Prince(cess?) of Persia

Ah, the Canadians. They’re at it again. And no, it isn’t syrup or hockey. The folks out of the Ubisoft studio in Montreal have given birth to the latest iteration of their Prince of Persia franchise. We’ve come a long way from the original Prince of Persia for the Apple II, which is now also available on both the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 as downloadable blasts from the past. Yes, we are leaps and bounds ahead of the old rotoscoped filmed animations of the 2D prince, and now we find ourselves with a cell-shaded, rather pretty looking 3D game that has promised to trump the previous two versions which left a little to be desired here and there.


The new game, simply titled Prince of Persia, serves as another reboot of the series, leaving behind the story of the Sands of Time. It plops us into the sandals of a rather stark contrast to the protagonist’s predecessor, who was very dark and almost menacing. Instead, we have a wise cracking, greedy, in-search-for-ass (of the donkey and princess variety alike) Prince who can’t be older than twenty-one. He hearkened forth memories of Disney’s Aladdin, actually. Now, at first this turned me off a bit. I slowly got used to his one liners however, and as the game progressed, they began growing on me and many were actually pretty funny. Anyhow, on with the game’s plot.

After losing his gold-bearing donkey Farrah in a terrible sand storm, the Prince finds himself in unknown territory. He runs into an attractive woman, Elika, running through the desert being chased down by her father, who is the King, and his guards. The exact reason why she is running from them doesn’t become entirely clear, but with the Prince’s help, she arrives at the Temple and Tree of Life, the prison of the God of Darkness Ahriman, who was put there by the God of Light Orzmand*. Her father has already arrived at the temple, and destroys the tree, releasing the god from his confines, spreading his smoker’s-lung gunk and goo across the region. It is now the Prince’s responsibility to take Elika to all the fertile grounds that have now been corrupted, allowing her to heal them and collecting up Light Seeds to regenerate all the power she expends doing so. Should you succeed, Ahriman will be re-imprisoned.


The game provides you with choices when it comes to where you want to start your adventure. The basic mechanic has you traveling to these fertile grounds, and unlocking powers that in turn unlock more fertile grounds to travel to and to heal. At each section of the map, there is a particularly devilish henchman to Ahriman doing his dirty work and resisting your efforts as best they can manage. The fighting system is pretty solid but before long you realize there is only one combo that really works particularly well on your enemy combatants. The combo doesn’t even involve the Prince using his sword but instead involves Elika using her magic to deal damage to your foes. It kind of makes one wonder if the Prince is really all that necessary. Princess of Persia, anyone?

The acrobatic moves are solid, making heavy use of the all purpose A button on the Xbox 360. They do attempt to break the monotony by requiring a different button for using rings attached to the walls, and another button to activate your unlocked powers when you approach the opportunity, so it does keep you on your toes. Should you miss a button press or jump in the wrong direction, however, your princess will use her powers to catch you and toss you back up to the last flat surface you were standing on. There is no real way to die in this game, because whether it’s falling off a cliff or coming under the sword of an enemy, she will just bring you back with little penalty.

In the first hours, it becomes apparent you will never face more than one foe at a time, which is somewhat disappointing. The multi-enemy combat situations found in the Sands of Time Trilogy were exciting and I wish they could have implemented it here. In fact, there are no real free-roaming enemies, virtually only the boss battles in different settings and varying difficulty levels, since you fight the same boss repeatedly in each section of the map.

I can see where the fertile ground healing can get old, because after my first three, realizing there was no less than forty more to do, I was growing weary. Perhaps the boss battles and unlocked powers of Orzmand show variety later in the game.


The graphic style has been revamped, making use of cell shading technology, but the imagery is so detailed that you sometimes forget all about the cell shading. The world is open and free to roam, though you can teleport back to places you’ve already healed to cut down on the long treks through the desert. You have the opportunity to stop and poke and prod into Elika’s personal life, and through this you discover little gems early in the game, like Orzmand has been missing ever since he imprisoned Ahriman, that they are brothers, and at the end you uncover exactly why Elika’s father purposefully released the dark lord. Wikipedia holds this massive spoiler, so look if you dare. Indeed, The story smells ripe of a twist ending from your very first conversations with Elika.

Overall, this game did have me attached, but not attached enough to want to travel to all the corrupted pieces of land and re-imprison the great God of Darkness. Unfortunately, I think it is a step in the wrong direction for the series, because I can honestly say I had much more fun playing Warrior Within, despite my copy of the game having a fatal bug that disallowed you from finishing the final level of the game.

I’d definitely recommend this one as rent, but nothing more, as there appears to be zero replay value once you’ve completed the game’s objectives, but that is typical of Prince of Persia titles. They tried their damnedest, but alas they fell a bit short of expectations.

Stay tuned for a review on the horror shooter, Dead Space, in the coming week!

*Ahriman is a shout out to the God of Destructiveness found in the traditional Zoroastrian religion, while Orzmand is a bastardization of the name “Ohrmuzd”, who is the creator and exact opposite of Ahriman. Apparently, Ahriman is also the creator of Jeh, a primal whore who afflicts woman-kind with their menstrual cycle. Hmm. The More You Know, I guess.