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Console Game Reviews Prince of Persia Review
Console Game Reviews Prince of Persia Review
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One of the main and new distinct feature (and also the most advertised) in this game is the new look. The graphics are based on cell shading, these are not like the Naruto games, but rather it looks more like pencil and oil painting drawings. Ubisoft took a risk with this and wanted to make this PoP series feel fresh and distinct. The new look gets the job done. The oil painting and pencil drawing cell shading looks more realistic than the other type cell shading commonly used. It looks spectacular when the movement is slow and when you stop to take a look. However when you start moving the beauty does not quite stick out. In addition the characters lacking emotion on their faces ads in to the boring story telling and lacklustre dialogue in the game. A new story, a new damsel in distress The universe in this game is completely different from the Sands of Time universe. The Prince this time around is not an actual prince, but rather a treasure hunter. He loses his donkey that is loaded with gold in the sand storm and comes across Elika. Elika is a Princess that is part of an organization that worships the God of Light and help keep the Dark God locked in prison under a tree. It is pretty generic light vs darkness with the bad guys actually looking like dark inky objects. Elika’s father chops down the tree and frees some of the magic holding the Dark God. This lets some of his powers loose that ends up plaguing the surrounding lands in the city. Elika then sets out in a journey with the Prince to purify the lands and strengthen the magic that holds the Dark God. Character development, information on bosses, areas in the city and Prince bonding with Elika are all done with pressing a button to converse. The dialogue seems poorly written and some of it feels overly extended and simply boring. There are corny jokes in between that I really enjoyed but I stopped conversing half way through the game because of the poor dialogue. It would have been better if players had the option of choosing what topic to talk about similar to what games like Fallout and Mass Effect have instead of listening to what insignificant thing Elika did as a young child on some random day. It does not help that there is no quick end dialogue. This poor way of story telling fails to get players immersed and care too much about the world. The Gameplay The controls in the game are not as responsive and feel clunky compared to the Sands of Time series. This gives the player the feeling that they are not really in total control and really downgrades the quality of the gameplay. But the controls are still better than the new Tomb Raider game. There are 24 areas that need to be cleansed. The areas are divided into 4 sections that represent the 4 bosses. Each area is played similarly where players have to platform their way through towards a circle which Elika has to get to in order to cleanse the area. Each circle is guarded by one of those bosses meaning players will be fighting each boss 6 times. There is a lack of enemy variety as indicated by fighting the bosses 6 times. In addition players will face of against Persian guards early in the game and the same goblet of ink several times in the game. All enemies including all bosses, except for one, feel about the same. Different strategies are not required. This with the added fact that players will be using the same extended combo over and over again makes combat feel repetitive. For combat, the player has the choice of arm grab: throwing an opponent up, air attack: jumping at the opponent, regular slash or using Elika. These 4 moves can be used together and if used properly can dish out a long combo. However players will only end up using 1 or 2 of the long combos. The good thing is that combos are easy to perform and combat has a nice fluid feel to it. One of the severe flaws of platform gaming has been that you can easily die by miscalculating one jump and would lead to have you restarting the whole path. Sands of Time solved this issue with the ability to rewind. This game solves it by Elika always pulling you back up into a platform. You can not die in this game, which is kind of a good thing taking into account platforming would be quite annoying otherwise. You can also not die in combat as Elika heals you when you come close to death. This is negated as the enemy heals as well when the you need healing. The level of difficulty is toned down. Pressing Y will make Elika send out a ball of light that shows you the path to take to reach your location. In addition there are marks on walls that tell you where to jump and grab. The paths you need to take to get to areas are linear. These two things added together do not give a sense of achievement when you get something accomplished and can be a bit too easy even for casual gamers. Besides the wall and pole running & jumping, the game introduces four powers. These powers are unlocked by collecting light seeds and are needed in order to access the cleansing points. Light seeds pop once an area is cleansed which means that players will need to back track. However the back tracking is fun as it also has you going off-path to collect light seeds and better explore the surrounding areas that are well made. Of the four powers, two of them are simply longer jumps. The other two powers: flying and extended wall crawling, can be seen as mini games. In both cases players have to avoid running or flying into obstacles. The flying parts are not as much as they feel a lot more like trial and error. Even the flying movement feels that to be of a cheaper quality game. The powers are a lot of fun when accessing the last areas of the 4 bosses where players are required to use two different powers simultaneously to reach a point. The ending It is worth pointing out that I really enjoyed the way the game ended and got excited for the next game in the series. I can not say any much more without spoling the story. Final Word: Despite the refreshing look of the cell shaded graphics and beautiful surrounding areas several elements of the game are average at best. The enemies all feel the same and players will end up using the same long combo most of the time. This makes the game feel a little repetitive. In addition to easy difficulty this game lacks any sense of achievement. This is a decent game, just not a great or memorable one. Hopefully Ubisoft will get its game on for the sequel. |
