Dec
28
Prince of Persia
Filed Under Games
Lets preface this by saying I really enjoyed this game, but I have a few issues I just need to put somewhere so I have decided to put this website to good use. I will try as much as possible to avoid any spoilers.
Now for my review / critique of the latest Prince of Persia game.
I unfortunately have not played the previous games in the series. I have heard nothing but good from them and look forward to the day I sit down to play them then promptly kick myself in the ass for not playing them sooner. This does give me a clean slate so I can judge this game unbiased. There are basically two parts to the game, moving about the terrain and fighting enemies.
Movement
The ease of character movement was one of my favorite parts of this game. Moving around and jumping up walls and between platforms felt satisfying. I made very few mistakes or accidental drops and those were usually caused by me not pressing the correct button to perform a move. Animations look great and as the game progressed I really felt I was getting much better at utilizing my acrobatic moves around the terrain.
Now when you do fall or get caught by a trap you simply start back from the last piece of terrain you were able to stand on. I am usually against games that don’t allow you to die but this one pulls it off well. Things become frustrating enough when you nearly reached the end of a long string of jumps only to miss the jump completely or accidentally run along a wall instead of jumping upwards along the wall. Starting an area all over would be unbearable mostly due to a lack well executed gameplay elements we will cover later.
Combat
All fights are one on one which feels a little weird. I prefer a more traditional brawler combat system where you can pummel multiple enemies at once. As with the movement part of the game you can not die during a fight. When you are pinned by enemies you are given the chance to avoid certain doom by pressing a button displayed on the screen. If you miss this button all that happens is some of the enemies hitpoints are restored and the fight continues on. You can execute a large number of combo moves on your enemies. Some combos stop when done and others can be chained into other types of combo moves. If you learn the moves you can easily perform a long chain of attacks. Even though you have these attacks the game can be easily played by simply mashing buttons. So there is no real need to learn more than a few combos unless you get tired of seeing the same old attacks being dished out.
The Seeds! - Warning! Lots of opinion below!-
Now for those poorly executed gameplay elements mentioned earlier. In order to progress through the game you must collect a certain number of items called light seeds. This must stop! What was a nice game about acrobatic platforming becomes a chore of sheer boredom as you hunt down items that are only used to unlock the next part of the game. This really confuses me since it would have just been fine to do a linear progression through the levels. Collecting items just feels like its only there to extend the game. The worst part is only about half the seeds are required to finish the game so the extra aren’t even necessary. I feel sorry for the guy who was in charge of placing those items since half his work has little to no consequence on the game at all. This is one thing I hope to not see repeated ever again in future games. Item collection that only blocks the ability to progress through the game is not fun! So much could have been done to complement the light seed retrieval. Here are some things that seeds could do for the player to help create the want to collect seeds instead of just the need.
List of things:
- Increase player’s health so it takes it longer to pin him down
- Increase player’s damage
- Keep combo moves locked until purchased with seeds
This not only makes the player want to collect seeds it gives him a much more satisfying feeling of accomplishment. The main character for the game also shows progress instead of being the exact same at the end of the game as they were in the beginning of the game.
Conclusion
As I said before I really enjoyed this game. I liked the characters and story and I loved the graphical style of the game. I can’t wait to see the next incarnation of the series that will hopefully improve on some of the less desirable elements in this game.