Prince of Persia (2008) - Archived Review
Originally published January, 2010.With the movie and the Forgotten Sands that accompanied it to market consumption, I would like to take a look at the game of the Prince of Persia franchise that was meant not only to stand out, but restart the series in stunning high definition. Having a couple years to sit in stores, I’d like to examine the many flawed points and occasional positives to this game I ultimately found disappointing.
Story
What is there to say about story? On the whole, it all just feels mediocre. At a glance, it seems like there was some effort put into the plot and the history of the environment. The developers had a good idea about building up the legends of this kingdom in the desert, the influential characters of the past, as well as the lore of the land. But the characters of the present era bog it down and make the legends that should have been exciting, feel more like a stilted history lesson.
The whole story is very grand, much more than the plot of the Sands of Time series. The prince was still dealing with very big issues and magic, but in this story the heroes are saving the world itself. Even with dark gods, black magical sludge that could kill you, and a mechanic built into the game to keep you from dying, the journey of the main protagonists ends up being harder to believe than a man finding a magical dagger that could control time. It really just comes down to the way the characters are presented.
The motives of the prince remain unclear until a great deal of digging is done to find out only vague references to his past. He very quickly changes the subject from himself to something else, which would normally seem like just a private personality, but after 8 hours I’d like to know more about him than just how he’s looking for his donkey. The female protagonist, Elika, is bipolar in her reactions to what is going on around her. When she’s in a good mood, she comes across as extremely naïve and idealistic. When she is down, well, she’s just a party pooper and the prince has to lift her back up with some bad humor, corny dialogue, and a forced optimistic attitude. Oh and by the way, the prince isn’t actually a prince of anything. He’s just an unnamed thief and since the game is called Prince of Persia, we call him something he’s not. Maybe I’ll call him the Thief of Persia. But I digress.
As for the rest of the story itself, it is all pretty cliché. The real villain is a dark god trapped in the shadows, waiting to be set free while his minions cause a ruckus, one of which being related to the protagonists in some way to make the conflict seem more personal. Naturally you have to go through all the other lackeys before resolving this conflict, but getting there is truly a chore. Along the way, in a forced effort to give the two characters more personality, you have the option of pressing a button to initiate conversation between the two to find out more about them in dialogue that is ultimately uninteresting and unimportant. Unlike Uncharted 2 or Dragon Age, where the characters naturally talk to one another as they move along throughout their journey, the interruption of the action to stand and talk as the character models cycle through animations completely throws off the momentum and the experience. When you’re supposed to be jumping and sliding off walls without breaking your gait, suddenly stopping to chat on solid ground about what Elika’s favorite type of flower is only makes me less interested in their back story.
By the end of the adventure I was completely uninterested in the motivations of the characters and whatever emotional baggage they were carrying. I just wanted to finish the game. And when I did, I was astonished by how much I enjoyed the ending. I won’t spoil it, but I will say that the ending was probably the one reason I’m still glad I played this game. It does something that reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus and was a very satisfying way to finish the game. It leaves the game open for sequels that I doubt would really do justice to the story. Ubisoft released an epilogue DLC that I don’t want to see lest it ruin the end I enjoy so much.
Gameplay
If you’re familiar at all with the Prince of Persia franchise is that it has always been a relatively difficult game. The 8-bit original was sadistic and the Sands of Time trilogy was no slouch either. This rendition, however, tends to hold your hand, then lifts you up and carries you to the finish line, then buys you dinner, and finally tucks you in for bed. One of the main criticisms for this game by many fans was the fact that you can’t die. I admit that when I first heard it I was just as skeptical and thought it dumb to just take away the challenge of the game. But dying isn’t necessarily what made the games difficult in the past. In this game, Elika grabs you and returns you to the last safe platform you were on, should you begin to plummet to your death. So it’s really no different from having a very forgiving checkpoint system that bypasses the “continue screen.” But the game doesn’t do much with the gameplay or platforming to really put much challenge on the player. The game is not really punishing in any aspect other than having to play it for so long without anything rewarding happening for a long time.
In the Sands of Time trilogy, when running along walls or swinging around, your timing on when to hold and release the buttons had to be very precise. However, the act of holding the button has been done away with for this rendition. While that my not seem like a big deal, simply having to time when to press and release the button requires precision and can make the whole experience of running on the wall more stressful. All you have to do is follow the various hints like scrapings along the walls or rings dangling from edges and leap for it. Once he hits the wall (almost regardless of what angle he lands) he begins running till he runs out of steam or hits the next point for you to press another button. This ends up making the experience feel disconnected as you wait for the next moment to press a button. I never felt like I had anything to worry about because if I was heading in the right way—which I always was with the various hints to guide me—then all I had to do was make sure to press the right button approximately at the right time.
What I find even funnier about the traversal in the game is that, similar to the previous games, occasionally some traps will be added along the way to block your path. In place of spinning blades or spikes, there’s black goop that moves to a fro across the walls, nonetheless serving the same purpose. However, the timing for the traps is set up so that if you make it past the first trap and don’t have to stop the entire way through the platforming sequence, you’ll never hit one. When all the traps had been introduced, I was running along walls yawning as things moved about because I knew that I wasn’t going to hit a single one of them.
Some people found the open-world style of this Prince of Persia to be refreshing and appealing. The others had been very linear in their progression and often times the completionist would be unable to get an item of interest if he/she passed by it before a big event. While it seems like a good idea to change things up for the franchise, I would have preferred a linear experience if it meant better story and character progression. Not to mention that this open-world style allows for the most egregious transgression of the game. People faulted Darksiders for having unnecessary backtracking in the game, but Prince of Persia is a far worse offender. In order to progress further with the story, Elika has to collect a certain number of orbs so she can gain a necessary traversal ability. These unlockable abilities are what keep the game from ending quickly as you have to collect more and more orbs just so you can reach an area that was not reachable before. This wouldn’t be so bad if the number of orbs needed didn’t reach such an astronomical amount by the end. I was so sick of going to the same places just so I could grab five more orbs I may have missed the first time, I nearly gave up on the game before finishing it.
The last thing about the gameplay that needs to be discussed is the combat. There are some good ideas hidden within the tedious and unrewarding combat in this Prince of Persia. Unlike Warrior Within, which had taken the combat and streamlined it to allow players to take on multiple enemies at once without the fighting seeming repetitive like the Sands of Time, this Prince of Persia pits you against one enemy per fight. The fight can be over in only a few seconds or it can last, literally, forever.
There is a very dynamic combo system that allows you string attacks together, one after another, into a very lengthy combo involving sword slashing, magic rebounds from Elika, dramatic jumping attacks from the prince, and tossing the enemy into the air like a doll. It all moves and looks very cool, though feels very stiff in comparison to the fluid mechanics of the Sands of Time games. However, should you mess up or press the wrong button at the wrong time you will be forced into an unfortunate position: press the button that flashes on the screen and evade or miss and be rescued by Elika. That doesn’t seem bad, but each time Elika has to save you, your enemy regains a staggering amount of health. Since you can’t die in this game, including during combat, you could put the controller down and walk away for days and the same fight will still be going. Overall, the fighting could have been much more satisfying than it was, leaving it with some stiff combat that just ends up taking far to long to finish.
Presentation
The visuals of Prince of Persia are stunning. The cell-shaded design of the characters and the artistic environments really blow you away the first time you see the game. Everything looks and flows really well. The characters look good as they traverse the landscape. The black muck that is all over everything reminds me of the stuff from Ferngully. The way it claws at the characters as they move past it and how it crawls up their arms if they land in it makes the tar’s corruption seem like a real threat. Seeing the landscape transform from a grayscale version back into the vibrant alive version is pretty satisfying as well. The sudden burst of color and light is pleasing to the eye and at least makes the backtracking tolerable for a little while.
The character designs themselves were simple but not necessarily boring. I liked the way the protagonists looked and I thought the sub-bosses were very cool to look at. The prince definitely looked like a vagabond that had done rather well for himself robbing crypts and kingdoms. Elika’s white outfit gave off that same since of innocence and purity. It was a simple design but it fit her character and allowed for the magic glow of her movements to look much more fantastic. The contrast of the enemies’ dark corrupted bodies with the bright colors of the clothing they wore was a nice touch. Unfortunately the way things were set up required you face them multiple times, taking away some of the initial impact till you were definitely ready to eliminate them.
Visually the game was terrific, but the audio department could have used a little work. The soundtrack was perfectly fitting and felt like one you would find in a Prince of Persia. The scraping of surfaces as the characters slid down walls didn’t always fit the texture they were on, but it wasn’t really a big deal. The sound of them sliding on sand as the moved was pleasant to the ear. Really the only problem with the sound department was the voice-acting. It’s partially because the script wasn’t very good, but I have a problem with Nolan North being the voice of the main character. North has proven to be a very talented and capable voice actor, but as the Prince of Persia, it just doesn’t fit; especially when the developers tried to give him the Nathan Drake/Han Solo personality. Instead of being suave and confident, he comes across as simply being American. His jokes are bad, he’s often inappropriate, and he just seems inappropriately arrogant because his confidence is not matched by intelligence. Swing and a miss for Nolan North.
Conclusion
Prince of Persia brought the series into the high definition generation. Did it carry the franchise in on a white horse? No, it was more like the donkey he was looking for. The game certainly fits the look of this generation, but the ride itself just isn’t as satisfying as it used to be. For the sake of trying to fit in with the rush of casual games on the market, Prince of Persia took a risk and made some changes that hurt the franchise more than helped it.