First Thought: Prince of Persia

After finishing Assassin’s Creed 2 I really wanted to continue some videogame adventures. I managed to pick up Prince of Persia on PlayStation 3 which I originally planned on getting last year on it’s release. Instead of spending € 65 I managed to get it for only € 19,99 . After playing it for some hours now I can say I do not regret buying the game.

Plot

This Prince of Persia (2008) videogame does not belong to the whole ‘Sands of Time Trilogy’ and is seen as a reboot of the series adopting a refreshingly different art style and altered gameplay. The story is set in a Persian themed world where there once was a balance between Light & Darkness. But Ahriman the god of Darkness wanted more and decided to tip the balance of power between him and his brother Ormazd the god of Light. Fortunately Ormazd and the Ahura people were able to imprison Ahriman inside a sacred tree where he stayed captured for at least 1000 years. But now Ahriman is free and it’s up to the prince and Elika to imprison him again! You can catch a glimpse of Prince of Persia by watching the launch trailer below…

First Thought

I really enjoyed the first hours of playing Prince of Persia. I love how Elika is your sidekick and you work together to complete the story. Sometimes playing a videogame that has a very open world setting it can feel a little lonely. I had this problem when playing ‘Tomb Raider: Underworld’ where the locations were vast, but Lara was pretty much all alone. During ‘Tomb Raider: Legend’ Lara had at least some contact with her team. It’s fun how you can randomly chat to Elika and sometimes some funny conversations evolve from that e.g. “The guess what?” game. The prince is a funny guy and it’s great to see how Elika and him really blend well together.

I also really like the gamplay. At first I was a little hesitant to embrace all the acrobatic moves. I’m used to playing old Snake (Metal Gear Solid 4) who rather moves by crawling over the ground with octo cammo on. Fortunately moving the prince around feels very natural and doesn’t lead to much frustration. Again I must mention the great teamwork of the prince and Elika. When you fall it is Elika who saves you and during battles you can work together as a tag team. I remember watching one of the developer diaries and someone mentioned how they were also inspired by Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.

I’m a BIG fan of The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and yes – Prince of Persia’s battle’s do remind me of those that can be found in the FF VII Advent Children movie. Not only some of the moves and the light effects but also the focus on Elika who helps out. Especially when Elika reaches your ‘hand’ … that’s so inspired by the team battle against Bahamut SIN. During this fight Bahamut flies up in the air ready to launch a final devastating attack. Cloud is aided by his friends to reach Bahamut. Each friend helps him a few meters up by grabbing his hand and throwing him even higher. In the end Cloud manages to reach Bahamut and finish it off.

One thing that might get a little repetitive in Prince of Persia is going to all the various healing grounds and healing them. But I’m sure there are enough challenges along the way. So I won’t totally bash that core aspect of the game before really completing it.

Also check out

Ubisoft is currently working on a new Prince of Persia title named ‘The Forgotten Sands’ which is said to relaunch the storyline originally started by ‘Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time’ (2003) and is planned for a release in 2010. Next to that the original game will be featured as a movie next year with Jake Gyllenhaal as Prince Dastan. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to watch the official trailer below.

Prince of Persia belongs to Ubisoft Entertainment