Guest reviewer Adam Rosenberg resides in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, where he slaves away daily as a contributing editor for UGO’s Gamesblog as his dog Loki looks on in bewilderment. In addition to the noble pursuit of video games, Adam enjoys spending time with fine film, finer food and his fine fiancée Bekah.
I’m not really sure the title “Prince of Persia” is relevant anymore. After all, in Ubisoft’s latest – a reboot of the trilogy started with Sands of Time – you play a wandering scoundrel: two parts Han Solo, two parts le Parkour founder David Belle and one part Indiana Jones. You could argue that the open-world, Middle Eastern-flavored surroundings might be situated in an ancient, fantasy-world version of Persia, but it just as easily might not be. But hey, that’s brand recognition for you.
Prince of Persia is a streamlined spectacle, lighter on challenge than previous series entries but also more visually appealing by several orders of magnitude, thanks to the face-lifted, cel-shaded art design. Meanwhile, the gameplay remains fundamentally unchanged; as the titular (not-)Prince, you’ll still be wall-running, column-groping and bar-swinging, all of it supplemented by increasingly frequent dalliances with magic.
But to be honest, there’s not much in the way of "game" in Prince of Persia. It is essentially a massive, player-guided Quick Time Event broken up by occasional displays of QTE-fueled swordplay.
Traversing the game’s environments is surprisingly fulfilling, the Prince’s fluid grace keeping your eyes glued to the screen. The platforming is successful because it hides its QTE-nature behind a series of environmental signifiers. Outside of combat, the game never explicitly tells you which button to press after the tutorial ends. If you come across a brass ring affixed to the wall or ceiling, press B when the Prince reaches it and he’ll automatically use it to maintain his momentum. At other times, the screen will start to grey out during a longer-than-usual jump; quickly press Y in these situations to call in Elika for an aided double jump.
Elika, the Prince’s constant AI companion, is Persia's two-birds-one-stone solution to the recent trilogy's tropes: a love interest and a way to cheat death. But where last generation's Princes demanded skillfull use of those games' time-warping to fix mistakes, Prince of Persia’s play is entirely risk-free: Elika simply won’t let the Prince die. Ever. Fall off a ledge or land in a pool of deadly Corruption and her glowing hand will appear to catch you and drag you back to the last bit of solid ground you stood on. “Die” in combat and she’ll resurrect you instantly with the only penalty being a slight health boost for you opponent.
The words “Game Over” never appear on the screen for Prince of Persia’s duration. It’s a ballsy move for Ubisoft, and I’m not so sure it pays off in this outing. The problem with Prince of Persia is that it leaves most of the work in the hands of AI, whether it's the Prince's pathfinding or Elika's helping hands. That’s why the platforming compares so easily with your average QTE; all the player ever has to worry about is running in the right direction and pressing the jump, grab or Elika buttons at the proper moments. The no-fail, low-risk arrangement fosters experimentation, but the paths in Prince of Persia’s are far too linear to make such experimentation feel worthwhile.
The disparity between the platforming and the combat is sizable. The combat is schizophrenic, vacillating in the space of a single encounter between absurdly easy and unforgivingly difficult without ever really striking the proper balance. Each fight is a one-on-one encounter in a closed, arena-like space. Combos are performed by alternating between sword, acrobatic, gauntlet and Elika attacks, each of which is mapped to its own face button. Enemies frequently break up combos by performing special attacks which trigger proper, on-screen-button-prompt QTEs. A single-button QTE also appears when the Prince is nearing death, as a sort of restorative last-minute save which puts you back in the fight without the enemy gaining any health back. Unfortunately, there's no solid rhythm to these battles. You're given an unforgivingly short window to pull off special attack QTEs, to the point that you need to recognize the attack animation and respond with a button press before the actual prompt appears. Conversely, the last-minute save QTEs are next-to-impossible to fail. As such, basically every combat encounter features the same pattern of attack combo, failed QTE, successful QTE, repeat.
The overarching narrative: a formerly imprisoned, recently freed malevolent god has corrupted the land. There are four main “zones,” each one broken up into six unique areas: an entry point, a boss tower, and four discrete spaces lying between the entry and end points. The goal in each of the twenty-four areas is to reach its Fertile Ground, which Elika can use to wipe away the surrounding Corruption. Persia's story is secondary, but unsuccessfully so. Exposition in Prince of Persia is a momentum-killer. Dialogues with Elika, the game's chief source of story, requires coming to a complete stop and triggering a string of non-interactive cutscenes. It's comforting that most of these expository moments are optional, but it's a less-than-ideal way to relate the story.
What’s amazing about Prince of Persia is that, in spite of all its shortfalls, it’s actually a blast to play. The combat never manages to hit its stride and the optional expository moments quickly become more of a chore than anything else, but the simple beauty of moving from A to B keeps the proceedings entertaining throughout. I’m not sure Prince of Persia’s challenge-free dynamic will appeal to every gamer, but it succeeds brilliantly as interactive spectacle and provides a great entry point for inexperienced gamers who’d like to tunnel into the Core.
Grade: B
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