Customer Reviews

Prince Of Persia

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(27)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Prince of Persia has the standard jumping, acrobatics and Arabian flavor of past PoP games, but otherwise the game has no ties to previous incarnations of Prince. It's an attempt to breathe new life into the series. `Twas a noble enough attempt, with a pseudo-open world style courtesy of the Assassin's Creed engine and the strongest focus on characterization to date, but no amount of witty banter or half-hearted sandbox design can rescue the game from its monotonous gameplay.

This is especially unfortunate because the platforming heart and soul of the game is quite fun. The controls have been criticized as too easy - the levels are almost never challenging and even when they are, it's literally impossible for your character to die - but that doesn't lessen the satisfaction you feel after completing a series of really cool looking jumps. The controls are so streamlined even a novice can be executing amazing sequences leaps, bounds and maneuvers without a second thought, while veterans will find the challenge of blazing through the levels at top speed an enjoyable experience. People have criticized the choice to have your partner, Elika, rescue you from every failed jump, but never having to see a loading screen was a fantastic design decision.

Where the platforming falters is in variety. You'll see every almost variation on every obstacle only a short way into the game, and because they're so painfully easy - even without the "can't fail" aspect you'll rarely miss a jump - the action eventually becomes mindless. Once in a while it's invigorating, notably when the game makes you feel as if you have to rush (a timer would have added a great deal of excitement to some of these sequences), but rarely is it anything but more of the same.

This issue is probably exacerbated by the game's pseudo-open world design. At the start of the game a small handful of levels are available. As you progress through the game you unlock access to more levels, all of which are interconnected in one seamlessly branching world. You choose which levels you do and in which order you do them. But the extent to which Prince of Persia presents players with an open world is deceiving. The environments are wide open and often lovely to see, but the openness is an illusion. The path through each level is always linear. The only choice is the order in which you tackle the levels - and since the levels are all but identical in style and difficulty, the choices don't really matter.

The issue here isn't that the levels are bad - in fact, a lot of the sequences are pretty terrific - it's that there is little in the way of fun twists to keep the gameplay fresh. Previous games often incorporated puzzles to accomplish this. These served to break up the monotony of jump jump jump and forced players to engage their brain for a little while. Prince of Persia has all of four puzzles, two of them nearly identical and coming within thirty seconds of one another. That's too bad.

Instead of puzzles to break things up between platforming, Ubi went with combat. And to say the combat is tedious would be an understatement. UbiSoft got lazy, forcing the player to confront the same four bosses (five if you count Elika's father) no less than five times each. Because some of the final battles are presented in multiple stages, you really end up in combat with some of these villains six or seven times. And it's always the same. Block, run through the same sequence of tired QuickTime events, throw a combo or Elika at them, rinse, repeat. Yawn.

If all this sounds harsh it's probably because this is such a "coulda been a contenda" game. You've got to applaud the attempt at innovation by injecting an open world element, Ubi clearly did a lot of work to make these characters people you could like - though I question the decision to go make the Prince and Elika sound like a couple of American college kids trading coffee shop banter - and the much-criticized "can't fail" design system is really to the game's benefit. There is a lot to like here.

At the end of the day, Prince of Persia is a game that aspires to be something a little different than what came before, and that is to be applauded. That it falls short of its potential thanks to repetitious gameplay is unfortunate.

the game look great and running and jumping along wall is very fun. there is only a very few enemies in the game and no death. this game is for players who looking for more of a puzzle adventure game than a fight action game.

I really enjoyed PoP, especially the twist at the end. It definately leaves room for a sequel. But with a changing market they need to change how they design the game. I'll explain later.

The graphics are very cool, probably the best cell shading I've seen on any video game. It looks like a highly detailed sketch at certain points, very cool!

The controls are pretty good but can get awkward depending on which way the camera is aimed (up may be up or it may be right?) They shouldn't take you very long to get used too. Also, I think there's too many buttons that do too many things. Take the Sands of Time for instance, to run up a wall, grab a ledge, jump off, etc, it pretty much all done with 1 or 2 buttons. Now you've got one button for a longer jump, one button to grab rings, one button to jump up/off a wall, etc. Games like this need simple controls to keep the gameplay from getting too confusing.

Combat is even worse, you need all 4 main buttons to do different things plus the control stick PLUS a block button...keep it simple. Thankfully combat is not the focus of this game (nor has it been for any PoP game with the exception of the Warrior Within, which I didn't like very much). The acrobatics were pretty slick, although they didn't feel as streamlined/quick as they did in the Sands of Time series. Maybe they made them a little more realistic, I'm not sure, but I like the much faster pace of the other games more.

The gameplay itself is pretty good but at times feels a little too restrictive, like I'm on a track and have only one or two options of where to go. I guess that's typical of PoP games, but after playing Assassins Creed which was mostly open ended, I think PoP could use a small dose of it. Elika was a neat addition, although I didn't really like the fact that you cannot die. She fits the story well but doesn't really add a whole lot more to the gameplay itself, you can jump further with her, use her in combat...that's about it.

And I know this is petty but why couldn't they have made "the Prince" an actual prince instead of a guy who uses that as a nickname?

Being an achievement finder they could have made the achievmets for this game SO much better. I HATED the "be gentle with her" achievement. This is one of the worst ideas ever, because it made people like me quit out of the game every time she saved me. There's no "load game" option while your playing, so I'd quit to the menu and reloaded. I bet that at the end of the game she only saved me 15 times...but mentally I couldn't keep count so I played it safe.

Here is where I think UbiSoft missed their mark...they are not keeping up with what the market wants. Xbox live is a GREAT service, not just for playing multiplayer games, but for comparing times/stats, etc. Prince of Persia games have never been about combat, they've always been about navigating obsticles, and with Sands of Time that turned into "navigating obsticles using acrobatics at very high speeds." My favorite achievements on this game were the "runner" achievements, get from point A to point B within this much time, they are a blast. They need to ditch the light seeds, the combat, most of the pointless (find all areas, find this view, go to a high place, etc) achievements and make 20-30 "runner" achievements, as these are easily the most fun to get. Make some of them extremely difficult, that will make the veterans want to keep playing. And to top it off do what Devil May Cry 4 and Ninja Gaiden 2 (and other games) did, add "Time Attack" leaderboards for these running achievements. Let players compare their times to other gamer's times, make it somewhat competitive. As it stands the game was fun but it doesn't really give me a reason to go back and play it again or to "try to set a new fast time" or anything.

Overall I'd give it a solid 8-8.5, I really liked the game although it has some faults and, as said, it doesn't have great replay value. There is some DLC coming soon that will add new areas, but I don't know if it'll be worth the purchase.

Let me start off right away by saying that if you think the best games are ones that punish you for anything less than a perfect performance, games that have constant risk, or games that elicit unhealthy amounts of adrenaline release during play, then Prince of Persia is not for you. When I first played this game, it was a rental back in 2010, and my experience with it was really soured by the fact that I was trying to play through the game before it was due. When playing the game like that, it becomes repetitive and grating. This is not a game you play with the goal of the ending constantly in mind. No, rather, this game is an "experience" that you're supposed to immerse yourself into and take your time in. You really must get yourself in the proper mindset to enjoy it. I've recently bought the game again, and changed my attitude from when I first played it, and I enjoyed it immensely.

It's evident as soon as you boot up the game, that the developers put a lot of love and labor into this game, and that fact becomes only more evident as you play through the game. The environments are absolutely gorgeous and imaginative. If you've ever desired to play a game that reminded you of childhood fairy tales with a child's massive imagination, then Prince of Persia will be very pleasing to you. The graphics are crisp, the colors are vibrant, and the design is superb. That is PoP's biggest strength. The story is not particularly unique or groundbreaking, but the writing and voice acting is so good and compelling, that the story is actually very well done. I found myself fascinated by the different environments of this mysterious land I was exploring. I was very compelled by the various bosses' stories. The banter between Eleka, your constant companion, and the Prince is believable and enjoyable. You really grow to like the characters over the course of the game. The sound and music is also very well designed. These are without a doubt PoP's strengths.

As far as gameplay goes, it's about what you'd expect from a Prince of Persia game. Crazy, cool acrobatics are the name of the game here, with lots of wall-running and gravity defying moves. Combat has been revamped to be more combo and flow oriented with focus on fighting one enemy at a time instead of the frantic hack n' slash frenzy of past Prince games. For what its worth, it works very well. Eleka gets access to various special powers that are pretty neat to use. Each boss requires different strategy to beat, and they're all very fun because of that. You'll end up fighting each boss several times though, so it may get repetitive to you.

One big thing that's different about this entry in the Prince of Persia franchise is that much of the difficulty and challenge of past entries is largely gone. Eleka will always save you from death. You cannot die in this game, as many gamers complain about far too loudly. The game holds your hand a lot, making it obvious when double-jumps, or dodges in combat, or anything else you could imagine, are needed. Is this a bad thing? It really depends on your perspective. A lot of people complain about the lack of challenge, but to me, I think it's obvious that wasn't Ubisoft's priority in crafting this game. It's obvious that it is meant to be absorbed as a work of beautiful art, rather than a game you play for bragging rights because of the difficulty. Satisfaction comes from taking in the beauty and learning about the world and characters of the game, not beating a super difficult boss, or pulling off a large sequence of acrobatic moves in a row (although you'll do that a lot in this game).

Is Prince of Persia for you? It really depends on your attitude and desire for what video games should deliver. Personally, I absolutely love the Sands of Time games in the Prince of Persia series. In my opinion, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time just simply can't be beat in terms of best Prince of Persia game. However, if you enjoy imaginative games that focus more on a beautiful experience than a challenging one, you'll be rewarded for picking this game up. Too often, people play games expecting the game to spoil them and live up to what THEY want from the game, rather than understand the game's focus and mold their perspective and expectations accordingly to really enjoy the game the way its supposed to be enjoyed. The gaming community has really fallen in that much of it is now comprised of spoiled brats who complain if they don't get exactly what they want at any given moment from the games they play. What happened to the open-minded gratefulness that used to be so prevalent in gamers' minds? It makes me sad. Anyway, Prince of Persia is pretty cheap now, too, so it's not like you're losing out on too much. Buy it, take it all in, and appreciate it for the right reasons.

This, definitely, isn't like any of the Prince of Persia games that you've played before, but is very well done. High production value, great graphics, good voice acting (even though they are all Persian, but speak perfect, unaccented English), and easy to play.

It is a very forgiving game. So much so that a lot of the challenge is lost, but that also takes some of the frustration out of it. It is, also, is a fairly tame game, and the "T" rating is a bit stretched. So that's a good thing. Children can actually play this game and not be confronted with any vulgarities, etc.

Overall, I'd recommend this game. I think the developer did a great job of "revamping" the series, and made a terrific action/adventure game.

I think this was overall a decently fun game, but it got very repetitive. They added a good story to the game and left room for continuation, but I don't think I would buy the next one. I may rent it since it is a short game and you get bored with it quick anyways. The people at Ubisoft put a lot of work into it to make it a good game at everything else. The concept of the game just leads it to be boring and repetitive too fast since there isn't much to do really.

A good time to be had but it suffers from a number of poor design decisions. It's an absolutely gorgeous game but the entire thing falls apart once the characters begin to speak.

They're more than competent voice actors, they actually sound excellent, but they simply don't fit in the world. That's too bad too since the dialog is well written...

A lot of complaints that you can't die in this game and while that may technically be true, this is absolutely not the first time I have seen this. This alone shouldn't be a deal-breaker but unfortunately the game has a number of other issues that bring the whole experience down.

Combat is weak, never evolving in the 10+ hours it will take to finish the game. And a severe lack of responsiveness will most certainly frustrate a good majority of gamers.

Overall it's a solid rental but probably not worth the full price of admission.