Amazon.com: Prince of Persia: Xbox 360: Video Games

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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Closest Thing to a Fairytale... Ever!, December 10, 2008

By	Poisoned Blade (California) - See all my reviews

Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars

Prince of Persia is quite different from the other games in the series and the commercials are misleading. If you've seen the ads, it looks like an ugly game that features a lone warrior. The opposite is true! It's a great looking game and you've got a companion through 99% of the adventure... and she's wonderful!

Story 8/10
The Prince meets a magical Princess named Elika, who's on the run from palace guards. He comes to her aid mostly due to his own bravado, rather than her actual need for rescuing. He gets drawn into a magical adventure where he must help Elika save her kingdom from an evil God who's contaminated the land with a black corrosive slime called The Corruption. Comic Book Fans will recognize this stuff as Spiderman's Symbiotic Suit. The story is epic and the romantic chemistry between the characters is great! 85% of the dialogue is really good and 15% misses the mark. If you can ignore a few bad lines, you'll feel for the characters and enjoy a few laughs. Most of the dialogue is initiated by YOU, the player. An icon appears on the lower left corner of the screen and if you press LT, you talk to Elika. She tells you about the history of the kingdom, gives you hints on puzzles, and flirts.

Graphics 9/10
The game uses the tech from Assassin's Creed to render some of the most beautifully crafted and fantastically designed levels of all time. The game is slightly cell shaded which adds to the fairytale atmosphere. Both the Prince and Elika look and move great.

Gameplay: Exploring 8/10
The Prince and Elika must traverse the dangerous environments and get to the Fertile Grounds. Once they get there, Elika heals the land and removes the corruption. Navigating the environments has never been easier. Elika is the best companion ever! She's single, hot, intelligent, and she grabs you and teleports you to safety every time you fall. The game doesn't record "Deaths" it records "Saves!" as in the number of Times Elika saved your life. If you can beat the game with under 100, you get an achievement. Good luck with that. But having her save your life and saying something witty is much better than the old, fall to your death, continue prompt, Yes decision, level reload, 20 seconds of your life gone x 500 times. Suck it - Prince of Persia Warrior Within! Anyway, Elika can go wherever the Prince can go and they help each other get through the levels. You guide the Prince through the levels, jumping, using magic, and props the entire way. Moving the Prince requires the D-Pad and generously timed button presses to use the props. You will climb on, over, through, up, down, around, some truly amazing levels! There might not be enough challenge for the Hard Core gamers because you don't have to aim jumps. You simply need to time your button presses well. If you get lost, Elika can summon a magical comet to show you where you need to go. She's the best companion ever!
Once she heals the land, Power Seeds appear all over the level. At that point, you and Elika can explore and collect them. After you get a certain amount, Elika gains new powers.

Gameplay: Combat 6/10
There aren't many enemies to fight in the game and when you find one, you fight them one at a time. The combat system is modular. The Prince has sword combos, gauntlet combos, air combos, and magic combos via Elika that can be strung together to create compound combos. You're going to have to figure out how to link them yourself while you are fighting. Despite this, the combat feels restrictive. Too often the enemies enter a state which makes them immune to all but one of your combos or they initiate 'press the right button fast' or 'mash x' minigames. At times, I just wanted to fight! But the game had me jumping through so many hoops, I'd get frustrated. If an enemy is about to kill you, it's Elika to the rescue. If the combat was better, I would have given this game a 5.

Replay Value: 4/10
You can go to the levels in any order, but the path through them is linear. The combat is also restrictive, so it's hard to have fun there. The only reason to replay is for achievements. Try to finish it without Elika saving you 100 times or collecting extra Power Seeds. Playing through the game once takes about 12 hours.

Overall, the game makes innovative leaps to reduce the frustration associated with platforming games. If you're a casual gamer with a romantic heart and you want a fairytale adventure, this game was made for you!

If you want the combat from the previous games or environmental challenges, you may want to skip this game... or at least rent it.

If you've ever wanted a magical acrobatic intelligent witty attractive graceful romantic princess of a girlfriend, buy this game and you'll live happily ever after.

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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Save one of the best for last, December 7, 2008

By	Cloud "..." (Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars

After the Prince of Persia trilogy ended with the well-received "Two Thrones", many wanted a return to the puzzle platforming of our favorite wall-runner but since the story was pretty much wrapped, where would Ubisoft take the series? Redo favorite "Sands of Time" but in more HD graphics and slight changes or go in a new direction? Well not only is it a new direction but it's also a new character with a different art style to boot. While reaction wasn't as massive as "Wind Waker"'s unveiling, many were wondering how this new one would handle and I have to admit, it works beautifully. Sure it's got the always-present platforming woes of mistimed jumps and a "flaw" found in its difficulty, but honestly this was a world I wanted to stay in as long as possible and I haven't done that in a long time.

Story: No longer are we a proud son of royalty but rather a drifter/thief looking for his donkey (amusingly named Farah) who has a nice collection of treasures on her. The Prince is caught in a sandstorm and runs into Elika, part of the Ahura clan, an ancient tribe whose role it is is to keep the God of Darkness Ahriman imprisoned with the Tree of Life. But when Elika's father destroys the Tree, Ahriman is unleashed and fills the world with corruption and brings strong warriors who guard "Fertile Grounds" which can restore the land to normal with Elika's help. With Elika's special abilities and the Prince's acrobatic and skills with the blade, we'll travel through beautiful locales and bring the land to its former glory and destroy Ahriman.

Since the story doesn't have any ties to the Sands of Time trilogy, it's best to plunge into this expecting a new story and characters rather than hope this is a part IV, let's say. But keeping that in mind, Elika is one of the best videogame females around and the story is great to go through and not deep (though these games usually aren't), I get immersed into the story easily and the history. Cutscenes and dialogue between the 2 is controlled by the Left trigger buttons where you'll get either hints for the puzzles, Elika and the Prince's past and thinking or history of each individual world. While it's purely optional, it further enriches the world though not having to keep pressing the button could've been nice.

Graphics: Using the engine that powered "Assassin's Creed", Ubisoft chose to present a more colorful and painter-ly quality to the visuals and the results are stunning. The colors, the art design, the fluidity of the animations and the worlds, both corrupted and healed, are quite a sight. Like "Okami" for the Playstation 2, this game is poetry in motion. One slight knock is that occasional the game will freeze; not reset-freeze but it'll temporarily stop for a few seconds then keep going and I'm not sure if everyone will experience this but I did find it from time to time.

Sound/Music: Yes there is no heavy metal riffs and we once again find ourselves surrounding by lush, orchestral music with Middle Eastern influences and it's lovely. The music always maintains a sense of wonder and whimsy and it helps add to the adventuring and exploration. Voice acting is provided by Nolan North who also did Nathan Drake from "Uncharted" and while the emphasis on widecracks and absense of Yuri Lowenthal is lamentable, he grew on me over the course of the game. Kari Wahlgren (Ashe from "Final Fantasy XII") however is fantastic and her voice makes a strong character that much better.

Gameplay: The game follows the platforming acrobatics of the original trilogy and adds some new moves such as grabbing onto rings suspended on ceilings and walls, using your gauntlet (that claw-like mitt on the cover) to slowly repel down a wall and the big change which is the form of a double-jump like maneuver where the screen will drop in color which is a clue to use Elika to launch yourself further and while occasionally I couldn't tell when the button was needed, there's moments where you do so much moves in one go that it's kind of exhilarating to do so much moves in one go. This of course means trial-and-error gameplay, right? Sure except you can't die. Ever. Should you look like you're going to fall to your doom, hit Corrupted areas or miss a button during combat, Elika will jump in and pull you out in time. Does it make it easy? Well yeah but on the other hand, with a game so dependent on speed and momentum, this is what "Mirror's Edge" tried to do but failed at: fun with no stops. Sure you return to the last time you touched ground but there's no annoying "you died" or "now loading" screens and it's one of those games where you can just GO everytime you play.

Whereas combat in the original trilogy was typically you against a dozen or so, here it's just one-on-two with Elika being your combat buddy. Basically there's 4 moves: X is sword, Y is Elika attack, A is acrobatics (jump basically) while B is gauntlet which launches enemies into mid-air while Right Trigger is your block with timed blocks allowing counterattacks. Instead of random button mashing, here it's about rhythm and chaining together moves to get the upper hand. Occasionally a quicktime event will pop up which will either save you from redoing the battle over or a button masher where you press a button repeatedly. It's a fun system though the mashing sequences require faster-than-expected presses and even occassionally it'll ask to press a button (say for example Y) and I press it in time yet it reds out indicating I missed it and I go "uh but I pressed it". A handy combo list in the menu gives some help and tactics and there's quite a few to learn and even an achievement/trophy for finding them all but it is pretty simple.

After battle over the "Fertile Grounds", Elika's heals the world and returns it to his past majesty and here's where the collecting starts. Scattered in each area are "light seeds" and no joke, there's 1001 of these suckers and for achievement/trophy seekers well...have fun. However, you don't have to get all of them to progress and getting a certain amount will give Elika access to special plates scattered in levels which either rocket you over to a next one or a wall-scaling game where you have to dodge ledges and obstacles to get to the top. Since the game takes on a more hub-based structure rather than just pushing forward, there's some backtracking but it's fun to return to that one high ledge you couldn't get to previously.

Does it have flaws? Sure with the mistimed jumps and one move instead of something else, the apparently problematic lack of difficulty (as opposed to frustration as an alternative) and the weight of the "Sands of Time" as a comparison, "Prince of Persia" will either be one of the better gaming experiences all year, a disappoint or somewhere in the middle. Personally, I'd be more than welcome to see a sequel one day.

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great game- but very easy, December 3, 2008

By	Evan Kraus (Charlottesville, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars

This new Prince of Persia doesn't exactly stick to the basic formula of previous games, but this new format is fresh and fun. The new prince isn't exactly your classic knight in shining armor, but he's less annoying then the troubled prince from "sands of time." The character who shines is Elika- your trusty and very able sidekick. She will be with you through the whole game, which is great, because while the Prince can be a jerk, you can't help but fall in love with Elika.
The gameplay is based around the platforming you would expect from a PoP game- running on walls, jumping from platform to platform, and even crawling across ceilings. The combat system is fairly simple, and centers around combos using your trusty sidekick (many of which look spectacular). Whenever you are fighting someone it will just be you and Elika vs. that one person- not the larger battles of past PoP games.
Elika brings another dynamic to the game, because unlike other helpless sidekicks, Elika really ends up saving you in the long run. This is what makes the game so easy. If you fall from a platform... she saves you. If you die fighting a boss... she saves you and the boss regains his health.
The puzzles in this game are not very difficult, but this helps keep the game moving.
The artwork of the game is absolutely astonishing. The visual appearance of the game is it's strong suit. Though it is cell shaded, it never fills cartoony- just very artistic.
Although it's an easy game, Prince of Persia is very enjoyable if you are willing to accept it for what it is- artistic and light. The journey is exciting and the easy difficulty shouldn't turn you off from giving it a try.