Review #536: Prince of Persia(2008)

 This is no prince.

This guy is not a Prince. This is the Rogue of Persia.

 Welcome to 2008's reboot of Prince of Persia, featuring a nameless character that is most definitely not a prince! Yes, Sands of Time had concluded, Prince of Persia - Assassins was rebranded and thus Ubisoft decided to reboot the franchise. The end result is... attractive, but a bit flawed.

 Our hero, whom I'll call 'the Prince', gets lost as he tries to find his donkey, Farah, but comes across Elika, a mysterious waif who's been chased by armed men. After helping her fend off the assailants they find themselves in the rotten city of Ahura, but it turns out it was not always so, as a god, Ahriman, is the cause of the pollution. Together, the Prince and Elika, they must restore life to the city, by using Elika's mystical powers and the Prince's acrobatics, in order to seal off Ahriman. The story is nothing you haven't seen before, but I will admit that I liked the Prince and Elika. It's a shame most of their interactions are buried beneath conversations, L2 button, that bring the game to a halt. But the presentation deserves special praise, since boy, oh, boy, the game is gorgeous. It looks like a moving painting that manages to capture the mystical and alluring feeling of the 'Arabian Nights'. It's a beautiful game to behold.

The game is drop-dead gorgeous.

 Much has changed since the Sands of Time trilogy, and now the game can be divided in two huge components: Exploration and Dueling. Explorations is pretty similar to how it used to be, albeit with simplified controls. X is used to jump and the Prince will automatically run against a wall when he collides with it mid-air. He can also climb ledges and ivy, as well as propel himself from rings by tapping O as he grabs it. Elika can aid the Prince here, by tapping triangle she will give you an extra boost while on the air. Lastly, there are glorified Plates of different colors that are called 'powers' but, surprisingly, are rather dull transportation methods. Red and Blue plates simply transport your from place to place, while Yellow plates initiate a dull flying minigame and Green played initiate a minigame in which you run over a wall. It's slightly more fun than the flying, but only a little. As a whole, while still fun, it fails to feel as exciting and dynamic as platforming was in the Sands of Time, albeit it makes up for that by offering beautiful landscapes to explore.

 Speaking of exploration, the game is a bit of a drag in that regard. Peppered through the open-ended world of Prince of Persia are 1001 Seeds of Light and you must collect at least 540 in order to complete the game. Problem? It's a complete waste of time. Here's the deal, the game is made up of 16 different areas, plus 4 boss rooms,  and each area has about 45 seeds in all. But in order to collect the seeds you must restore the area to life. This means exploring said area, solving puzzles, defeating the boss and then, and only then, collect the Seeds of Light. This means that you'll explore the area at least twice. At least. After you collect 80 seeds you'll be able to unlock the first plate power, you're free to choose which, which will open up four new areas for you to explore, and then you'll have to collect three different key amounts of Seeds of Light, culminating in 540. It's a total drag, while I appreciate the open-endedness, and the freedom to choose in which order you'll open-up the game, you shoul've been able to collect Seeds on your first go through an area. Worst of all, the game fails to make collecting this seeds rewarding, there are no upgrades to get, costumes to unlock(Unlesss you install a patch which nets you a pair of costumes if you gather every Seed), nothing but bragging rights and the right to continue the game. Lame.

The only combat in the game are various 2 on 1 fights.

 You might have guessed already that Elika is constantly by your side in this game, as a matter of fact, the game is infamous because you 'can't die'. Which is completely stupid since Elika might rescue you whenever, but you'll be sent back to a checkpoint, and some checkpoints can be rather far away from where you last failed. Regardless, they tried to make you like Elika, by giving a lot of endearing, optional animations. Stand below her when she drops down and the Prince will catch her, switch sides with her while holding on to a beam or ledge and there's a cute little animation... but it starts adding up to a lot of down time in which you have to wait until the animation finished before you can continue. It's very easy to get thrown-off your groove because Elika decided to jump right to where you where standing, forcing the Prince to move away. It's particularly egregious with the vines, since you must wait until Elika comes along and grabs onto the Prince's neck, rooting you to the spot until she does so. And crank levers? You can't operate them without her. In Puzzles that requires a lot of levers it quickly turns annoying when you have to wait for her to realize that you're friggin' waiting for her on the next lever. I won't blame you if you hate Elika by the end of the game.

 Then we've got dueling. Fighting has been reduced to multiple two-on-one fights, in which you, as the Prince and Elika, battle a single foe. Square slashes, Triangle makes Elika attack, O is a grab attack and X is used to jump around. You can mix these actions to create devastating combos. R2 is used for blocking or, by timing it right, parrying. The combat is great in small doses, which is good since it already comes in those.... although every single boss must be fought six times. SIX TIMES. I mean, boss fights and normal enemies are pretty much the same battles but with different animations for the enemies, but having to fight the same boss six times? SIX TIMES?? C'mon, Ubisoft, this isn't Megaman or Devil May Cry...

You'll be wallrunning a lot.

 Then there's the ending... not only does the game end in a cliffhanger, the true ending of the game is locked behind DLC. And if you're a schmuck and buy the DLC, you'll be happy to find out that it too ends on a cliffhanger. GREAT GOING, UBISOFT. Oh, and if you play The Fallen King, the DS sequel, you'll be happy to know that it too ends on a cliffhanger.

 There're a lot of great things to be found in Prince of Persia: Beautiful graphics, fantastic locales, same great platforming as always and a fun, even if only when used sparingly, combat system. But there're also a few small bad things, like how the game wastes your time with silly unskippable animations, disappointing obstacles and 'powers', and having to fight the same bosses numerous times. Thankfully, the good outweighs the bad by a large margin. This is the first Prince of Persia game that manages to capture the spark that Sands of Time had, feeling like a magical adventure in a surreal world... it's a shame the rest of the game falls short of what it could have been.
 8.0 out of 10