. That’s not to mention the fact that he spends most of his time trying to lure most enemies against a wall so he can impale them for a single powerful blow that will kill on impact or luring them to an edge to knock them off of it. The system doesn’t feel like it has a particular flow. It feels like the Prince is on defense until he gets to that one particular point and then combat’s over.
One new mechanic that helps out both combat and platforming immensely is the fact that you can’t really die in Prince Of Persia. That’s right: you almost literally can’t die. This is because every time you’re near death, Elika automatically saves you. Whereas some would heavily criticize this auto-failsafe, I think it’s great. With the defense heavy combat and uncertainty some gamers will feel over the timing of button presses waiting for the Prince to finish his animations, having an auto-revive option takes a ton of frustration out of the process. It still emphasizes a crux of the platforming genre — trial and error — but without all of the frustration. Death isn’t necessary to teach gamers a lesson about trial and error gameplay and Prince of Persia makes that point well.
Combat in the new Prince of Persia is challenging.
Traversing Worlds For Hundreds Of Light Seeds
The fundamental travel flow of the new Prince of Persia works like this: the Prince travels across the overworld to get to the corrupted lands. Once he reaches a corrupted level, he must go through the level and reach the “fertile grounds,” which are protected by a mini-boss. He defeats the mini-boss and Elika heals the land, which gets rid of all of the corruption in the level and enables the Prince to explore it more. This is necessary, because the healing brings about light seeds, which he must collect in order to gain more powers to continue traveling across the land and continue healing the corruption. He collects the light seeds and traverses across the overworld to another corrupted level, repeating the process all over again.
The one thing that hasn’t changed about Prince of Persia, makeover or not, is the excellent level design. The new Prince of Persia is still host to its platforming at its finest. If you’re a fan of platformers, you can’t go wrong with the new PoP. The challenge is still there and still gratifying. The puzzles are still there, still head-scratchers at first and very rewarding in the end when you solve them. It’s almost worth traveling through every level twice, because when the darkness is removed, there’s even more to discover.
Still, though, there’s backtracking and collecting to go along with the backtracking, with little to expedite either process. One of the strengths of The Sands Of Time was near-constant forward progression and the only real collecting to be done was with the sands. The new Prince being required to travel through levels at least twice in order to progress feels unnecessary and like an artificial means to extend length.
Storied Conversations
The story in Prince of Persia unfolds through brief real-time in-game cinemas, but most of the information you’ll want to flesh out the story will come from talking to Elika. There’s actually a button to press to talk to Elika, who will give you all kinds of information about the world around you, which actually is very rich in detail. I don’t understand why Ubisoft kept so much detail away from the player like that, but if you like story in your games, Prince of Persia has a good one.
Technical Merits
As I mentioned earlier, Prince of Persia has a gorgeous cel-shaded engine. It looks like a beautiful drawing in motion. Overall, I’ve seen few games utilize cel-shading to such an excellent extent, but I’d feel confident in saying that the sheer detail and stunning visuals of the new Prince are somewhere around The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker’s league. Every world has its own style and its own sense of identity.
Sound-wise, Prince of Persia has a great soundtrack, filled with orchestral music that you’ll recognize and appreciate. Sound effects are spot on, but I could do without the grating noise of the metallic claw when the Prince descends a wall. Voice acting is great as well, but the non-plot conversations feel like filler and unsuccessful attempts at forcing chemistry between the Prince and Elika. In reality, the Prince and Elika have plenty of natural chemistry that doesn’t require forced interactions.
When It’s All Said And Done…
The Prince of Persia is more than certainly a successful reboot of the franchise. The new look works, the new platforming mechanics work and the level design more than certainly works. The high defense combat system, backtracking and collecting hurt it a bit, sure. However, those flaws aren’t enough to seriously impact what the game’s offering as a whole. The new Prince of Persia is a great platformer and a great installment in the long-running franchise. I hope that Ubisoft’s hard at work on a sequel, because what’s here is certainly worth expanding upon.
Final Score
On a scale of 0-10, where 0 is terrible, 5 is average and 10 is excellent (The Classic EGM Scale), I give the Prince of Persia (PS3) a score of 8.9.