Prince of Persia Review PS3

The Prince of Persia series has come a long way over the years and evolved with the technology available ever since its first inception in 1989. With the newest iteration in the Prince of Persia series, a completely new art style and combat mechanic was introduced. The game does not continue the story line set in the Sands of Time series, but rather is its own standalone game. The game can easily be finished in less than 12 hours and has a downloadable expansion for purchase, that introduces a new area to the game, new ability, and a much harder difficulty.

Graphic and sound:

Prince of Persia has an interesting art style that appears to look like animated concept art. The scenery looks amazing and immerses the player in a living oil painting. The scenery has two modes, corrupted and healed. The corrupted landscape is dark with gray and black splotches of corruption everywhere and a dark blue hue to the ambient light. The corrupted area is also devoid of any vegetation or life. The healed areas are bright, sunny, and full of vegetation everywhere. The problem with the healing process is that the ruins remain the same instead of being restored to their former glory, which makes the healing process seem more like a cheap gimmick.

Background music in Prince of Persia is one of the most soothing soundtracks I have ever heard. It fits the mystical theme that the game entails perfectly and I highly recommend just standing still and listening to it. Voiceovers are of high quality, but the scripts given to the actors are full of horrible one-liners. I do wish that the prince had more of an Arabic accent as it does detract from the dialogue.

Gameplay and controls:

Prince of Persia revolves around a hub system that is unlocked as the player collects a prerequisite number of light seeds for the desired area. There are 4 main hub areas with one boss for each hub, in addition to the final boss area with the god Ahriman. Each hub is further divided into 5 levels with an encounter with that hub’s boss at the end of the level. The player can unlock 4 abilities by collecting a set number of light seeds for each one. Each ability involves a colored metal plate that launches the player to another area using flight, jumping, teleporting, and walking up walls. Each hub level requires one of the special abilities in order to traverse within. The player cannot die, instead the AI assist from Elika will pull the player out of danger back to the last stable platform he/she was on. This makes the game very easy since there is no real punishment for failure. The jumps are very easy to perform and the boss fights are simplistic at best.

Overall thoughts:

Repetition may turn away veteran players of the series, but I was never a fan of the ridiculous platforming acrobatic difficulties of the Sands of Time trilogy and the horrible camera that came with it ala Tomb Raider. I do admit the game was very easy to beat, but the downloadable content was absurdly frustrating with its long chain of jumps. If Ubisoft wants to bring back the difficulty of the Sands of Time games, it will need to have a camera that works such as Uncharted. Despite the lack of difficulty, I enjoyed the game and look forward to the inevitable sequel. Hopefully, it will have boss fights that involve sophisticated combat. Definitely a game I would rent and perhaps add to the collection for $20.