Review #548: Prince of Persia - The Fallen King

 The only thing that fell here was the Prince.

Sure, making a sequel aimed at kids is gonna sell well.

 I was wary when I approached Forgotten Sands on the DS, for I knew it was a stylus-only gimmick game that improved upon The Fallen King, but it wound up being pretty darn good, so I was cautiously optimistic when it came to The Fallen King. Sadly, all optimism was crushed very early into this game, for it's the Prince's most boring adventure yet.

 The game is set after Prince of Persia(2008)'s DLC's non-ending, with the Prince setting out to gather help in order to defeat Ahriman. Early into the game he comes across Zal, a mysterious wizard that's trying to defeat the land's King, for he has fallen under Ahriman's corruption and now threatens the world. This unlikely duo will travel together throughout 6 different worlds, and about 40 stages, combining their abilities in order to progress. The premise isn't too bad, but the delivery is dumb. And that's probably because, as you can see on the cover, they went for a very childish direction that's present in both the art and the script. Underwhelming, disappointing and senseless, why would you make a sequel to a game that was aimed at teenages and above but now shift the target audience? It alienates both audiences, children won't have played the previous game and the older demographic won't care about this one. Truly idiotic.

Oh, this grapple-blocks will be something you'll get used to seeing over and over and over and over again.

 But whatever, games aimed at children can be good games in their own right... this isn't one of those though. Firstly, the controls, everything is done with the stylus. Tap to walk, tap to jump, tap to attack, tap to slide upwards or downwards a wall, tap(and hold) to block... it's a lot of actions tied to tapping, and the game does a wonky job of recognizing what you want to do. The acrobatics just aren't very fun when the Prince isn't doing exactly what you want to do, and expect most deaths to come from sloppy responses to your inputs. Not that it matters, since stages in this game are BORING, it's incredible how they managed to make platforming in Prince of Persia boring, but they did so.

 It probably has to do with the fact that there's very little creativity in them. Most of it went to the puzzles, which are mostly done in the form of obstacles that Zal must clear for the Prince. Simply hold any button and tap to make Zal shoot energy, or rub against surfaces to put out fires, or turn on portals, etc, etc. Zal's powers should've added more depth to the game, but they don't. You'll have used so many grappling points by the game's end that it stopped being fun, and having to rub on stuff wears out its welcome pretty early into the adventure.

Twice the enemies, double the snorefest.

 What also adds to the tedium is how slow progress is. In every world, midway through a stage Zal will get corrupted and you'll be kicked out of the stage and forced to replay an older stage in order to rescue him and earn a new power. Sure, you'll be able to clear a few obstacles that you couldn't before, but it sucks having to replay a stage and then having to redo part of the staged you were kicked out of. Big, Yellow doors also hide health upgrades behind them and they require a ton of coins, so you'll probably have to replay a stage or two at some point if you want every health upgrade. The game isn't fun, and making the player have to retread old ground is not a good thing.

 Controls? Mediocre leaning to poor. Platforming? Boring with slightly unresponsive controls to boot. Puzzles? Equally so. What about the combat? Boring too. Just tap on yellow guys to defeat them, block red guys' attacks and then counter-slash them, tap on black enemies to push/defeat them with Zal. Later on you'll face bigger monsters that require both Zal and the Prince's abilities to defeat but they just act as time sinks. Wait for the Mole-monster to slam three times against the ground then freeze him, with Zal, and then slash him, twice, in order to defeat him. Tap on the flying eye to shoot at him with Zal until he falls over and then slash him with the prince, twice. Wait for the Wizard to shoot the fire ball and then shoot at him with Zal to deflect the fire ball so that you can slash him with the Prince, twice. These battles aren't fun, they're just boring. Just like the rest of the game.

The combat looks dynamic on screenshots but is anything but.

 Prince of Persia - The Fallen King is a bland, boring game that fails to provide anything of interest for fans of the franchise. If you want something like this but that is actually decent, go with Forgotten Sands on the DS, which follows the same stylus-gimmick but to a better result. If you want Prince on the go, the PSP's got you covered. Just avoid this one.
 3.0 out of 10