Prince of Persia

We core gamers are at a crossroads. The Wii and the rise of casual gaming will influence game development for the foreseeable future. With increased frequency, games once meant for us will be reshaped into something palatable for others. Prince of Persia, whether intentional or not, feels like one of those games. The value of this philosophical shift will surely split the opinion of the Prince’s audience.

Narratively, this new Prince of Persia has nothing to do with last generation’s Sands of Time trilogy. The Prince is in search of Farah, but the object of his desire is his gold laden donkey, not Sands of Time’s damsel in distress. See what they did there? The damsel not quite in distress this time is Elika, a princess of a people bound to protect a great evil’s prison.

Not surprisingly, this cosmic evil gets out. Corruption, a life-like, tarry black substance, coats the land and threatens to suck the life out of everything - including you. Elika becomes your AI partner as you cooperatively go about restoring the Fertile Grounds in areas connected by a central hub, thus pushing the Corruption back and sealing the prison once again.

There are twists and turns here and there but not much context. As always, your character is a lone thief and adventurer, “Prince” in nickname only, falling backwards into saving the world. Despite the lack of a complex narrative, Prince of Persia does what any good videogame should and soaks the game in layers of atmosphere.

Voice acting is excellent if not predictably G-rated in the best American tradition - that is, everyone has a snappy one-liner or quick retort every five seconds, with cute and harmless references to sexuality and adult themes. It’s a perfectly inoffensive and safe approach to character composure, and works for the most part.

The real star of Prince of Persia is the beautiful marriage of robust technology with inspired art design. Not very long into your adventure you’ll come to a massive open space with a huge tree temple looming in the distance. Such is the impression that one assumes you’re looking at background art that can’t possibly be reached, but Elika keeps running (and running, and running…) until she’s but a speck in the distance and at the foot of that once unthinkably large temple.

Every other area flows around this temple hub, and each features the dilapidated ruins of a once prosperous society. Ground makes way to seemingly endless chasms and the skeletal remains of the buildings, machines and what-have-you make up a playground conveniently suited to the Prince’s acrobatic abilities. The arty, hand-drawn style visuals in this game, coupled with the oft stated art direction of “plausible fantasy”, make for a very pretty and captivating world to explore.

But while this very expensive and professionally constructed landscape is typical of the effort put into games of the hardcore variety, the gameplay itself is subtly but powerfully nerfed into submission, typical of casual games. To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with a casual approach to games, but in the case of Prince of Persia, it removes a great deal of the sense of reward so prevalent in its predecessors.

I am not speaking of the impossibility of death, either. This Prince is infinitely saved by Elika should he fall into the ever present chasms or struck down by his infrequent foes. It is effectively the same time-reversing mechanic found in the Sands of Time but without restraint. Rather, what I speak of instead is the distinct feeling that the game seems to be in more control of the Prince than you are, to the point that Prince of Persia may be better described as an ‘on-rails’ adventure.

As you might expect, the Prince leaps walls, runs, swings, vaults and even ceiling runs his way across the environment. ‘A’ jumps, ‘Y’ calls for an assist from Elika, and ‘B’ uses his gauntleted hand to perform, among other things, grabbing onto rings. This simplicity in design is welcome with the animations rendered beautifully. However, once the Prince gets going, you play a surprisingly passive role.

After pushing and typically jumping towards a path, the Prince maintains his momentum throughout while the player is required to simply push the appropriate button at the appropriate time. If a ring comes close, push ‘B’ to use the gauntlet to swing. If you reach the end of the wall, press ‘A’ to jump to the adjacent wall or poll. As a matter of the fact, you don’t even need to push the left stick in the direction you’re moving. Once you’ve made your first move, you can completely let go of the left stick altogether; just press the correct button at the right time, and voila, you’re performing ridiculously complex acrobatics with ease.

Even if you’ve incorrectly directed your jump into open space, the game will often suck the Prince back onto the wall you should have been aiming for. Moreover, all paths to your goal are so blatantly demarcated that only a drunken blind man would have difficulty figuring out where you’re supposed to be going. (Also, who the hell is leaving these scraped-up walls to begin with? Another death-defying acrobatic Prince with borderline inhuman abilities? Did I miss something?) Those of us with full sight just feel like we’re being saddled onto a horse with a mind of its own. Press ‘A’ to giddy-up.

Flow is a good thing, but too much of a good thing can get tiresome, and in this case there is far too much of an emphasis on not interrupting a player’s progress that it ironically defeats any great sense of satisfaction. The acrobatic feats are no doubt entertaining for the most part, but the kind of entertaining more akin to a very well done quick-time event, which is precisely what all this ends-up feeling like.

The same can be said of the combat which I routinely hated. The same simplistic button mechanic applies here, with the addition of ‘X’ employing the Prince’s sword. There are combos, there are context specific actions, and it’s all beautifully, cinematically animated. But in their effort to create cinematic combat, they destroyed any semblance of responsive control or visceral satisfaction. Add in bosses that, if not for Elika’s constant saving magic, are actually quite difficult, and you end up with something that is a frustrating (but pretty) distraction from the meat of the exploratory gameplay. Ninja Gaiden this is not.

Still, Prince of Persia is an enjoyable experience that structurally has all the makings of a great game. Puzzles are thrown in at just the right pacing and difficulty to break-up the action and offer welcome variety. Power plates dot the landscape which mark the way to new areas. Collecting light seeds activates new groups of power plates, and each group does something different and entertaining in their own right. By clearing the land of Corruption, you unveil the light seeds necessary for progression. Since these light seeds are strewn about routine paths and hard to reach places, they encourage some small measure of exploratory gameplay.